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HERE COMES ST. JOHN’S…TEN STRAIGHT WINS
7x CHAMPIONS OF BASEBALL HAD BEEN PLAYING BETTER THAN RECORD INDICATED; NOW ON A TEAR

BOSTON, MASS. (July 15, 1880) - Shamrock played hosts to St. John’s for the final game of their series at the South End Grounds in Boston on Thursday, and a late run gave the visitors a series sweep:

This was a continuously close game that was decided in the final inning. With the score even (3-3) after the end of the eighth, St. John’s RF Nelson Townsend led off T9 with a Triple and immediately afterward PH John Kelly cracked a Double past the First Baseman to drive in Townsend and put St. John’s ahead 4-3. St. John’s had other opportunities to score, but they stranded men on 2nd & 3rd and scored just the lone run. That ended up being no issue, however, as P William Hoy sent the Shamrock Batsmen back to the dugout in 1-2-3 order during B9 to preserve the 4-3 lead and guarantee the victory.

In finishing up the sweep in Boston, St. John’s won their tenth consecutive game:

• July 4: StJ 12-0 KNI – 2B Cletus Cannon: 3/4 (HR) 3 R, 4 RBI, 1 BB, 7 TB, SB – DEF DP
• July 6: NEW 4-7 StJ – 2B Cletus Cannon: 2/4 (3B), 1 R, 2 RBI, 4 TB, SB – DEF DP
• July 7: NEW 3-11 StJ – CF Rudolph Decker: 4/4 (2B), 3 R, 0 RBI, 5 TB, 3 SB
• July 8: NEW 0-5 StJ – P William Hoy: SHO (11-14), 9.0 IP, 2 HA, 0 BB, 4 K
• July 9: EXC 3-10 StJ – 1B Konrad Jensen: 2/5, 1 R, 1 RBI, 2 SB
• July 10: EXC 13-14 StJ – LF Joseph Evans: 4/4 (all 1B), 4 R, 2 RBI, 2 BB, 3 SB – OF AST
• July 11: EXC 7-8 StJ – 3B Eamonn Higgins: 2/4 (2 2B), 1 R, 2 RBI, BB, 4 TB – GW HIT
• July 13: StJ 5-0 SHA – P William Hoy: SHO (12-14), 9.0 IP, 9 HA, 0 BB, 3 K
• July 14: StJ 8-5 SHA – 2B Cletus Cannon: 4/5 (3B), 2 R, 2 RBI, 6 TB, 3 SB
• July 15: StJ 4-3 SHA – LF Joseph Evans: 3/4 (3B), 1 R, 1 RBI, 5 TB, SB

On top of that, in winning their tenth consecutive game St. John’s ran their record to 36-27 and took over the lead in the Colonial Conference by one game over Pt. Jersey.

For the entire season, the St. John’s Run Differential has suggested they should have a better record than they showed in the standings. Before the streak, St. John’s was 26-27 with an RD indicating they should be 31-22. The issue: they were struggling in close games, with a record of 7-12 in one-run games while losing their only extra-inning contest. If they could fix that, a rampant run of results was going to come. It shouldn’t be to anyone’s surprise, then, that during St. John’s ten-game streak they’ve won three one-run games, including two home games that featured walkoff Hits in the bottom of the ninth inning: the last two games vs Excelsior.

What should be to everybody’s surprise, however, is that St. John’s has won ten consecutive games while their two most long-tenured and respected players, Konrad Jensen & Nelson Townsend, are batting .302 and .286 respectively. Jensen’s .302 would be a career low by 37 points if his current Average holds up, and for Townsend it would only be the second time batting under .300 in his twenty-year career, with the other being his .278 Average in 1876.

Nonetheless, St. John’s still has the league’s #1 offense, a Greenhorn P in William Hoy who just set a new record for Shutouts in a season, a #1 in Howard Burns who might cross the 30-Win barrier, and a team full of confidence that is peaking at the right time. That is terrible news for the rest of the A.P.B.L.