On This Day: May 19th, 1968
Earl Wilson and the Detroit Tigers pitching staff end Frank Howard’s homerun streak! Howard had homered 10 times over the course of a 6-game span from May 12th to May 18th. Over that 6-game span went 13-for-24 and drove in 17 runs.
Wilson pitched into the 8th inning for Detroit surrendering 2 runs over 7.1 innings and striking out 6. Jon Warden relieved Wilson and promptly gave up 2 runs blowing the save forcing Detroit to score 1 in the bottom of the 8th to squeak out a 5-4 victory over the Senators. John Hiller earned his first save of the season shutting things down in the top of the 9th.
Wilson along with Warden, Lasher and Hiller held Howard to a 1-for-4 night with 2 strikeouts to end the homer streak. Howard would finish the season with 44 homeruns on the season, so his 10 in that 6-game span accounted for nearly one quarter of his seasons total. In fact, there were only two more instances within the season that Howard would even homer on back-to-back nights.