Week 5 Recap

The Brooklyn Robins have now won 13 consecutive victories, meaning they haven't lost since the first game of their doubleheader against the St. Louis Cardinals on May 4 (Week 3). On their western swing, the Robins split four with the Cardinals, took all three versus Chicago, four versus Pittsburgh, and two versus Cincinnati, and then came back east to take three in Philadelphia, a nice little 14-2 road trip heading into Week 6.

In the American League, the eastern teams really fattened up when the western teams came to visit. Washington, Philadelphia and New York all sit atop the standings and look to be prepared to slug it out for the remainder of the season.

Looking at the AL leaderboards, it's almost all Babe Ruth all the time. Ruth leads in average (.426) (The only remaining AL player hitting over .400), homeruns (13), RBI's (45), and tied for first in runs with teammate Earle Combs (36). Bill Regan leads in doubles (12), and Charlie Gehringer leads in hits (45). Max Bishop has 31 walks, ahead of Ruth's 24. Lou Gehrig is second in homeruns (10) and tied for second in RBI's (33) with Goose Goslin. Lefty Grove has seven wins (7-1), two more wins than Lefty Stewart, and Grove also has three shutouts already.

In the NL Bill Terry is leading in hitting (.450), ahead of four other NL .400 hitters. Gabby Hartnett leads in homeruns (9), while Glenn Wright has taken the RBI leadership (35) from Chick Hafey (32), although Hafey still leads in doubles (14). Frankie Frisch leads in runs scored (31), ahead of Babe Herman (28). Jesse Haines and Jumbo Elliott have started the season 5-0, with Pat Malone right behind at 5-1. Johnny Morrison is 4-0, his four relief victories symbolizing the Robins early season surge.

Looking ahead I see a lot of doubleheaders coming up, and I see several trades on the horizon as teams search to fill weak spots in preparation for the long pennant race ahead. I tried being slightly more aggressive on the base paths this past week, nothing crazy, just trying to push the steal attempts a little, as well as base advancement where I thought it was warranted. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not, but even when the odds are in the favor of success it still boils down to a dice roll.

I had a friend ask about HBP's and injuries. This is how I am playing it:

• Sometimes a Hit-By-Pitch is just a Hit-By-Pitch. "He rubs it off," or some such language is used. No harm, no foul.
• "He's rolling around in pain" and "The trainer comes out to check on him." The game will allow these players to continue because I have most injuries turned off, but I opt to sit them anyway for the remainder of the game and let a backup get in some game time.
• Occasionally there are actual injuries, a pitchers arm stiffens up, players collide with each other, or something similar. The game actually removes these players from the game, and a replacement must be named (ejections are similar). In these cases, the injured player is noted as being injured for a certain amount of days, but the game ignores the duration and the players are free to participate in the next game.
• Again, I don't mind the rest of game injuries just because it does add a little spice, but I am already monitoring player usage and don't need players disappearing when the ATMgr is expecting them to be available to play.
• I did add Hit-By-Pitch numbers to my stats summary (below).