After 38 Scoreless Innings, Futility Ends With Win over Cubs
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Baseball library records that the Phillies went through one of the longest futility strings in Major League history in late July, 1960, going 38 consecutive scoreless innings spread over 5 games before nudging over a run in the 6th inning of a game against the Chicago Cubs on July 26.
The string started innocently enough. The Phillies salvaged the final game of a 3 game series with the San Francisco Giants on July 21st winning the game 3-0 on a one-hit shutout by ace and future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts who faced 31 year old Jack Sanford whom the Phils had traded before the 1959 season, in one of the most abysmal trades ever in MLB history.
The snake-bitten Phillies offense tacked 3 runs on the board in the 3rd inning as Sanford didn’t make it through the inning. Roberts coasted the rest of the way, striking out 8 and only walking one and giving up a single hit to 25 year old leftfielder Felipe Alou.
But the futility of the Phils’ offense started here as the Giants’ veterans Stu Miller, Johnny Antonelli and Bud Byerly held the Phils scoreless over the final 6 innings.
The Phils travelled to Los Angeles where they had to face Don Drysdale, who shut them out 2-0 on 4 hits striking out 14, followed by Roger Craig, who shut them down on 3 hits by the same 2-0 score, followed by Stan Williams who held them scoreless in spite of 10 hits as the Dodgers jumped all over John Buzhardt and Jim Owens for 9 runs in winning 9-0. Side-armer Humberto Robinson held the Dodgers scoreless over the 8th and 9th innings, but the hapless Phillies had gone scoreless over 33 innings and had not even faced Sandy Koufax who had yet not achieved the pitching prominence that he would later achieve in the 1961-1966 seasons.
But on July 26, the Phillies broke up a scoreless pitching duel between Robin Roberts and Chicago Cubs veteran Glen Hobbie by pushing over a run in the 6th inning to take a 1-0 lead and to break the scoreless string. The Cubs scored single runs in the 7th and 8th innings before the Phils struck for 3 runs in the 9th inning, 2 of them on a 2 run homer by catcher Clay Dalrymple who had a career game going 3 for 3 with 3 RBIs. The Cubs scored another run in the bottom of the 9th as the Phils won by 4-3.
The Phils completed a 3 game sweep of the Cubs with 7-5 and 3-2 wins as they had a rare up period in a season where they finished dead last in the NL for the 3rd straight season in 1960 with a mark of 59-95.
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