Orioles Top Tigers, 5-0, Remain Atop American League Standings

July 17, 1964 - Robin Roberts (center) allowed 11 hits over the distance while the Orioles were restricted to nine tonight at Memorial Stadium, but the Birds bunched theirs for a 5-0 triumph over the Tigers and thereby retained their half-game lead in the American League.

With a family night crowd of 22,629 cheering them on, the Birds provided flawless defensive support for the 37-year-old Roberts to gain the 265th of his 17-year major league career.

Limited to a first-inning single by Luis Aparicio over the first three frames, the Orioles put together a walk, two singles, and a run-scoring double-play bouncer for two tallies in the fourth.

A barrage of four straight hits after two were out in the fifth netted another pair of runs and chased Dave Wickersham, Detroit starter, who was looking for his 13th victory to tie Chicago’s Juan Pizarro as the league’s winningest pitcher.

Norm Siebern, Jackie Brandt, and Aparicio each gathered two hits to help Roberts to his third shutout of the season and 40th of his career, a total topped among active American Leaguers only by the 41 possessed by Yankee Whitey Ford.

Ten of the eleven Detroit hits were singles — Billy Bruton getting a double — and Roberts yielded no more than one hit in any one inning until the eighth and ninth frames.

It was this scattering of hits, the fact that he yielded only two walks, and the solid defense which enabled the veteran to tie August Weyhing for 20th place on the all-time list of winning pitchers. His 265 triumphs are only one short of the 266 owned by Bob Feller when that Cleveland great retired.

“Eleven hits may have been my all-time high for a shutout,” said a happy Roberts afterward. “But the outcome had a nice ring to it.”

For awhile, Roberts thought he might have set a record for a many-hit shutout.

He was a trifle disappointed when a spoilsport recalled that the Twins’ “Mudcat” Grant hung a 13-hit 6-0 special on Washington only last Wednesday.

A reporter asked if shutting out the enemy gave him a special kick.

“Yeah, it is kind of nice,” he replied. “You know, I’d like to have a nickel for every shutout I’ve blown in the ninth inning.” Then, after a whimsical pause, he added: “Of course, I’ve blown a lot of them in the first inning two.”

Across the clubhouse, 38-year-old Harvey Haddix grinned broadly and declared: “I enjoyed every minute of it.”

So did 22,629 Memorial Stadium shutout devotees.

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