[JimMorrison]

Chicago Cubs (20-25) vs New York Mets (20-27) - May 28-30, 1963

We have only seen the Cubs in two games so far this season in late April and lost both. The Cubs have really been the definition of a below average team this season and like us, have just not found any consistent form of winning. To be fair to them, they’ve been 7-3 in their last ten games and have taken two of three from the Braves, Cardinals and Colt 45’s. RF George Altman, 1B Lou Brock and 3B Ron Santo have all been excellent for the team this year, but their pitching staff looks about as bad as ours here. Should be a high scoring series here and I am hoping to show we can play against some of these weaker teams.

CHC 5 NYM 2

CHC 3 NYM 0

CHC 3 NYM 6

Other than the third game, Chicago just completely out pitched us here as Morehead was better than Larsen and Lary was better than Washburn. Frank Lary especially was ridiculous as he pitched a one hit complete game shutout, just an extremely frustrating game. Al Jackson pitched the final game and was pretty great in eight innings of work allowing two runs. He even contributed with a solo shot in the 7th, his first career home run. Jackson has stepped up in May going 3-2 with a 3.46 ERA and for me that’s fine enough. On to play Pittsburgh now for four games, anything worse than a split here is really going to be frustrating.

Pittsburgh Pirates (20-27) vs New York Mets (21-29) - May 31-June 2, 1963

We last saw the Pirates in the same week as the Cubs in late April and lost two of three to them in Pittsburgh. They have not been good in May (10-18) though and have really fallen down the NL standings to eighth, a half game ahead of us. Their pitching is around average but their offense has been pretty terrible, 9th in runs scored, 8th in OPS, 9th in WAR. Roberto Clemente currently sports a 83 OPS+ and while his .280 average is fine, it’s still nowhere near his highs of .351 in 1961. Rookie Willie Stargell hasn’t been great either and this offense does not really have a consistently good hitter that can generate runs. This is a huge series for us as a bad showing could get us ten games off .500 to start June.

PIT 5 NYM 6

PIT 8 NYM 1

Sunday doubleheader...

PIT 9 NYM 8 (10)

PIT 6 NYM 7

Thoughts: A walk-off two run homer from none other than Richie Ashburn gave us the win in the final game and kept us afloat for now in the standings. I am still not super happy as both the Cubs and Pirates are teams we should be taking some games off of and it’s frustrating to only go 3-4 this week.

Joe Morgan and Ernie Banks were great this week as Morgan had two homers and Banks had three. Joe Morgan’s plate discipline has been insane for a 19-year-old as he has 33 walks and only 20 strikeouts so far in the season. He is already proving to be a star right away for us and I am so excited to build around him moving forward! Some of our rotation was better this week as Willie Smith, Al Jackson and Washburn were all pretty good in each of their starts.

We play a quick two game set against the Milwaukee Braves, then host St. Louis for a four game series with another doubleheader Sunday. The Cardinals have continued to struggle and are now behind us in the standings again, but the Braves are only four and a half games back of Cincy and will be a tough team to face. Next week I will also go over the winners of the awards for the month of May as well and surprisingly a Met is going to be featured!