Phillies 4, Dodgers 3. The Phils sent reigning Cy Young winner John Denny to the mound; the Dodgers opposed him with eventual 1984 ERA champion Alejandro Pena. It's not a pitching matchup that rings through the ages or anything, but at the specific time that this game occurred, it looks pretty terrific.
Ken Landreaux hit a one-out single against Denny in the top of the first, but was then caught stealing. Greg Gross and Mike Schmidt both singled in the bottom of the inning before being left at first and second. Franklin Stubbs led off the second with a hit and was stranded, which meant that the Phillies were able to open the scoring in the bottom of the inning on singles by Ozzie Virgil, Ivan de Jesus, Juan Samuel, and Gross, taking a 2-0 lead in the process.
The Dodgers picked up a run in the top of the third when Bob Bailor walked, Pena reached on a Denny error, Steve Sax singled, and Landreaux hit a sac fly. Pedro Guerrero then hit into a double play to leave the tying run at second. After a pair of perfect half-innings, the Phils got that run back in the bottom of the fourth when Virgil doubled, de Jesus singled, and pinch hitter Glenn Wilson hit into an RBI force.
Wilson's appearance spelled the end of the day for Denny, who was surprisingly yanked after four pretty strong innings. Kevin Gross took the mound in the top of the fifth and allowed a leadoff double to RJ Reynolds, then walked pinch hitter Rick Monday with one out and yielded an RBI single to Sax. Landreaux hit into an inning-ending twin killing, and with Pena also having been lifted for a pinch hitter, Burt Hooton replaced him and worked around a Greg Gross single to manage a scoreless inning (partly thanks to Schmidt, who hit into a force and then was caught stealing while Joe Lefebvre struck out).
Kevin Gross managed a scoreless inning in the sixth; Hooton did so as well, albeit after some noteworthy difficulties. Len Matuszek started the inning with a walk, and Von Hayes singled him to third, then stole second. But with two runners in scoring position and nobody out, Virgil struck out, de Jesus grounded out, and pinch hitter Tim Corcoran grounded out as well to quash the rally. Bill Campbell began the seventh by inducing back-to-back grounders to first, but the Dodgers then sent up pinch hitter Lemmie Miller. Miller singled (in what proved to be the last of his two career hits), and he turned out to be a trendsetter, as Sax and Landreaux followed with singles of their own, bringing Miller around to tie the game by scoring the only run of his ephemeral big league tenure.
Carlos Diaz struck out Samuel to open the bottom of the seventh, but then walked both Gross and Schmidt. Tom Niedenfuer relieved him and got a foulout from pinch hitter Sixto Lezcano, then struck out Matuszek to end the inning. Campbell and Niedenfuer were both flawless in the eighth. Reynolds led off the ninth with a double and was bunted to third by Bailor; Al Holland then relieved Campbell and got flyouts from Jerry Morales and Sax, stranding the go-ahead run at third.
Pat Zachry assumed pitching duties in the bottom of the ninth and opened the inning by striking out Garry Maddox. Samuel then tripled, however. Zachry intentionally walked Gross and Schmidt to load the bases, then fanned Lezcano. Matuszek followed with a walkoff RBI single.
There were two notable features of this game. First was that a huge portion of it was spent with runners in scoring position - the teams had 26 such at bats between them, and 11 of the 18 half-innings played put at least one runner at second or third, a very healthy total for a close nine-inning game.
Second was the pitching staff inversion. Of the nine pitchers used in this game, the two starters were third (John Denny) and fifth (Alejandro Pena) in career starts made. Burt Hooton and Kevin Gross were the top two, and both of them served as middle-inning relief options; Pat Zachry was fourth, and was the last man used by the Dodgers.
This is, of course, a function of career arcs. Hooton and Zachry were coming to the end of productive careers, while Gross was just getting started. Denny, meanwhile, was still at his best (albeit not for much longer), while Pena was hitting a peak that would be cut off sharply by injury.
I'm not sure there's a deeper truth to be gleaned here, but if there is, I'm pretty sure it's that looking at a player's entire career is not the same as looking at a snapshot at a particular moment in that career. And while there's a lot of value to looking at careers as a whole, that doesn't mean that the excellent version of Pena who existed for the 1984 season should be lost to history just because he didn't last.
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