During the Memorial Day weekend in 1991, the Cardinals faced Cy Young Award winners in consecutive games. The results were strikingly different.
In the first game, on Sunday, May 26, 1991, against the Mets’ Dwight Gooden, the Cardinals totaled 23 hits and won 14-1.
In the second game, on Monday, May 27, against the Pirates’ Doug Drabek, the Cardinals totaled one hit and lost 8-0.
Except for the pitcher, the Cardinals used the same starting lineup in each game _ Bernard Gilkey, Ozzie Smith, Ray Lankford, Pedro Guerrero, Felix Jose, Todd Zeile, Tom Pagnozzi and Jose Oquendo.
The contrasting outcomes illustrated baseball’s unpredictability.
Hitting at will
The pitching matchup of Dwight Gooden versus Omar Olivares at New York’s Shea Stadium looked to be lopsided in favor of the Mets. Recalled from the minors, Olivares was making his first major-league start of the season. Gooden was 5-3 with a 2.97 ERA. He was 11-5 versus the Cardinals since entering the majors.
On cue, the Mets took a 4-1 lead into the sixth, but then the Cardinals flipped the script, rallying for 13 runs in the final four innings against Gooden and relievers Alejandro Pena and Pete Schourek.
Gooden gave up five runs in six innings, or half as many as he did in 47 innings against the Cardinals throughout 1985, when he received the National League Cy Young Award.
Eleven of the Cardinals’ hits came against Gooden. Pena gave up five hits and Schourek allowed seven. Seventeen of the 23 hits were singles and the Cardinals hit no home runs.
Gooden literally was knocked out of the game when he was struck near the left wrist by Ozzie Smith’s liner. X-rays revealed a bruise, but no fracture.
Smith had four hits, a walk and scored three runs.
Catcher Tom Pagnozzi also had four hits, including his first triple in the big leagues, and contributed a career-high six RBI.
“The Mets turned Tom Pagnozzi into Yogi Berra,” the New York Daily News proclaimed.
First baseman Pedro Guerrero also had a triple, his first since June 1990. “When Guerrero and I get a triple in the same game, it’s a strange game,” Pagnozzi told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Boxscore
Adding to the strangeness was the sight of former Cardinals second baseman Tommy Herr playing the outfield for the only time in the majors. Herr replaced Mets center fielder Keith Miller, who twisted an ankle.
In another twist, Pagnozzi’s six RBI were the most in a game by a Cardinal since Herr had six against the Mets in 1987. Boxscore
Hitting his spots
The next day, the Cardinals opened a series against the Pirates on Memorial Day afternoon at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.
Doug Drabek, the 1990 National League Cy Young Award winner, was matched against Bob Tewksbury. Five days earlier, on May 22 at Pittsburgh, Drabek lost to the Cardinals, giving up nine hits and four runs in seven innings and dropping his season record to 2-7.
At St. Louis, the temperature was 94 degrees and the heat helped Drabek to focus. “Hot as it is you better throw strikes, make them hit it,” Drabek said to the Pittsburgh Press. “You don’t want to spend a lot of time out here.”
Mixing fastballs, sliders and curves with pinpoint control, Drabek held the Cardinals hitless until Bernard Gilkey lined a single to center with two outs in the sixth. The ball fell about 10 feet in front of center fielder Andy Van Slyke.
“I told myself that with two outs I should be four or five steps closer, but I didn’t listen to my instincts,” said Van Slyke, the former Cardinal.
Drabek threw a total of 91 pitches. He got 14 outs on ground balls and struck out two.
Hitting better than the entire Cardinals team, Drabek also produced three singles and scored a run. Boxscore
RetroSimba 
The feast or famine offense continued that entire series against the Pirates. In the second game the team picked up 11 hits. In the series finale, only a base hit by Jose Oquendo kept us from being no hit. It would be pretty cool to know if the 22 hit difference over two consecutive games is a team record.
I liked that the Cardinals got 23 hits in a game and none was a home run. Today’s teams can go a week without collecting 23 hits that weren’t home runs.
[…] Feast and famine: 1991 Cardinals experienced extremes […]
Seeing Pagnozzi mentioned here, I feel like the Cardinals should have kept Brian Harper. But what do I know – I thought Sadecki would be good for the Giants.
If not for Don Denkinger’s blown call in the ninth, Brian Harper’s RBI-single in the eighth inning of Game 6 of the 1985 World Series would have been the championship-clincher for the Cardinals.