Week 10 Summary

Week 10 is completed and the standings continue to twist and turn. Not at the top mind you, but in the lower echelons, teams continue to move up and down, even if slightly, trying to better their position. The Washington Senators even managed to spend a few days in fourth place, only to fall back when Cleveland came to town. The big news this week was a no-hitter by Philadelphia's Russ Meyer over Pittsburgh. This whole week was another pitching oriented week as both leagues have their ERA and Batting Average continue to level off to their expected norm. There are no more teams are hitting over .300 and all teams now find their ERA's are all below 5.00.

Vic Wertz

Of course, a no-hitter is big news, but the real news is that Joe DiMaggio will be returning. He has been seen working out in Yankee Stadium over the past few weeks to get ready to play, and the current rumor is that we will make the trip up to Boston to play up there on Tuesday. New York had gotten off to a bad start but had managed to get their pitching straightened out and their offense has been very productive over the past month, but they will wake up Monday morning finding themselves eleven games behind Boston.

In the AL, Boston just continues to steamroll everybody. Their pitching remains strong and their hitting, even when they aren’t crushing opponents, always seems to come through in clutch situations. New York had fallen into third place for a couple of days but rallied back on top of Cleveland. Cleveland's offense appears to have come to life, but it might be too little too late. Detroit put on a rush late in the week and climbed back into fourth, although they are only a couple of percentage points ahead of Washington. Washington now has the second-best ERA in the AL, but are going to have a tough time facing Boston and New York over the next few weeks. Chicago just took two from Philadelphia on Sunday and passed them into sixth place. Chicago has revamped much of their lineup over the past few weeks and has continued to be a tough opponent. Philadelphia has been going through a rough spot over the past few weeks as their offense has gone dormant. I don’t think they will end up in seventh place by the end of the season though. St. Louis was riding the crest of a wave for a while, but their team Batting Average and ERA are now both last in the AL, they are missing most of their infield, and there doesn’t seem to be much help on the way.

St. Louis didn’t have a particularly good week, but their closest competitors seem content to knock each other around and prevent anyone from advancing on the leader. New York and Boston take turns looking like they are ready to make a move, but then they retreat just as quickly. Brooklyn is the dangerous one though, and they know they will be facing both Boston and New York in the next few weeks, so it is not inconceivable they could continue to move up in the standings. Philadelphia is only a half-game behind Brooklyn, and they too would like to make their mark on the standings. Pittsburgh has definitely lost their mojo at this point and has played themselves out of the top half of the standings, but they remain dangerous should someone take them lightly. Cincinnati and Chicago are also capable of surprising an unsuspecting opponent, but both are fighting an uphill battle.

Bob Feller

Enos Slaughter (.371) moved to the top of the NL hitting, just ahead of Eddie Waitkus (.370) and Harry Walker (.359). Jackie Robinson has the lead in hits (89) over Stan Musial (87) and Richie Ashburn (87). Ralph Kiner may not have not a homerun in two weeks, but he still leads in runs (56) and RBI's (56). Musial (53) and Red Schoendienst (52) trail in runs, and Robinson (56) has caught Kiner, with Del Ennis (55) right behind. Ennis has been on a doubles binge (24), leading Waitkus (19), Jim Russell (17) and Duke Snider (17). Slaughter (9) and Ashburn (8) have both been a triples binge over the past few weeks. Andy Pafko still leads in homeruns (18), but Bobby Thomson has caught up with Kiner, both with fifteen homeruns. Hank Sauer is still sitting on fourteen, and he like Kiner hasn’t hit one for several weeks. You can add Johnny Mize to this conversation as well as he too got off to a hot start with twelve homeruns in the first month or so, but over the past month has lost his job due to ineffectiveness.,  Warren Spahn (12-1), Harry Brecheen (11-2), and Sheldon Jones (10-2) remain atop the NL pitchers.

George Kell has been out this past week and still leads the AL in hitting (.384), ahead of Ted Williams (.365) and Vic Wertz (.358). Wertz has taken over the lead in hits though (96) and looks poised to be the first player to reach 100 hits. Trailing Wertz in hits is Kell (90) and Williams (84). Williams has taken over the lead in both runs (65) and RBI's (73), leading Eddie Joost (58) and Dom DiMaggio (57) in runs and leading Vern Stephens (68) and Tommy Henrich (61) in RBI's. Kell has maintained his lead in doubles (18) over Joost (17) and Hank Majeski (16). Stephens has the homerun lead (24) over Williams (21) and Henrich (20). Mel Parnell (11-3), Ellis Kinder (10-1), Eddie Lopat (10-2), and Vic Raschi (10-5) sit atop the league in wins.

Richie Ashburn

Since the end of week seven, the difference between actual AL innings pitched and the AL projected innings pitched grew from +29 to +144. Over the past several weeks I have had a spate of extra-inning games, especially in the AL, and several of these have been quite long. It is just interesting to see how an unexpected mid-season bump like this affects the projected number. Assuming the number of extra-inning games will level off I would expect this to even out over the course of the remaining fourteen weeks. I also don’t get the benefit of any rain-shortened games in a replay like this.

While Boston has a seemingly overwhelming lead in the AL, and while New York and Cleveland have their own private heavyweight fight for second place, 2.5 games separate the next four teams in the standings. Similarly, in the NL, St. Louis has a comfortable lead but the four teams behind them are all within 3.0 games of each other. Who's going to get hot? Who is going to fade away? Can someone really make a run at the leaders? Brooklyn is going to get their chance with Boston, New York, and Philadelphia over the next two weeks, and Joe DiMaggio will be joining the Yankees in Boston this week, and there is still plenty of baseball left to play, so let's go see what happens.