May 28, 1958: Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax tosses 6-hitter to beat Pirates

“[He] was tough in the clutch and deserved a shutout,” opined Los Angeles sportswriter Frank Finch about 22-year-old Sandy Koufax’s six-hitter on May 28, 1958, which extended his streak to a then career-best 19 innings without an earned run.1 “[He] could work when the chips were riding,” observed Pittsburgh Pirates beat reporter Jack Hernon about the young southpaw’s ability to escape from two tight jams.2

In their first season in Los Angeles after departing from Brooklyn, skipper Walter Alston’s Dodgers were scuffling. “Everybody keeps saying this Dodger club isn’t as bad as it looks,” quipped sportswriter Charlie Park about the last-place team with the majors’ worst record at 14-24. “I dunno.”3

“I’ve seen the Dodgers in slumps before,” declared graybeard Pee Wee Reese, who had debuted for the Dodgers in 1940, “but never one that lasted as long as this one.”4 The longtime heart and soul of the Dodgers suggested that the loss of catcher Roy Campanella, who suffered a career-ending injury in an automobile accident in the 1957-58 offseason, had taken an emotional toll on the team. “It’s impossible to estimate [that] man’s value,” declared Reese.5

In Pittsburgh for the 13th game of a 17-game road swing and finale of a two-game series against the Pirates, Alston decided to change tactics to motivate his squad. “[I’ll] try to encourage the boys a little,” he said about a pregame meeting with his players. “I’ve told them off so many times after losing that this time I said things are bound to break our way.”6

Duke Snider, the Dodgers’ slugging hero, tried a different approach, visiting Campanella with teammate Carl Erskine in a New York hospital before arriving in Pittsburgh. “We’ve just had an emotional uplift,” said Snider.7

Koufax was scheduled to start the May 27 opener against the Pirates, but Alston switched him with Don Drysdale, who seemed particularly to miss Campanella’s calming effect behind the plate.8 The struggling 21-year-old, coming off 17 wins in ’57, was knocked out in the fifth, yielding four earned runs to spike his major-league worst ERA to 6.60, and dropped to 2-8 in a 5-3 loss.

Unlike Drysdale, who had emerged as the staff ace in his first full season in 1957, Koufax had been little used in his first three seasons since debuting as a 19-year-old bonus baby in 1955. The highly-touted, hard-throwing-yet-erratic southpaw entered the ’58 campaign with a 9-10 career record and 204 2/3 innings pitched.

Koufax once again rode the pine in early 1958 as Alston went with 25-year-old left-handers Johnny Podres and Danny McDevitt. Given a spot start on May 20, Koufax responded with an 11-inning complete-game win over the Braves in Milwaukee, 6-3. His last outing, on May 24, however, in which he walked both batters he faced in relief, was less inspiring.

While the Dodgers’ woes made national news, the Pirates were perennial also-rans with just one winning season since the end of World War II. Nonetheless, they were off to a good start and occupied third place (21-17), four games behind the league-leading San Francisco Giants.

Toeing the rubber for skipper Danny Murtaugh was 27-year-old right-hander Bob Friend, set to become the 10th Pirates hurler to make 200 starts.9 An All-Star in 1956, Friend was a proven workhorse and had led the NL in innings pitched the previous two seasons. He entered 1958 with a deceiving 73-94 record on primarily atrocious teams. He was also one of baseball’s hottest pitchers, tying Milwaukee’s Warren Spahn for the NL lead in wins with seven. When the Pirates played the Dodgers in Los Angeles a month earlier, Friend had won two starts in five days.

On a crisp 60-degree Wednesday evening,10 the crowd of 14,320 at Forbes Field might have thought the Dodgers were still the heavy-hitting Brooklyn team and not the anemic LA club, which was batting just .237 and had been outscored 226-163.11 Leadoff hitter Jim Gilliam lined Friend’s first pitch to center for a single and moved to third on John Roseboro’s double. Snider, who had received a cortisone shot in his ailing left knee before the previous game, grounded out to score Gilliam for the first run.12

In the second, rookie third baseman Dick Gray, in his first game since his recall from Triple-A St. Paul, belted a one-out double and came home on Don Zimmer’s single to right. Zimmer’s test of 23-year-old right-fielder Roberto Clemente’s throwing arm failed – the Dodgers shortstop was out at second on a 9-3-6 fielding play.

The Dodgers pounded Friend in the fourth. Former Brooklyn stars Carl Furillo and Gil Hodges began the inning with singles. Gray’s one-out single plated Furillo, while center fielder Bill Virdon’s throw home enabled both runners to move into scoring position.13 An intentional walk of Zimmer loaded the bags. After Koufax fanned, Gilliam’s single to center drove in Hodges and Gray. Virdon atoned for his earlier mistake by rifling a strike to shortstop Dick Groat whose relay cut Zimmer down at third, ending the inning and Friend’s night. It was a 5-0 game.

Staked to an early lead, Koufax worked through four quick innings, aided by a pair of twin killings. Hot-hitting Frank Thomas, who was tied with Willie Mays for the NL lead with 13 home runs and led the senior circuit with 36 RBIs, grounded into a 5-4-3 double play in the second. Two frames later, Koufax fielded Ted Kluszewski’s chopper to the mound and initiated an inning-ending 1-6-3 DP.

