Random Box Scores: June 19, 1986

When I wrote my first random box score piece, I chose a date that was familiar to me, my 16th birthday. This time, for random box score No. 2, I was truly unmethodical. As in, I went to Baseball-Reference, clicked on “boxes,” then focused my eyes on the top corner of my computer screen where the Wi-Fi, battery power, day/time, search and notifications icons reside and just randomly clicked on a year, month and finally, after some finagling with my trackpad, a specific game.

Full disclosure: This is not a date for which I have a specific memory, or an important life event, but in a somewhat amusing twist, I do on the very next day. Alas, I have to write about the date upon which my cursor landed, and that date is Thursday, June 19, 1986. The game we will be look at is the contest between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium.

On that day, just two days before the summer solstice, the No. 1 song on the Billboard Top 100 was “On My Own” by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald, and the top movie was Back To School starring Rodney Dangerfield. On daytime television, Frisco and Felicia, a famous, and alliterate super-couple of the 1980s, were preparing for their highly anticipated wedding on the soap opera General Hospital. And in extremely sad news, Len Bias, the Boston Celtics’ first-round draft pick, who had been selected second overall in the NBA draft just two days earlier, died of a cardiac arrhythmia related to cocaine use.

In baseball news, future Hall of Famer Don Sutton recorded his 300th career win the night before as a member of the California Angels. It was a 5-1 victory over the Texas Rangers and was a complete game for Sutton, who was part of the pennant-winning Dodger clubs of the late 1970s, and who eventually earned 324 career wins. He retired in 1988 and was elected to the Hall in 1998.

That year, young Roger Clemens was well on his way to his first of seven Cy Young Awards. By June 19, he already had recorded 12 wins for the Boston Red Sox, including a performance in April against Seattle in which he struck out 20 Mariners. Clemens also would win the American League Most Valuable Player Award later that year.

On June 4, Braves pitcher Craig McMurtry became Barry Bonds’ first victim. McMurtry gave up Bonds’ first career home run in a 12-3 Pirates victory. Bonds, hitting leadoff, went 4-for-5 with four runs batted in.

And just to make a few of us feel old, Junichi Tazawa, Trevor Plouffe, Jonathan Lucroy and Phil Hughes were all born in June of 1986.

…

Back in the mid-80s, the Atlanta Braves were in the National League West Division; isn’t geography fun? And on June 19, 1986, both the Braves and Dodgers were four games back in the standings, in third place behind the West division-leading, and eventual division champion, Houston Astros. Tommy Lasorda was in his 11th season as the Dodgers’ manager, while Chuck Tanner was in his first season as Braves’ manager after being with the Pittsburgh Pirates for 10 years.

It was the rubber game of a three-game series and was played in front of 27,671 fans in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium on a very warm June afternoon.

Dodgers lineup

1. Mariano Duncan SS
2. Steve Sax 2B
3. Enos Cabell 1B
4. Mike Marshall RF
5. Franklin Stubbs LF
6. Alex Trevino C
7. Dave Anderson 3B
8. Reggie Williams CF
9. Orel Hershiser P

Braves lineup

1. Claudell Washington RF
2. Omar Moreno LF
3. Dale Murphy CF
4. Bob Horner 1B
5. Ken Oberkfell 3B
6. Rafael Ramirez SS
7. Ozzie Virgil C
8. Glenn Hubbard 2B
9. Zane Smith P

The umpires that day were Harry Wendelstedt (father of current umpire Hunter Wendelstedt) behind home, Terry Tata (retired after the 1999 season) at first, Jerry Crawford (retired after the 2010 season) at second and Tom Hallion (who made his major league umpiring debut just a year earlier) at third.

The Dodgers took a quick 1-0 lead in the top of the first thanks to the twosome of Mariano Duncan and Steve Sax. Duncan opened the game with a single to center then stole second while Sax was at the plate, and Sax drove him in with his own single to right. First baseman Enos Cabell followed up with a single, which advanced Sax to third. Braves’ starter Zane Smith then walked cleanup hitter Mike Marshall, which loaded the bases with no outs.

With the Dodgers threatening to blow the game open before Smith could even record an out, the Braves’ hurler got a much-needed double play. The ball was hit back to Smith, who threw home for the force, with Ozzie Virgil then firing to first to get Franklin Stubbs. Then, with the Dodgers still in a good position to score at least a couple more runs with men on second and third and two outs, Smith induced another ground ball, this time by Alex Trevino, for the third out.

Future All-Star and World Series champion Orel Hershiser had a much easier first inning, getting all three Braves batters – Claudell Washington, Omar Moreno, and Dale Murphy – to ground out. Washington would be with the Braves only another week or so. He, along with Paul Zuvella, would be traded to the New York Yankees for Ken Griffey Sr. and Andre Robertson on June 30. Moreno was in his last year as a major leaguer, and before joining Atlanta he was with Kansas City for the latter part of 1985 season. The Royals signed him after the Yankees had released him that August. Murphy, who had been with the Braves since 1976, made the All-Star team in 1986, just as he did in 1980, 1982-85 and in 1987. He’d stay with the Braves until he was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1990. Murphy retired from baseball in 1993.

The Dodgers opened the top of the second the same way they opened the top of the first, with a single. This time, it came off the bat of third baseman Dave Anderson, and according to the play-by-play data at Baseball-Reference, it was a weak ground ball to second. But, hey, it counts as a regular ol’ hit in the box score. Next, Smith walked Williams, and the Dodgers were threatening once again, with runners on first and second and no outs.

