July 18, 1963 - Juan Marichal, pressed into relief duty for the first time this season, succeeded in halting the San Francisco Giants’ skid tonight by nailing down a 6-5 victory over the last-place New York Mets at the Polo Grounds. Marichal held the Mets hitless over the last two innings to record his 15th victory for the struggling Giants, who have won only 3 of their last 11 games. They almost dropped this contest too, when Mets centerfielder Joe Hicks ripped a three-run homer off Bob Bolin to climax a four-run seventh-inning rally that put New York ahead, 5-4. But veteran Harvey Kuenn singled home the winning run for the Giants off loser Galen Cisco in the eighth. Willie Mays knocked in the first Giant run with a double, and San Francisco made it 4-0 when Ed Bailey hit a three-run homer in the sixth. Willie McCovey’s two doubles tonight extended his successive hitting streak to 23 games, a San Francisco record and the equal of the season’s longest streak, held by Cincinnati’s Vada Pinson. The attendance at the Polo Grounds on the cellar-dwelling Mets’ 45th home date — 24,463 — put the season total over the three-quarter million mark. With 24 dates left, the goal of a million is almost guaranteed.
