A marquee pitching matchup kicks off the Series in New York, and the aces held up their end of the expectations through three scoreless innings. Ford held the Dodgers hitless the first time through their order, while Koufax struck out Mantle with a man on third and two outs in the 1st. But the Yankees eventually struck first, in the 4th - Mantle doubled with one out, took third on a Roger Maris groundout, and scored on Joe Pepitone's line-drive base hit. Los Angeles could only manage on hit off of Ford through six innings and it began to appear as if that one run might hold up, but Willie Davis doubled to lead off the 7th and scored the tying run one out later when Frank Howard singled. Koufax was in the middle of retiring twelve Yanks in a row when a costly mistake helped Los Angeles take the lead in the 8th. With one away, Koufax skittered one towards Bobby Richardson at second, but the infielder let the ball carom off the heel of his glove for an error. One out later, Jim Gilliam singled and a Ford wild pitch put the runners on second and third with two outs. Willie Davis (three hits) made sure the error stung when he ripped a two-run single to left and Ford departed on the short end of the score by a pair of runs. A pair of singles gave LA another in the 9th, but Koufax was needing none of it - with the help of an ill-advised caught stealing from Richardson for the final out of the 8th, the lefty faced the minimum fifteen batters over the final five innings to put New York away. Los Angeles 4-7-1, New York 1-5-2. [scoresheet]
The Dodgers got Game Two off to a slightly noisier start when Howard and Dick Tracewski singled in the 2nd to produce a run, but the offenses were still struggling to provide any counterpoint to the two pitching staffs. The score was still 1-0 in favor of the visitors into the 7th inning when Los Angeles forced the dorr open slightly wider; Bob Skowron singled with one out and took second with two gone when Downing stuck a fastball into the ribs of Dodger catcher John Roseboro. Ken McMullen came off the bench to pinch hit for Podres, who had pitched scoreless ball but had narrowly escaped a bases-loaded jam in the 6th, and the twenty-year-old came through with a ground ball single that scored Skowron and doubled the LA lead. The Yankees got two on with one away in the 8th, but Mantle flied out to the base of the wall in straightaway center, and Tommy Davis made a diving grab of Maris' sinking liner for the final out of the inning. Elston Howard led off the 9th with a double, and Hector Lopez absorbed a hit-by-pitch with two outs to put the tying runs on the basepaths, but Ron Perranoski got Tony Kubek to sky the ball to right field where Frank Howard put it away to end the game. The 104-win Yankees head West with no wins and a single run scored in two games, and Drysdale and Koufax to come . . . Los Angeles 2-7-0, New York 0-7-1. [scoresheet]
New York knew they had to put some pressure on the Dodgers early to get back into the Series, but perhaps this only put additional pressure on their own shoulders - Jim Bouton walked a pair in the 1st and RBI singles by Willie Davis and Skowron gave LA a 2-0 lead and the pitcher's two-out fielding error in the 2nd opened the floodgates for three straight hits, ending in a Tommy Davis double that scored two runs to make the score 5-0. Clete Boyer joined the party with a two-base throwing error to start the 3rd, Howard did the same in the 6th, and the Dodgers cashed in both times on RBI hits from Roseboro. Staked to a 7-0 cushion, Drysdale scythed through the first five innings allowing only one Yankee hit and was not challenged until the 8th. A pair of singles set the table for Kubek's two-out, three-run home run, and reliever Bob Miller was greeted by two singles, but that was all that New York could muster and Lopez bounced into a double play for the final two outs of the game. Los Angeles 7-7-0, New York 3-9-3. [scoresheet]
Down three games to none, and facing "The Left Arm of God", the Yankees were again their own worst enemy. The normally sure-handed Richardson made his third error of the Series on Maury Wills' grounder to begin the bottom of the 1st, and a walk and two groundouts manufactured the first run of the game for Los Angeles. New York found a way through Koufax's armor in the 2nd, with a little help, when Howard reached on an interference call against Roseboro to begin the inning and scored on a Pepitone double to tie the score. But the Dodger backstop did not delay his atonement, driving the first Dodger homer of the Series into the crowd in the home half of the inning to put LA back on top by a run. Now the onus was back on the Yankee hitters to find a way to crack the Koufax code - they got a pair of singles with two out in 5th before Tresh whiffed, and again in the 6th before Boyer hit a comebacker, but could not break through. With two outs in the 9th. pinch-hitter Phil Linz got aboard when Tracewski couldn't corral his one-hopper, but Koufax tied up Kubek with a high fastball and the resulting pop fly went directly to the Dodger second baseman and the Series was over before the mighty Yankees had barely uttered a peep. Los Angeles 2-3-2, New York 1-8-2. [scoresheet]
Twenty total runs in four games - half of them in Game Three - as great pitching dominated good hitting. With such low scoring, every mistake was magnified, and the Yankees were the ones who flinched. The pre-Series scouting report would have told you that New York held a decided edge defensively - they were first in the American League in Defensive Efficiency Record, while Los Angeles was only 8th of the 10 National League clubs - but the Yankees just didn't make the plays. Their eight errors led to eight unearned Dodger runs (of a total of fifteen!), enough to perhaps swing the balance in at least the final two games. The other obvious flaw in these 1960s Yankee teams is that they just don't get on base like the great teams of the '50s - they had the lowest walk rate in the entire AL, and the top of their lineup featured two players (Kubek, Richardson) with sub-.300 on-base percentages. This resulted in just two bases on balls in the entire Series and, in an era where hits are scarce, this give the offense a real mountain to climb. [Series stats]
Dodger LHP Sandy Koufax lived up to the billing, which was no small feat - after a dominant regular season (25-5, 1.88) he showed the American League what they had (thankfully) been missing all summer. Two starts, two wins, two complete games, zero earned runs and 12 strikeouts (against 13 hits) in 18 innings. Simply devastating.
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