May 16, 1964 - With only one measly single, the Dodgers led the Pirates, 2-0, going into the sixth inning today, but a barrage of five base hits fixed the eighth-place Dodgers’ wagon as the visiting Pirates went on to post a 7-4 victory and snap L.A.’s three-game winning streak.
A paid Dodger Stadium crowd of 21,992 saw the world champs fail to take full advantage of nine walks and two wild pitches by lanky Bob Veale, who bested young Nick Willhite.
The Pirates couldn’t solve Willhite until Dick Schofield and Manny Mota led off the top of the sixth with singles.
Roberto Clemente, hitless in six trips in the series, doubled Schofield home, and big Willie Stargell’s line single put the Pirates ahead for keeps, 3-2.
The first of Gene Freese’s three sacrifice hits and Bill Mazeroski’s double plated Stargell with the fourth run of the inning.
“Nick’s got to learn the hard way,” Dodger pitching coach Joe Becker post-mortemed. “He’ll make mistakes — only trouble is they hurt us. That pitch to Stargell was a flat curve with nothing on it. He had Mazeroski 0-2 with first base open and came right down the pike. When you get two strikes on a hitter, you’ve got to throw a bad pitch.”
“It didn’t do a lot of good when I did take him out,” said manager Walter Alston. “We couldn’t hit again. Nine walks and we couldn’t take advantage of them.”
Alston was asked what he thought about the Pirates.
“I’ve got enough trouble of my own without thinking about someone else’s club,” he snapped. Then he allowed as how the Bucs have “a good pitching staff” which could be “real good” if Vernon Law is sound. “Veale looked pretty good to me,” Alston added. “Any time you walk nine men and get away with it, you’ve got pretty good stuff.”
Meanwhile, Pittsburgh manager Danny Murtaugh raved about Stargell. “He’s done a great job for us against every kind of pitching,” he said. “Like I said in the spring, he’s got the potential to his 25 or 30 home runs.”
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