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1963 Dodgers Week 1: Tommy Davis & Don Drysdale start off strong

Tommy Davis won a National League batting title in 1962 with won of the best seasons in Dodgers history. He started off 1963 with a thigh injury in spring training but that didn’t prevent him from a strong opening week of the regular season.
Tommy Davis won a National League batting title in 1962 with won of the best seasons in Dodgers history. He started off 1963 with a thigh injury in spring training but that didn’t prevent him from a strong opening week of the regular season.

We start our look back at the 1963 Dodgers, their second at Dodger Stadium, with a review of the first week of the season.

Don Drysdale, fresh off his Cy Young Award last year, started the first game against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. The fifth career opening day start for Drysdale set a new Dodgers record, breaking his tie with Brooklynites Nap Rucker, Van Mungo, and Carl Erskine.

Tommy Davis tore a muscle in his thigh on March 31 in spring training and was considered questionable for opening day. He did start the opener against the Cubs, and started five of six games during the week.

Batter of the week

Offense was hard to come by for the Dodgers, who averaged only two games in the opening week. We’ll go with Tommy Davis here, who hit .316 (6-for-19) with two doubles, the only player on the team to slug over .400. Honorable mention goes to Frank Howard, who was 6-for-18 (.333) with a double.

Pitcher of the week

Don Drysdale completed both of his starts, winning both, and struck out 13 batters. Honorable mention goes to swingman Bob Miller, acquired from the Mets in November, who pitched scoreless baseball into the eighth inning in a no-decision against the expansion Colt .45s in their second season. Miller struck out nobody, but worked around three singles and four walks to keep Houston off the board.

Week 1 results

3-3 record
15 runs scored (2.50 per game)
12 runs allowed (2.00 per game)
.629 pythagorean win percentage

Rookies Nate Oliver and Ken McMullen started on opening day, at second base and third base respectively. McMullen played six games in a cup of coffee last September, while Oliver was playing in his first game, the third Dodgers player to make his major league debut on opening day since the team moved to Los Angeles.

The first week was unique in that the Dodgers hit zero home runs — after finishing fifth in the National League with 140 homers the year before, a tad below league average — and allowed no home runs in their first six games. Six homerless games to start the season tied a franchise record for the offense, tying the 1943 Brooklyn team. On the pitching side, only the 1932 (11 straight games) and 1933 (nine games) had longer homerless streaks to open a season.

Game scores

1963 Week 1 batting

Player AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB BB PA BA OBP SLG OPS
Player AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB BB PA BA OBP SLG OPS
T.Davis 19 2 6 2 0 0 2 0 1 20 0.316 0.350 0.421 0.771
Howard 18 2 6 1 0 0 2 0 1 19 0.333 0.368 0.389 0.757
Roseboro 20 1 5 0 0 0 1 0 0 20 0.250 0.250 0.250 0.500
McMullen 19 1 3 1 0 0 2 0 1 21 0.158 0.238 0.211 0.449
W.Davis 23 3 3 0 1 0 1 3 1 25 0.130 0.200 0.217 0.417
Tracewski 17 1 3 0 0 0 2 0 1 18 0.176 0.222 0.176 0.399
Oliver 26 1 4 0 1 0 1 0 0 26 0.154 0.154 0.231 0.385
Skowron 15 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 16 0.133 0.188 0.133 0.321
Starters 157 12 32 4 2 0 11 3 6 165 0.204 0.242 0.255 0.497
Wills 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0.333 0.333 0.333 0.667
Moon 5 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 5 0.200 0.200 0.400 0.600
Camilli 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0.250 0.250 0.250 0.500
Fairly 11 1 2 0 0 0 1 0 2 14 0.182 0.308 0.182 0.490
Gilliam 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 4 0.000 0.250 0.000 0.250
Zimmer 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
Walls 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
Bench 31 3 5 1 0 0 1 1 3 35 0.161 0.235 0.194 0.429
Pitchers 17 0 3 0 1 0 1 0 2 20 0.176 0.250 0.294 0.544
Offense 205 15 40 5 3 0 13 4 11 220 0.195 0.242 0.249 0.491

1963 Week 1 pitching

Pitcher G W-L IP H R ER BB SO ERA WHIP FIP
Pitcher G W-L IP H R ER BB SO ERA WHIP FIP
Miller 1 0-0 7.7 3 0 0 4 0 0.00 0.913 4.20
Drysdale 2 2-0 18.0 16 2 2 4 13 1.00 1.111 2.02
Podres 1 0-1 8.0 8 2 2 3 2 2.25 1.375 2.88
Koufax 2 1-1 14.3 11 6 5 4 14 3.14 1.047 1.51
Starters 6 3-2 48.0 38 10 9 15 29 1.69 1.104 2.36
Rowe 1 0-0 1.0 1 0 0 0 0 0.00 1.000 2.63
Roebuck 2 0-1 3.3 5 1 1 2 5 2.70 2.100 0.53
Perranoski 2 0-0 2.0 2 1 1 1 2 4.50 1.500 2.13
Bullpen 5 0-1 6.3 8 2 2 3 7 2.84 1.737 1.37
Totals 11 3-3 54.3 46 12 11 18 36 1.82 1.178 2.24

The week ahead

The Dodgers return home to Los Angeles to run the Dick Gernert gauntlet, playing the same two teams. But this time they will face the Cubs and Colt .45s at Dodger Stadium. Sunday, April 21 is a doubleheader.