Well, the run of classics had to end some time; might as well be on a day when there were only six games played. That leaves us with Cardinals 5, Pirates 3, with St. Louis stalwart Bob Forsch facing future St. Louis ace John Tudor. Incidentally, this ties Tudor for the early-season lead in most Games of Days started (3, neck-and-neck with the immortal Bill Laskey).
Tudor got himself into trouble almost immediately, walking Tom Herr and allowing a single to Lonnie Smith with one out. George Hendrick flied to right, advancing Herr to third, and Smith stole second before David Green struck out to leave them both in scoring position. Forsch also found himself in an immediate jam, thanks to a Johnny Ray walk and a Bill Madlock single, and did not extract himself quite so nicely, as Jason Thompson doubled both runners home to give Pittsburgh the early lead.
Both starters were perfect in the second, and after Tudor worked around singles by Willie McGee and Herr, Forsch set the Pirates down in order again in the third. Green led off the fourth with a double, and moved to third on a one-out fly ball. Tudor then walked Ozzie Smith, which brought Forsch to the plate; Forsch proceeded to single in his team's first run of the game.
Having put his team on the board, Forsch continued to keep the Pirates off of it, working around a Lee Lacy single in the fourth and going 1-2-3 in the fifth. Tudor also threw a baserunner-free fifth, but was not so effective the inning after, which began with another Green double. Darrell Porter followed that with an infield hit, putting runners at the corners. Art Howe grounded to third; Green attempted to score and was thrown out after an absurdly extensive, presumably multi-baserunner rundown which is scored as 5-2-5-4-3-6-2; I am not at all sure how reliable that sequence is, but whatever happened, it ended with Green tagged out, Porter at third, and Howe at second. Ozzie Smith was intentionally walked, proving that one hit by the opposing pitcher was not enough to scare Tudor away from facing him again. And Forsch singled in two runs to give the Cardinals their first lead.
Tudor escaped the inning without further mortification, but Forsch assembled scoreless sixth and seventh innings despite allowing a hit in each one. Tudor also walked Lonnie Smith in the seventh; a steal and a grounder would move him to third before the inning ended.
Lee Tunnell relieved Tudor in the eighth and allowed a leadoff double to Ken Oberkfell; Ozzie bunted him to third, and with Forsch batting, he was caught stealing home (I'm kind of figuring this was a blown squeeze play). Johnny Ray led off the bottom of the inning by reaching second on a Smith error (Lonnie, not Ozzie, which makes a lot more sense); he also advanced to third on an out (a Madlock grounder), but instead of trying to steal home, he took the easy way and scored when Thompson greeted Bruce Sutter with a sac fly to tie the game at 3.
Tunnell remained on the mound for the top of the ninth, and swiftly recorded two outs. The third proved far more elusive, as Lonnie Smith walked and advanced on a wild pitch. Hendrick followed that with a go-ahead two-run homer, which proved decisive as Sutter threw a flawless ninth.
The Cardinals won this game by two runs - and Bob Forsch drove in three. This tied his at-the-time career high, but these three RBI were more important than they had been in his previous such effort, which came in a 12-2 win. Remarkably, three would not remain Forsch's career-best RBI total; he had four in a 1986 appearance that his team won by a single run.
Forsch's efforts here demonstrate the often-ignored value of pitcher hitting. It was something Forsch had on his side throughout his career - his .213/.235/.321 batting line doesn't look like much at a glance, but it's vastly better than the .165/.208/.204 marks his pitching counterparts posted in his rookie season of 1974, or the .140/.178/.178 they managed during Forsch's 1989 swan song. It's the sort of thing that can help a pitcher pick up a game or two he might otherwise have lost - and this game was one of them.
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