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Tribes Staff Challenged by Tigers Detroit Pitchers Smoothest to Date Starters for Harris Go Route 16 Times; Dodger Mound Crew Leads N. L With 11 By FRED DOWN I United Press Sports Writer The Cleveland Indians elite pitching a staff with its fabulous "Big Three" was t being challenged for No. 1 ranking in the a a majors today by the Detroit Tigers smooth v blend of youth and experience. v With all 16 teams enjoying a day off r yesterday after completing their first o swings around the circuits, manager Bucky 1 Harris staff was the smoothest-working in the big timethe big time. Its not that the I Indians staff has faltered too much — although it has been more effective in some t past seasons — but just that the Tigers are c getting the best day-to-day hurling. c In their first 24 games, the Tigers have a seen their starting pitcher go the distance p no fewer than 16 times. The Indians, with 11 complete games in their 24 contests, P are the only other staff with as many as 10 such jobs and Detroits pitchers have s turned in more shutuots and one -run j games. e The exact figures are one shutout and s four one-run games for the Indians and f two shutuots and five one-run efforts for j the Tigers. : Zl_- ~i i The New York Yankees and Boston Red t Sox rank next in the American League £ with nine complete games each, followed j by the Chicago White Sox with eight and the Washington Senators with seven. The | floundering Baltimore Orioles have only four complete efforts to their credit, as do j the Kansas City Athletics. Most Complete Mound Efforts l The Brooklyn Dodgers surprisingly have turned in the most complete pitching ef- J forts in the National League — nine. Both 3 the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phil- lies have eight while the Milwaukee j Braves and New York Giants have seven ! each. I The other three N. L. clubs pitching has been in a turmoil most of the time, with the Pittsburgh Pirates showing only five I complete games, the Cincinnati Redlegs ! three and St. Louis Cardinals the amaz- I ingly small figure of only two. Five different Detroit pitchers have con- 1 tributed to the fine showing. Steve Gromek • has five and Ned Garver has three to give • the "veterans section" of the staff a total of eight. Rookie Frank Lary adds four more, young Billy Hoeft has three and rookie Duke Maas one. Bob Lemon heads the Cleveland staff with with four complete jobs and rookie Herb Score is next with three. Early Wynn has two and Mike Garcia and Bob Feller one each. Although a shade less effective than Detroits, Clevelands hurling has been sound enough to get the team off to an even faster start than in 1954 when it won a record 111 games and the A. L. championship. With four straight wins and nine victories in their last 10 games, the Indians held first place by two games and had a 17-7 record for a .708 percentage. A year ago on May 9, the Indians were in third place with a 12-8 mark and a .600 percentage. The Indians didnt take over the lead in 1954 until May 16. In the National League, of course, the whole story has been the amazing Dodgers with 21 victories in 23 games and two 10-game winning streaks. They lead the second-place Braves by nine games and the third-place Giants by 9V2 — enormous margins at this time of the year. The Indians, for example, are only ny2 games ahead of the seventh-place Red Sox in the A. L.
