May 22--It's not even June, but the Giants' Madison Bumgarner and the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw faced off for the third time already on Thursday at AT Park.
The Giants won for the third time, as Bumgarner outpitched Kershaw and homered off the Dodgers' ace as well.
"He's the best pitcher in baseball," Bumgarner said. "To be able to do that is pretty special."
It's also pretty special to see two great pitchers going head-to-head so often.
Kershaw may be the best pitcher, but he's having a rough year, while Bumgarner may be the best postseason pitcher of our lifetime, and is picking up where he left off last October.
The Bumgarner-Kershaw duel made me think about all those Fergie Jenkins-Bob Gibson match-ups I watched growing up. They always seemed to end 1-0 or 2-1, with both throwing complete games.
Time plays tricks on the mind though, and going through their pitching logs, it became clear that the Jenkins-Gibson didn't pitch against each other quite as often as I had remembered.
Their first face-off as starters was on June 3, 1967, where the Cubs beat the Cardinals 7-5 before 46,670 at Busch Stadium with Gibson getting knocked out in the fifth and Jenkins getting the win, throwing 8 2/3 innings.
They met three times in 1968, including April 20 at Busch, when both pitched complete games and Jenkins won 5-1. Curt Flood spoiled Jenkins' shutout bid with a two-out home run in the ninth. The game lasted only 2 hours and 3 minutes, as both worked fast, as usual, and there was no dawdling in the box in those days.
Gibson outdueled Jenkins 1-0 on June 20th, and neither factored in the decision on Aug. 4th in a wild 6-5, 13-inning Cubs win. Jenkins lasted only four innings that day while Gibson lasted 11, giving up a go-ahead single to Don Kessinger in the 11th before the Cardinals tied it in the bottom of the inning. The Cubs won on an RBI single by Lee Elia in the 13th. (Yes, that Lee Elia, who had only three hits in 17 at-bats as a Cub but became legendary for his outburst as a manager). Even at 13 innings, the game lasted only three hours, 27 minutes.
There were two Jenkins-Gibson face-offs in 1969, the year the Cubs blew the division, with Jenkins winning both times-- 3-1 on June 29th and 3-1 again on July 4th.
Gibson won 2-1 in their only match-up in 1970, which occurred late in the season on Sept. 23rd. In the 1971 opener, Jenkins outdueled Gibson 2-1 with Billy Williams hitting a game-winning home run off Gibson in the 10th inning. They met once more in '72, with Gibson throwing a shutout in a 1-0 win.
When aces go head-to-head there's always a better atmosphere at the park, even though there are no longer games where both go all the way and the first one to blink loses.
The Cubs and Nationals have a good one lined up next Wednesday at Wrigley Field when Jon Lester and Max Scherzer are scheduled to meet. It may not be Jenkins vs. Gibson, but it'll do.
Stop action: Just when you thought it was safe to start believing the White Sox were back, they went backwards again with three straight losses to the Indians, pushing them seven games behind the division-leading Royals.
The Sox batted only .154 (20-for-130) and scored eight runs the four-game series against Cleveland, and are last in the American League in runs (140) and home runs (26).
Now they get a chance to pay back the Twins, whose four-game sweep at Target Field at the start of the month was the low point of the Sox's season. The Sox are retiring Paul Konerko's No. 14 on Saturday afternoon, when a sellout crowd is expected at the Cell.
Fish tales: The story of the boat owner in Pittsburgh who wants Pedro Alvarez's home run ball is one of those silly sidebars that make the game so interesting.
On Tuesday, Alvarez became the third player to hit a ball out of PNC Park and into the Allegheny River on the fly. The ball landed in Ryan Stachelek's boat, but Stachelek was eating dinner nearby, so someone simply went into the boat and retrieved the ball. Stachelek later told the media he wanted the ball back and felt it was rightfully his, though the local police said the passerby didn't do anything illegal and had the right to retrieve it and keep it.
Local station WTAE-Ch. 4 put a poll on its web site asking fans who should get the ball. As of Friday, 65 percent of the voters said the boat owner was the rightful owner.
A similar story occurred outside Wrigley Field in the mid-1980s when my buddy Merle was driving down Waveland Avenue during a game and a home run bounced off the street and into the back seat of his open convertible. He kept it.
True story, believe it or not.
