BELL'S BAT AND KEEN'S RIGHT ARM LEVEL PHILS CARDINALS COLLECT ONLY FOUR HITS BUT MAKE THEM STAND

KEEN SPINS FIVE-HIT ROUTE VICTORY, 4-1

— One afternoon after Hal Carlson tied the Cardinal bats into a hard knot, the Redbirds returned the favor Thursday and reminded Philadelphia that a ball club does not need a wagonload of safeties to win a National League argument.

All it needs is one stout slab performance, one loud swing of lumber, and a few timely breaks.

The Cardinals got all three.

Vic Keen pitched perhaps his steadiest ball game of the young campaign, Les Bell uncorked the biggest blow of the afternoon, and St. Louis evened the series with a 4-to-1 triumph before a weekday gathering at Sportsman's Park.

The box score afterward looked peculiar.

The Cardinals collected only four safeties.

Philadelphia managed five.

Yet the Redbirds controlled the afternoon almost from beginning to end.

The chief reason sat atop the mound.

Keen worked the entire route, allowed only five scattered blows, walked nobody, struck out four, and never permitted the Phillies to gather enough momentum to start a serious uprising. The veteran right-hander worked quickly, stayed ahead of hitters, and repeatedly forced Philadelphia to swing at his kind of pitching rather than their own.

The Quakers spent much of the afternoon beating the ball harmlessly into gloves.

Meanwhile Jack Knight discovered how expensive one mistake can become.

The Cardinals struck first in the second inning.

Heinie Mueller reached safely and immediately began causing trouble with his legs. The speedy outfielder later swiped a base and placed himself squarely in scoring position.

Then Bell stepped in.

The third baseman was already swinging hot timber during the Boston series and continued the racket against Philadelphia. Knight left one where Bell could reach it, and the St. Louis slugger drove the horsehide deep for a two-run circuit clout that immediately shoved the Cardinals into command.

Sportsman's Park came alive.

For a club that had spent most of Wednesday afternoon scratching for offense, the blast felt twice as large as the two runs it produced.

Keen made certain Bell's wallop continued carrying weight.

Philadelphia mounted only scattered threats through the middle innings. Whenever the Quakers appeared ready to build traffic, Keen calmly worked his way back out.

The Phillies finally broke through during the fourth.

Freddy Leach opened the disturbance with a double. Additional Philadelphia pressure followed, and the visitors eventually scratched their lone tally across the dish.

For a moment it appeared the game might settle into a tight pitching duel.

The Cardinals answered immediately.

In the bottom half of the same inning, St. Louis pushed another marker across and restored the two-run cushion. The response proved important because Philadelphia never again moved closer than that single run.

The game remained stubbornly tense through the middle innings.

Knight actually pitched better than the final result might suggest. The Philadelphia right-hander surrendered only four hits over seven innings. Unfortunately for the Quakers, Bell's homer accounted for half the Cardinal scoring, and several Philadelphia miscues helped St. Louis manufacture additional trouble.

The Phillies kicked away three chances afield.

Heinie Sand committed two of them.

Huber added another.

Against a club struggling to score against Keen, those extra opportunities proved costly.

The Cardinals added still another tally in the sixth.

Tommy Thevenow contributed an important run-producing play, continuing the steady work he has supplied from the lower end of the batting order. The young shortstop finished with an RBI despite collecting only one official hit.

Mueller continued to be a nuisance throughout the afternoon. Officially he gathered only one safety, but he scored twice and repeatedly forced Philadelphia to rush its business once he reached the paths.

The Phillies' best offensive threat came from Sand, who tripled, and Leach, whose double produced much of the visitor attack. But Philadelphia never solved Keen's changing pace.

That stood in sharp contrast to Carlson's effort one day earlier.

Carlson had spent Wednesday changing speeds and finishing hitters with fastballs when the count favored him. Keen answered with a performance every bit as polished, though accomplished differently. Rather than overpowering the Quakers, the Cardinal right-hander simply refused to give them free opportunities.

No walks.

No major inning.

No collapse.

Just nine innings of steady route work.

The Cardinals also tightened their defense considerably after the sloppy opener. Hornsby was charged with the lone St. Louis miscue, while the Redbirds turned a pair of timely double plays behind Keen. One of them, started by the pitcher himself and completed through Thevenow and Bottomley, helped kill a promising Philadelphia threat before it could gather steam.

For St. Louis, the victory carried importance beyond the final score.

The Cardinals had been embarrassed by Carlson in the opener. Hornsby's club badly needed an answer before the Phillies could seize control of the long series.

They got it.

Bell supplied the thunder.

Keen supplied the route work.

And despite collecting only four safeties all afternoon, the Cardinals found a way to make every one of them count.

The victory moved St. Louis to 16 victories against 18 defeats and guaranteed the Phillies would not leave the first two games of the series holding complete command.

The clubs return to battle today with the series square.

And after two games, one thing has become perfectly clear.

Neither side intends to give away much ground.

— Mike Allen, Bird Chatter Post