by Scott Fennessy
9/2/1905
Chicago, IL
The Cubs look to improve on yesterday’s terrible outing and have all the cards in their favor looking at the lineups before the first pitch. Orval Overall, a hard throwing right hander who is 8th in the league in strikeouts faces Cubs ace Ed Reulbach who is 20-5 for the year against the injury depleted visitors.
The Reds stun Reulbach with a first inning burst. Fritz Odwell, whose league leading 17th homer was the big blow yesterday was pitched to very carefully in his first at bat and he draws a one out walk. Red hot Jim Seymour is up and Odwell was off for first and Reulbach lost his concentration and drilled him in the ribs with the pitch and runners are on first and second. Jimmy Sebring hits a grounder that moved Seymour to second and Shad Barry comes to the plate.
The Reds then stun the Cubs with a double steal that scored the first run of the game and still the Reds have a runner on third. Barry then drops a soft single to center and Seymour scores and the Reds are looking good. However, as Seymour started for home he accidentally spiked third baseman Jim Casey. Casey is cut deeply by the spikes and is bleeding profusely. He was taken out of the game and Joe Tinker will come in and play short, and Hans Lobert will move over to his more natural position at third.
Light hitting Tommy Corcoran, subbing for the injured Joe Kelley and had a good day yesterday stuns the home crowd again, ripping a blast into left center for an RBI double. This hit pushes his batting average over .200 for the first time in 3 months, so manager Frank Chance is furious and comes to the mound to see what is going on with his struggling hurler. After a brief, but intense conversation the umpire comes out and chases Chance and Kling back to their positions and play resumes. Miller Huggins, also in due to Harry Steinfeldt’s injury then grounds out to end the inning.
The Cubs go quietly in the first, and the Reds get a late chance with a two out double by Al Bridwell, but come up empty as Reulbach looks a little sharper in the second. The Cubs however start the comeback in the bottom of the inning when Johnny Kling, who has been coming on a bit was moved into the 5 spot ahead of the somewhat struggling Casey and Johnny rips one into right center field. This one takes a bit of an odd bounce and this forces Sebring to chase it a bit, and Kling ends up with a leadoff triple. Tinker, who came in for Casey had been benched for his hitting issues and he hits a ground ball that scores Kling with the first run of the day for the Cubs, but Overall then gets the next two hitters and the score is 3-1 Reds.
Neither team does much for a while as Overall continues to throw well, and Reulbach really hits a groove and the Cubs finally get back into this in the 5th inning when Reulbach himself gets a one out single. Reulbach is not very fast, and Chance wants to avoid the double play, so even though Billy Maloney is finally showing signs of coming back to normal he is given the sign to sacrifice himself. He tries but pushes the first two pitches foul. Then with a 2-2 count he gets a fastball and rips a single to right and Reulbach moves to second. Chance still wants to avoid the double play, so Evers is given the same signal, and he successfully bunts the runners into scoring position. Frank Schulte continues his winning ways of late with a solid single to center, and both runners score to tie the game. Schulte now has a 3 game hit streak, and this is good news as Frank Chance can only carry the team by himself so long. The inning ends with the score tied at 3 apiece.
The score was still tied in the 7th inning when the Cubs finally claw their way on top when Reulbach, who only came into this game hitting .145 gets another hit. This time Maloney is allowed to swing away, and he gets another hit, putting runners on the corners, and he then steals his second base of the day and runners are on second and third with no outs. Evers then walks to load the bases, and Schulte then gets a sacrifice fly scoring Reulbach as the Cubs now lead 4-3. Overall calms down and retires the next two hitters, but the damage is done.
Neither team scores again, and Reulbach really looked good after the first inning scare. He did not allow any hits after the second inning, allowing the bats to help him out. The Cubs climb back to a ½ game behind the Giants. Casey will miss 5 games, and Tinker will have to be put back on the field and hope he can discover his bat.
