For 11 innings, St. Louis Wizards starter Juan Marichal was nearly unhittable. Marichal took a 2-hit shoutout into extra innings against the Houston Hoots. But the Wizards gave him no run support against Tom Seaver. Seaver got out of trouble several times to keep the game scoreless. St. Louis left the bases loaded in the 4th, and had runners on the corners with no outs in the 6th, but Mike Schmidt’s glove saved the day. Stan Musial hit a sharp grounder to 3rd and Schmidt caught Tony Gwynn off the bag for the 1st out. Orlando Cepeda followed with another sharp grounder that Schmidt snagged, stepped on 3rd, and threw to 1st for the inning-ending double-play. Finally in the 12th, Duke Snider singled for just the 5th hit off Marichal, and Ryne Sandberg followed with an RBI double to give Houston a 1-0 lead. Lee Smith pitched a scoreless 12th for the 1-0 Houston win and his 8th save. Houston is 14-19. The Wizards have now lost 3 straight, falling to 22-11, and hold just a 3-game lead in the National League. The 12 innings is still one short of the 13 innings he pitched in one game in 1969 in the MLB. Meanwhile, Seaver’s 11 innings matched two of his games from 1973.