REDBIRDS ERUPT AND BURY PHILS IN SEVENTH RHEM ROCKED FOR THREE QUICK RUNS, THEN CHOKES QUAKERS COLD AS CARDINALS STAMPEDE TO 12-4 TRIUMPH

— For one inning Friday afternoon it looked as though Flint Rhem might finally have found a National League club capable of knocking him clear off the hill.

Then the big right-hander gathered himself, slammed the door on Philadelphia for the next eight innings, and watched the Cardinals eventually blow the whole affair apart with a seven-run seventh that left the Quakers scattered around Sportsman’s Park like busted furniture after a cyclone.

The final count read 12 to 4.

But for a while the whole business looked headed badly the other direction.

Philadelphia jumped Rhem from the opening bell.

Before many customers had properly folded their scorecards, the Phillies were already charging around the sacks and making the Cardinal ace look shaky for the first time in weeks. The Quakers hammered together three first-inning runs while Rhem struggled with location and watched Philadelphia bats spray hard blows around the lot.

The Cardinals suddenly found themselves staring uphill immediately.

It was the sort of beginning that has buried St. Louis more than once already this spring.

Philadelphia added another tally in the third and by then held a 4-to-1 edge while the Quaker dugout grew noisy and confident.

Then Rhem changed the whole afternoon.

After the third inning the Cardinal slabman turned mean.

The same Philadelphia hitters who jumped him early suddenly could not get comfortable in the batter’s box at all. Rhem began changing pace better, driving the fast one through the corners, then bending curves under Quaker bats once he gained favorable counts.

From that point onward the Phillies might as well have been swinging fence posts.

Philadelphia never scored another run.

Not one.

Rhem worked the full nine innings, steadied himself magnificently after the ugly beginning, and gradually strangled the whole Philadelphia attack inning by inning while the Cardinals clawed their way back into the fight.

That climb began quietly.

St. Louis scratched a run in the second.

Two more followed in the third.

Then another tally arrived in the sixth.

By the end of six innings the whole affair stood dead even at four-all, though the Cardinals still had not fully broken loose against Claude Willoughby and the Philadelphia relief corps.

Then came the seventh.

And Sportsman’s Park exploded.

The Cardinals stormed across the inning like raiders busting into a bank vault. The Redbirds sent runners flying around the sacks while the Phillies suddenly kicked the ball around, lost command of the strike zone, and watched the game spin completely out of control before they could stop the bleeding.

By the time the smoke cleared, seven Cardinal runs had crossed the platter.

The inning started with St. Louis finally forcing Philadelphia pitching back onto its heels instead of the reverse. The Cardinals crowded the bases, punched timely safeties, and took full advantage once the Quakers began wobbling under pressure.

One Redbird after another kept stepping forward with more trouble.

Singles.

Walks.

Wild throws.

Loose fielding.

Another bingle.

Another run.

Then another.

The Phillies spent most of the inning looking like men trying to stomp out a barn fire with teaspoons.

Philadelphia entered the frame tied.

It left buried beneath an 11-to-4 wreckage.

The Cardinals added one more tally in the eighth merely for decoration while the Quakers trudged through the final innings looking badly whipped.

Rhem by then completely owned the afternoon.

After the third inning he gave Philadelphia absolutely nothing resembling comfort. The big Cardinal right-hander worked rapidly, attacked hitters, and repeatedly forced weak contact while the Phillies grew quieter with every passing frame.

The victory became his seventh against only one defeat and further tightened his grip atop the Cardinal pitching staff.

No St. Louis hurler presently inspires more confidence.

The Cardinals meanwhile continued swinging hotter timber nearly every day this week.

Though the exact batting stars of the seventh inning arrived too fast and tangled for any single man to fully own the frame, the important fact remained plain enough: once the Cardinals smelled blood, the whole lineup joined the feast.

The club finished with a full wagonload of safeties and finally turned a tight ball game into a public flogging.

For Philadelphia, the defeat wasted what had originally looked like a beautifully arranged afternoon.

The Quakers jumped Rhem hard, carried a three-run lead immediately, and still held command entering the late innings.

Then the whole structure collapsed in one disastrous frame.

The loss dropped the Phillies further backward on their long western tour while the Cardinals suddenly find themselves inching once more toward the even .500 shelf after appearing nearly dead in the water only a week earlier during the Giant series.

Most importantly for St. Louis, the club again showed fight after early trouble instead of folding the tent once adversity arrived.

That may matter more than the final score itself.

Because pennant clubs are not measured by how they behave while ahead.

They are measured by how they answer after getting punched squarely in the mouth.

Friday afternoon the Cardinals took Philadelphia’s best wallop in the first inning.

Then they spent the next eight handing one back.

— Mike Allen, Bird Chatter Post