Apr. 28, 1963 - With Carl Yastrzemski (pictured) slamming 6 hits, the Red Sox supported sharp pitching with timely hitting today at Fenway Park to shell their way into third place by beating the Chicago White Sox, 4-3 and 6-2. As the Sox swept the three-game series, they also scored the first run of the year off Hoyt Wilhelm and handed the knuckle-baller his first defeat. Yastrzemski had four doubles and two singles, and it was his double in the 12th off Wilhelm that won the first game for Dick Radatz. In the second game, Bill Monbouquette — backed by a 2-run homer by Dick Stuart and 3 more hits by Yastrzemski — held the White Sox to no walks and 5 hits, and beat them, 6-2. In the first game, with one down in the 12th inning and Radatz and Wilhelm in a 3-3 deadlock before a crowd of 18,412, the hit-starved Red Sox finally did something about it. Román Mejías, hitless in his last 16 trips and batting .109, took a lusty swing at a 3-2 pitch and beat out an unplayable roller to the left side of the infield. On the next pitch, Mejías, with a head-first slide, stole the first base the entire Red Sox team has stolen this season. Then Yastrzemski smashed a double off the left-field fence, scoring Mejías for a 4-3 victory. The Red Sox now trail only Kansas City and New York in the American League standings. After the game, White Sox manager Al Lopez was asked why he chose to have Wilhelm pitch to Yastrzemski, far and away Boston’s best hitter, with first base open. “If we put Yastrzemski on base and Wilhelm happens to walk the next hitter [he had walked two in the 11th], they can score on a passed ball and a lot of other ways,” Lopez said. “I wanted Wilhelm to throw him four good knucklers. He just got one of them up too high.”
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