GIANTS GRAB PITCHERS’ WRANGLE FROM REDBIRDS

— Jimmy Ring and Bill Sherdel locked horns in a tight slab duel Wednesday afternoon at Sportsman’s Park and the Giant right-hander finally walked away with the longer end of a bitter 2-to-1 argument after the Cardinals came up one rally short in the late going.

The whole scrap moved fast, sharp, and mean.

No loafing.

No wild slugging bee.

Just two hurlers swapping fast-working route labor while every safety carried weight.

Ring lasted seven innings for the Giants and allowed only a lone tally before McGraw turned the closing chores over to his relief corps. Sherdel meanwhile went the full eight frames for the Cardinals, yielding eight safeties and both New York counters while pitching good enough ball to deserve a softer fate than another defeat hung around his neck.

The Giants jumped into the lead before many customers had fully settled into the grandstand planks.

New York scratched across a pair of early tallies against Sherdel and then spent the rest of the afternoon protecting them like bank robbers carrying payroll satchels through a crowded depot.

The Cardinals meanwhile kept threatening without ever landing the final wallop needed to crack the Polo Grounds gang loose from the hill.

Rogers Hornsby continued pounding the apple at a murderous clip and collected a pair of safeties in four swings to keep his batting mark floating above the .360 shelf. But the Cardinal player-manager repeatedly found himself stranded while Ring bore down during the dangerous spots.

Les Bell finally uncorked the lone heavy Cardinal smash in the fifth when the third-sacker climbed into one and sent the horsehide sailing for a circuit clout that cut the Giant lead down to a single marker and woke Sportsman’s Park from its afternoon grumbling.

Bell’s swat pushed his batting mark upward toward the .300 neighborhood and briefly gave the Cardinals fresh life.

But Ring stiffened afterward.

The Giant right-hander worked himself out of repeated traffic jams and kept the Redbirds from bunching enough bingles together to knot the affair.

Taylor Douthit meanwhile remained mired in a dreadful batting fog. The Cardinal center gardener continues swinging under the Mendoza depths and now sits buried at a miserable .097 mark after another lean afternoon at the platter.

The Giants nearly busted the game wider open during the middle innings when Frankie Frisch again began buzzing around the sacks and kicking dust into the Cardinal machinery. But Sherdel wriggled free repeatedly and kept the Redbirds within striking distance clear into the late frames.

Then came the eighth.

Jim Bottomley climbed into a Giant offering and drove a long smash that appeared ready to tie the whole business, but the rally finally sputtered before the Cardinals could shove the equalizer across the pan.

The Giants escaped the inning still clinging to their 2-to-1 edge.

New York finally nailed the lid down in the ninth after the Cardinals threatened one last time before Bob O’Farrell lined into a twin killing that chopped the legs out from under the final Redbird uprising and sent the customers shuffling toward the exits grumbling about another narrow escape slipping through local fingers.

The setback dropped the Cardinals back another peg in the National League scramble despite another stout afternoon of mound labor from Sherdel.

And for all the sharp pitching turned in by the Cardinal southpaw, two early Giant counters proved enough to carry the whole shooting match back toward New York’s side of the ledger.

— Mike Allen, Bird Chatter Post