The Pirates had some luck in the fifth to tally their only run of the game. Mazeroski drew a two-out walk and Danny Kravitz reached on Roseboro’s third catcher’s interference call in the last 12 games. Gene Freese, pinch-hitting for Bob Smith, who had pitched a clean fifth, singled Mazeroski home with an unearned run.

Four straight two-out singles off Bob Porterfield in the seventh accounted for the Dodgers’ final two runs of the game. Snider’s single drove in Gilliam while Furillo plated Roseboro to give LA a 7-1 lead.

Making just his 31st career start, Koufax showed his mettle by escaping jams in the sixth and eighth. Bob Skinner led off the sixth with a walk and Groat singled. After Koufax retired Kluszewski and Thomas on flies to left, Zimmer misplayed Clemente’s potential inning-ending chopper to load the bases. Representing the potential tying run, Mazeroski grounded to third.

In the eighth, Groat led off with a walk and reached third on Kluszewski’s single. Koufax then retired Thomas, Clemente, and Mazeroski on infield popups. The Pirates managed only one hit in 10 at-bats with runners in scoring position.

According to Dodgers beat writer Park, Koufax mixed his heater and curve through the first six innings but later abandoned that plan.14 “I got a little tired and I couldn’t get my curve over,” admitted Koufax, “so I threw all fastballs the last three innings. I wanted to make ’em hit it.”15 That approach worked as the Pirates had only one hit in the last three innings.

Koufax completed his second straight start and sixth of his career with a one-two-three ninth inning. He fanned Kravitz swinging, while pinch-hitter Román Mejías and Virdon lofted flies to left field to end the game in 2 hours and 22 minutes.

Koufax’s 144-pitch six-hitter with four strikeouts and four walks provided fleeting encouragement to a beleaguered staff that ultimately finished last in the NL in ERA at 4.47, the team’s highest mark since 1944 and (as of 2024) the franchise’s fifth-highest ERA since 1900. Koufax’s streak of 19 consecutive innings without allowing an earned run ended abruptly two days later in a relief outing against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. He yielded a walk-off, two-run home run to Walt Moryn without retiring a batter on May 30.

Pitching inconsistently for the remainder of the season, Koufax finished with an 11-11 record and a 4.48 ERA in 158 2/3 innings and tossed a big-league-high 17 wild pitches.

The Dodgers’ offensive outburst in Pittsburgh – seven runs and 12 hits – was their biggest thus far on the road trip, but that too was fleeting. In an inaugural season to forget, at least statistically speaking and in the won-lost column, Dodger hitters posted their lowest team batting average (.251) since the end of the Deadball Era and scored their fewest runs per game (4.34) since 1937 (3.97). It was the Dodgers’ worst season (71-83) since their war-torn roster went 63-91 in 1944.

Contrary to the Dodgers, the Pirates went on to enjoy their best campaign (84-70) since 1944, when they also finished in second place. One of the major contributors to their success was Friend, whose 22 wins tied Spahn for the major-league lead.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kurt Blumenau and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Sandy Koufax, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, SABR.org, and the following:

Biederman, Lester J., “Loss to Dodgers Baffles Friend; Had Good ‘Stuff,’” Pittsburgh Press, May 29, 1958: 15.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT195805280.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1958/B05280PIT1958.htm

Notes

1 Frank Finch, “Dodgers Top Pirates, 7-1,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1958: IV, 1.

2 Jack Hernon, “Dodger Southpaw Scatters 6 Hits,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 29, 1958: 14.

3 Charlie Park, “Dodger Bats Still Anemic,” Los Angeles Mirror, May 28, 1958: III, 1.

4 Frank Finch, “Here’s the Pitch,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 1958: IV 2.

5 “Here’s the Pitch.”

6 George Lederer, “Koufax 6-Hits Bucs, 7-1,” Long Beach California) Independent, May 29, 1958: C1.

7 Lester J. Biederman, “Campanella Cheers Dodger Visitors Despite Troubles,” Pittsburgh Press, May 29, 1958: 16.

8 Jack Hernon, “It’s Bucs’ Turn to Use Bats and Win, 5-3,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 28, 1958: 20.

9 Friend joined Wilbur Cooper (369), Babe Adams (353), Sam Leever (299), Deacon Phillippe (252), Ray Kremer (247), Rip Sewell (243), Pud Galvin (241), Ed Morris (240), and Frank Killen (201).

10 “The Weather,” Pittsburgh-Post-Gazette, May 29, 1958: 17.

11 “Keeping Tab on Dodgers,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 1958: IV, 3.

12 Frank Finch, “Snider Says Cortisone Shot Helped Knee,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1958: IV, 2.

13 Hernon, “Dodger Southpaw Scatters 6 Hits.”

14 Charlie Park, “Alston Pep Talk Pays Off,” Los Angeles Mirror, May 29, 1958: IV, 1.

15 “Alston Pep Talk Pays Off.”