Luckily for Smith, he had reached the pitcher’s slot in the batting order, and Hershiser made the first out on a strikeout/foul bunt. Duncan stepped into the box and once again singled, which loaded the bases for Sax, who hit a ground ball that forced an out at second, but Anderson scored and Williams advanced to third. With two outs and runners on first and third, Cabell hit a fly ball to end the inning with the Dodgers up, 2-0.

Let’s go back to Hershiser’s strikeout/foul bunt for just a moment. Why bunt with two strikes when a foul ball counts as a strikeout? You can’t exactly expect a player who doesn’t step to the plate often to hit a ball in the air 300 or more feet for a sac fly. In Hershiser’s case on this particular day, the bunt attempt in the second didn’t work out. But don’t feel too bad for him, because he’d get another shot in the fourth inning. Over the course of his career, Hershiser batted, .201/.230/.242./.472 in 949 plate appearances, which is not great, but he was at least above the Mendoza line.

Bob Horner stepped in to face Hershiser in the bottom of the second and hit a home run to left-center field to put the Braves on the board. Horner, who was a free agent the following season, wasn’t signed by any major league team and ended up playing for the Yakult Swallows in Japan. He returned to the U.S. in 1988, signing with Cardinals, but injured his shoulder after 60 games. He was invited to spring training by the Baltimore Orioles in 1989, but declined and retired at 30.

Hershiser recovered to get the next two outs, then gave up back-to-back singles to Virgil and Hubbard before reaching the pitcher’s slot and getting Smith to ground out to the end the inning.

For his part, Smith had a much better top of the third, starting off with a strikeout, giving up a single, then getting two quick ground outs to end the inning with no damage, and the score remained 2-1, Dodgers.

The bottom of the third, i.e. the second time through the order, was a lot better for the Braves against Hershiser. After Claudell Washington grounded out to start the inning, Moreno, Murphy and Horner singled, with Moreno scoring on Horner’s to tie the game at two. Horner advanced to second on his single because of an error by Marshall. Hershiser intentionally walked Ken Oberkfell to set up a double play, but instead got Ramirez to fly out to shortstop. The Braves still had the bases loaded with two outs when Virgil hit a two-run single, scoring both Murphy and Horner, which gave the Braves a 4-2 lead. Virgil, who was an All-Star in 1985 and 1987, retired in 1990 at the age of 33. After Virgil’s RBI single, Hershiser limited the damage and induced a ground out from Hubbard, ending the inning.

Reggie Williams led off the fourth with a double. Once again, Hershiser went to his trusty bunt, and this time it worked because it actually caused an E-4, which allowed Williams to advance to third. Duncan hit a ground ball up the middle, resulting in a force out at second, but Williams scored from third to pull the Dodgers to within a run, 4-3. Sax singled, Duncan advanced to second, and when Cabell was at bat, the Dodgers pulled off a double steal, with Duncan and Sax moving up a base to set them up for another big inning.

Cabell then singled to right field, Duncan scored, Sax moved up to third and the Dodgers tied the game. Smith walked Marshall – unintentionally, according to the play by play – to set up a force out, which happened when Stubbs grounded out, but Sax scored on the play to put the Dodgers up, 5-4. While Alex Trevino was at the plate, Stubbs was caught in a rundown between first and second, but while he was distracting everyone on the left side of the field – Smith included – Cabell scored before Stubbs was tagged out, and the Dodgers went ahead, 6-4.

After the Dodgers’ big fourth inning, Hershiser sat down the Braves in order in the bottom of the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and ninth innings, pitching a complete game for his sixth win of the season. The 1986 season proved to be a bump in the road year for Hershiser. He had really established himself when he finished third in the 1985 Cy Young voting, and would finish fourth in 1987 before winning the award in 1988. But in ’86, he didn’t have it like that. He only netted a quality start in 54 percent of his outings, which was easily the lowest mark in his first seven seasons — his QS% was at least 71% in those other six seasons. Still, he did enough on this day.

His counterpart, Smith, made it into the sixth inning, but was lifted for a reliever when the Dodgers went up 7-4 on a double by Cabell. Smith’s relievers, Steve Shields and Ed Olwine, each gave up solo home runs. Shields surrendered his to Trevino to lead off the top of the seventh inning, which gave the Dodgers their eighth run, and Olwine gave up his dinger to Stubbs to lead off the top of the ninth, which resulted in the final tally of this 9-4 contest, in favor of the Dodgers.

The game took only two hours and 41 minutes, which was probably a good thing for the home team’s fans, who were sitting out in 87-degree weather and watching their team lose.

The stars of this game were Hershiser, who despite the fact that he gave up four runs, settled down and pitched a complete game, and Cabell, who went 3-for-5 with two RBI. Cabell played his last game as a major leaguer later that season, on Sept. 26. He went 2-2 with two walks in a 10-0 Dodgers win.

…

The Dodgers and Braves finished a distant fifth and sixth, respectively, in the National League West that year. The Dodgers were 23 games in back of Houston, while the Braves finished 25 games behind. Luckily, both franchises would see vast improvements in the coming years. The Dodgers made it to the World Series in 1988 and captured their fifth championship. And while they haven’t been back to the World Series since ’88, they’ve made the playoffs a number of times. At the same, the Braves became one of the best teams in baseball during the 1990s and early 2000s, not only reaching the playoffs every year from 1991 to 2005 (not counting the strike-shortened 1994 season), but also finishing at the top of their division in those years as well. Atlanta won its lone World Series title in 1995, but reached the Fall Classic in 1991, 1992, 1996 and 1999.

References & Resources

• Box Score at Baseball-Reference
• Retrosheet
• wunderground.com (for the weather on 6/19/86)
• ESPN.com