O’Farrell’s Late ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ O’Farrell’s Late Blow Sends Cardinals Out of Cincinnati Victorious

CINCINNATI — The Cardinals climbed aboard the northbound train for Chicago tonight carrying a badly needed victory after defeating the Cincinnati Reds, 5 to 3, in a makeup contest forced onto what had been marked as an open day on the club’s western schedule.

Rain earlier in the week left Redland Field heavy and uncertain underfoot, and both clubs spent the afternoon working over soft ground and muddy base paths before a small getaway crowd of 1,247. Still, the Cardinals at last gave clean support behind their pitching and completed the game without an error after defensive lapses had damaged the club throughout much of the Cincinnati stay.

Vic Keen drew the assignment for St. Louis against veteran left-hander Eppa Rixey of the Reds.

Cincinnati jumped upon Keen at once.

Edd Roush opened the first inning with a hit and the Reds quickly pushed across two runs before the Cardinal right-hander found steadier command. Wally Pipp drove in one of the tallies as Cincinnati seized an early advantage against the St. Louis flinger.

The Cardinals answered with a run in the second, but the Reds added again in the third and held a 3 to 1 lead while Rixey worked with strong control through the middle innings.

St. Louis finally broke through in the sixth.

Jim Bottomley and Chick Hafey helped start the rally as the Cardinals gathered two runs to pull even at 3 to 3, ending Rixey’s afternoon and forcing Cincinnati to turn the game over to Jakie May.

From there Keen settled into his strongest work of the day.

Though Cincinnati collected twelve hits against him, the Cardinal right-hander held the Reds scoreless after the third inning and stayed on the mound the full route. He worked out of repeated trouble as the Reds threatened several times but could not force across another tally.

The winning stroke came in the ninth.

With one aboard, Bob O’Farrell crashed a long drive for his first home run of the season off May, sending the Cardinals in front at last after trailing nearly the entire afternoon. The blow silenced the Reds crowd and gave St. Louis the split it badly needed before quitting Cincinnati for the Chicago series.

Bottomley finished with a double and triple for the Cardinals, while Les Bell added two hits. Hornsby also collected a triple during the afternoon attack.

The victory lifted the Cardinals to 8 victories against 6 defeats on the young campaign after a difficult stretch against Pittsburgh and Cincinnati clubs expected to remain dangerous company in the National League fight.

Tonight the Cardinals leave the Ohio River mud behind them and roll north toward Chicago, where another hard series waits at the end of the line.

Mike Allen - Bird Chatter Post