Wild Bill Makes His First Start, Brooklyn Gets Him 3-1 In Tight Game.

ST. LOUIS, May 10 — The Cardinals dropped another hard one to Brooklyn yesterday, 3 to 1, but the talk leaving Sportsman’s Park was not only the score. It was the left arm of young Bill Hallahan, finally handed his first start of the season and showing enough smoke to keep the grandstand buzzing even in defeat.

The Robins took the ballgame.

Hallahan took the attention.

More than 8,000 came through the gates for the Sunday affair, many wanting their first long look at the tall southpaw the Cardinals have been nursing along, and for eight innings he gave them a real show of it.

The line tells plenty.

Eight innings pitched.

Six hits allowed.

Three runs.

Three walks.

Six strikeouts.

Against a Brooklyn club that has spent the week playing sharp, veteran baseball, that is stout work from a young left-hander making his first full turn of the year.

And still it went for nothing.

That has been the whole Cardinal story this past week.

The pitching keeps the club breathing, and the bats leave it starving.

Brooklyn scratched out its work carefully and professionally, the way Wilbert Robinson clubs always do. No wild inning. No explosion. Just pressure built a little at a time until three runs sat on the board and stayed there.

The Cardinals never answered with a full inning of their own.

St. Louis managed only five hits all afternoon. One of them was worth shouting about — Jim Bottomley drove his fifth home run of the season into the seats in the seventh and for a few minutes woke the park from its funeral mood.

But there was no rally behind it.

No second punch.

No crooked number.

That has become the sickness hanging over this club. The Cardinals are getting men on base often enough to tease a crowd, but not often enough to break a game open. Yesterday they left another handful of chances sitting cold on the paths while Brooklyn cashed in the few openings it got.

Bob McGraw handled the Cardinals cleanly from there. Nine innings. Five hits. One run. Two walks. Five strikeouts. He never lost the game’s shape and never let St. Louis string together the kind of inning that turns noise into damage.

The Robins got their first mark early and kept leaning from there. A run scratched here, another pushed there, and before long Hallahan was working uphill despite throwing good enough ball to win most afternoons.

That is the cruel arithmetic young pitchers learn quickest.

Hallahan’s fast ball had life all day. More than once Brooklyn hitters were late getting through, and his breaking stuff showed sharper bite as the game settled. The six strikeouts were earned honestly, not gifted swings from weak bats. Robinson’s club can handle pitching, and the youngster still tied them up often enough to show exactly why the Cardinals keep talking about him.

The rough edges showed too.

Three walks in a tight game is expensive trade, and there were stretches where Hallahan worked himself deep in the count trying to overpower men instead of finishing them quicker. That is youth talking. But there is no mistaking the arm.

You can see why the club keeps looking toward him whenever the future comes up.

And that future may be arriving faster than expected.

The Cardinals have now dropped five of seven on the home stand and stand 10 and 15 overall after opening the year 5 and 1. The old guard has not carried the club cleanly through the slide, and more eyes are turning toward the younger blood — Hallahan, Taylor Douthit, Wattie Holm, and the steady daily work now being given to Tommy Thevenow at shortstop.

Thevenow had two of the club’s five hits yesterday and again looked steadier in the field than the club has looked at that position in stretches this spring.

Meanwhile, Jesse Haines continues to work in relief while building his arm strength back up. Haines handled the ninth inning cleanly yesterday — no runs, no hits, one strikeout — and looked sharper than he did earlier in the week. The Cardinals still need him stretched back into heavier work, and every clean inning matters.

The club’s frustration is beginning to show in its preparation.

Before yesterday’s game the Cardinals again went through extended infield drills, extra fungoes cracking around the diamond long after most clubs would have cleared the grass. More laps around the warning track. More fielding work. More throwing.

This club is trying to sweat the bad baseball out of its system.

The crowd sees that effort and has not entirely turned sour yet, but losing three straight to Brooklyn on home ground has tightened the mood around the park. The cheers now arrive with a question attached to them.

Can this club actually finish a ballgame?

Yesterday, once again, the answer was no.

But for the first time in several days, the Cardinals at least walked off the field with something besides defeat to point toward.

They walked off with a young left arm that looks very much like it belongs.

— Mike Allen, Bird Chatter Post