Week 11 Summary

Week 11 was an exciting week on many fronts. Joe DiMaggio returned for one thing, and went 12-for-27 with four homeruns, seven runs scored, and eleven RBI's in six games. More importantly for Yankees fans was that he led the Yankees three-game sweep in Boston. New York still has a long row to hoe if they are going to catch Boston though. Boston does come to New York for a three-game series starting tomorrow so this might be their opportunity. Actually, everybody has a doubleheader on Monday - it's the Fourth of July Holiday - so they all will play two. After Monday's games, all teams will be at the 70 games played mark, heading toward the halfway point of the season.

Dom and Joe DiMaggio

New York now leads Boston in both batting average and runs scored, but Boston's ERA is almost a full run better than New York's. That may be New York's biggest challenge. Cleveland had a bad start to the week when they lost four at home to Detroit, but they bounced back with a four-game sweep against St. Louis. Detroit's good pitching finally shown through as they went 6-1 over the week and, at least for the moment, have locked themselves into the top half of the standings. Washington's star is starting to dim a little as they have sunk back into fifth place. Boston and New York aren't going to be kind to the Senators. Chicago and Philadelphia are tied with each other, and they have the same number of wins as Washington. Chicago just had their opportunity to beat up on last-place St. Louis so they had a good week. Philadelphia keeps finding ways to lose, and they have games with New York and Boston coming up too. I suspect they will turn this around before the season is over. St. Louis was at least competitive earlier in the season, but lately, they have just turned into a punching bag.

St. Louis got to play the two teams at the bottom of the NL standings this week and have a 7-0 record to show for it. The Cardinals got their team batting average over .300 after the carnage this past week.  New York had a good week, taking the last three games from Boston and then beating Brooklyn three times as well. But even after they won six in a row, they still lost a game to St. Louis in the standings. Boston fell behind Brooklyn into fourth place for a day, but righted the ship and pounded Philadelphia for three games to end the week. Boston's wins, plus Brooklyn losing three in New York, placed the Dodgers back into fourth place at week's end. Mostly, Brooklyn just remains a mystery. Philadelphia is riding a six-game losing streak as like their AL Philadelphia brothers they seem to spend their time finding ways to lose. Cincinnati and Chicago both got a severe bruising from the first place Cardinals this week and seem to have little chance of recovery.

Bob Elliott

Enos Slaughter had quite a week and had his average over .400 for a few days, but ended the week at .397. Eddie Waitkus is still second (.370) with Stan Musial (.354) and Red Schoendienst (.352) next in line. Slaughter and Schoendienst both have 100 hits, just ahead of Musial (98). Ralph Kiner leads in runs (65) over Schoendienst (63) and Musial (62). Kiner also leads in RBI's (62), although Bob Elliott (62) is now tied with Kiner, and Bobby Thomson (59) is right behind. Del Ennis still has the doubles lead (25), ahead of Waitkus (19), Duke Snider (19), and Marv Rickert (18). Rickert is still hitting over .400 but doesn’t have enough plate appearances to qualify for the lead in batting average. Kinder and Andy Pafko are tied for the lead in homeruns (18) with Thomson trailing right behind at 16. Warren Spahn (14-1), Harry Brecheen (12-2) and Sheldon Jones (11-2) continue to lead in wins, although Ralph Branca (10-4) and Vern Bickford (10-6) both picked up their tenth win this past week.

George Kell had missed ten games but picked up right where he left off when he had hits in his first two at-bats back. Kell still leads in hitting (.380) over Ted Williams (.361) and Yogi Berra (.353). Vic Wertz has the hits lead (104) over Kell (92) and Williams (91). Williams leads in runs (72) ahead of Eddie Joost (62) and Dom DiMaggio (61), and Williams leads in RBI's (81) ahead of Vern Stephens (75) and Tommy Henrich and Sam Chapman, both with 62. Kell also kept his lead in doubles (19) over Philadelphia teammate Hank Majeski and Joost, both with 17. In homeruns its Stephens (25), Williams (23, and Henrich (21). Mel Parnell (11-4) and Vic Raschi (11-5) lead in wins, but Ellis Kinder (10-2), Eddie Lopat (10-2) and Virgil Tracks are right behind (10-7).

Hal Newhouser

In my 1930 replay, I tracked the injuries as they occurred. Even though they were "rest of game" injuries only, I wanted to see how often they occurred. I would guess the number would average out to about two injuries per week, and even though I am not specifically tracking it in this replay, that matches what I am observing here.

Homerun projections continue to draw down in the NL, but they are staying up in the AL. Other stat projections look pretty good, although I still need to push on stolen base attempts in both leagues. I need a little push on complete games and saves in the AL, but I can't fix both of those in the same game.

As the replay approaches the halfway point, and as Boston and St. Louis continue to dominate their respective leads, I think it is safe to say the replay is a long way from over. Can these two hold on? There is still a lot of churn underneath these two also. Who will get hot and make a move up the standings? And who will have the wheels fall off and take a dive? Who will be the next player to go on a hot streak? Will the Dodgers ever come together - and then stay together - long to make a real push up the standings.

Also, as the replay approaches the halfway point, I am considering my next project. I just ordered the 1901 season disk (there is an ATMgr file for 1901), but I wanted to review this year further before committing. I will likely go with an early season regardless, so let's see what happens.