June 13, 1984 - Sluggers Gonna Slug

Game #781 - Cleveland Indians, 1 @ Oakland A's, 11

Cleveland scored the first run of the game, a sacrifice fly from George Vukovich that plated Brett Butler...and then allowed eleven to Oakland.

Ouch.

Dave Kingman hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the first.  Bill Almon hit a solo bomb in the second.  Oakland scored three more in the third before Dwayne Murphy launched a grand slam in the fourth.

It was ugly for Cleveland.

Winning Pitcher - Steve McCatty
Losing Pitcher - Neal Heaton
Player of the Game - Dave Kingman, 2-3, HR, 3RBI, BB, 3R's
Hall of Famers in the Game - Rickey Henderson

Game #782 - St. Louis Cardinals, 1 @ Philadelphia Phillies, 2

Bob Forsch was a good major league pitcher over his career but was awful in the real 1984 season.  He should be in Statis Pro, too, but for some reason he's been incredibly lucky so far.

That continued, to a degree, in this one too.

Juan Samuel was standing on third base with one out when John Denny grounded to Ozzie Smith.  Samuel broke to home and beat Smith's throw for the first score of the game.  Forsch got in and out of jams the rest of the way until the bottom of the seventh.  After allowing to straight hits in the seventh he got lifted in favor of Jeff Lahti.  Lahti was in a pickle, inheriting runners on first and third.  But he recorded back to back strikeouts against Gary Maddox and Greg Gross.  That brought up Mike Schmidt, and Schmidt roped a double to score Tim Corcoran and give the Phillies a 2-0 lead.

In the top of the eighth Tito Landrum walked and later scored on an Ivan DeJesus fielding error.  But Al Holland got two innings of relief in to save the game for John Denny.

Winning Pitcher - John Denny
Losing Pitcher - Bob Forsch
Save - Al Holland
Player of the Game - Mike Schmidt, 1-3, 2B, RBI, BB
Hall of Famers in the Game - Ozzie Smith, Mike Schmidt

Happy Trails...Mark Salas

1984 marked the brief rookie debut of Mark Salas, mostly known for his days as a backup catcher over eight years in the big leagues.  Salas was on the active roster for the Statis Pro Cardinals due to Darrell Porter's injury.  Let's see how he did:

The Real 1984:  .100AVG, .100OBP, .150SLG, .250OPS, 2B, 1 RBI, 1 R
Statis Pro 1984:  .273AVG, .280 OBP., .364 SLG, .644OPS, 2 2B, 1 RBI, 0 R

Salas only played in 14 games in the real 1984 and didn't make much of an impact, while his Statis Pro self got quite a bit luckier with the bat.  His wRAA in Statis Pro was still negative (-0.8), so he wasn't that much better.  It would have been fun to see Salas in a 1985 season replay, as he hit .300 and was the primary starter for the Minnesota Twins.