Cards Top Dodgers in L.A.

May 24, 1965 - The Jekyll-Hyde of the Cardinals is Julian Javier. He is batting .400 against lefthanded pitchers, .133 against righthanders.

Fortunately for St. Louis, the Los Angeles Dodgers tonight kept their lefthanded starter, Claude Osteen, in the game long enough for Javier to do enough damage.

Javier, who leads off against southpaws in manager Red Schoendienst’s scheme of things, drove in two runs and scored three on Osteen as the third-place Cards stretched their win streak to seven games by beating Los Angeles, 6-4, at Dodger Stadium.

“I’ve been swinging at too many pitches against the righthanders,” said Javier. “I’ve been getting too anxious against righthanders. I didn’t do that so much last year.”A manager might have been tempted to use a catcher who had homered in each of the last four games he started, especially when it’s a fellow like Tim McCarver. Tim, though a lefthanded hitter, can handle southpaw pitching well.

After Bob Uecker delivered two hits, Schoendienst restated his intention of not wearing out McCarver. “Besides,” he said, “Uecker’s hit the ball good most of the time.”

The chance to play often in spring training apparently is paying off for Uecker. He got his chance when McCarver suffered a broken finger.

“I guess that in four years of spring training with the Braves, I was lucky if I played a total of 15 games,” said Uecker, who backed up Del Crandall and Joe Torre with Milwaukee.

“I’m happy to play against the lefthanders, even though it’s tough enough to face guys like Koufax, Bob Veale, Chris Short, Al Jackson, Bo Belinsky, and Johnny Podres when you’re playing every day,” Uecker added.

Tracy Stallard, who needed help from Barney Schultz in the ninth after walking the leadoff man, said his stuff was the worst it has been all season.

“And I would have said the same thing if I had lost,” Tracy said. “I struggled all night — 148 pitches.”

At that, Stallard would have had things fairly easy but for a surprisingly poor performance in the field by Bill White. Just a day after receiving a Gold Glove Award as the best fielding first baseman in 1964, White fumbled two grounders and made a wild throw. His two errors gave L.A. two runs.

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