Skip to main content

Week 18 Recap

Week 18 is completed and the regular season is 75% completed, at least by the calendar. The AL is still slightly ahead of the 75% mark, and the NL is still behind, but have made strides in closing the gap. There are plenty of doubleheaders to be played in the final two weeks of August, so we are on the way. I will be "counting" the two Cubs - Phillies tie games this coming week, and I will cover that more during the week when it comes up.

Look at the standings in the NL. There is a three-way tie for first, with Chicago and St. Louis with identical records and Brooklyn right behind by a few percentage points. The Cubs actually caught and passed the Robins at about this same time in the schedule in 1930, and stayed in first place for a few weeks before the Cardinals put on a late-season charge to take the lead with just a few weeks remaining. The Cardinals are playing ahead of their 1930 performance though, but it is early yet, and I am not counting out the Robins just yet either. The Giants look like they are going to be stuck in fourth place, no matter what they do. Hubbell, Fitzsimmons, and Walker have 41 wins for New York, the remaining pitchers have 19. Cincinnati is trying to avoid being passed by Pittsburgh, and these two teams have games coming up this coming week. The Phillies hitting surge has continued and they have built up a little bit of a lead over the hapless Braves.

In the AL Philadelphia just keeps steamrolling everyone that gets in their way. Washington has a lock on second place with a nineteen game lead over the third-place Yankees, but any chance of them moving up will require the A's to go through an extended cold streak. New York is back below .500 - I have said this previously, but when Ruth and Gehrig don’t hit, this is a pretty pedestrian lineup. Detroit is two games behind New York and has visions of passing their big city rivals. Boston and St. Louis are now tied for sixth as Boston's slide has continued. Cleveland still wants to move up, but unless their pitching comes together they may be stuck in seventh. The White Sox just took a doubleheader from the Yankees, but I am not sure Boston can lose enough to get below them into last place.

Mickey Cochrane (.427) now leads the AL in hitting, ahead of Al Simmons (.420) and Lou Gehrig (.419). Babe Ruth leads in runs (132), ahead of Gehrig (120) and Cochrane (110), but Gehrig leads in RBI's (144), ahead of Ruth (137) and Simmons (115). Gehrig leads in hits (192), leading Charlie Gehringer (180) and Simmons (173). Red Kress (45) still leads in doubles, but Cochrane (43), Gehringer (43) and Gehrig (42) are right behind. Ruth continues to lead in homeruns (41), with Gehrig (36) and Ed Morgan (30) on his tail. When it comes to pitchers there is Lefty Grove (25-2, 1.55) and then there is everyone else. Lefty Stewart (19-5) and Firpo Marberry (18-2) would be second and third in the it-doesn't-exist-yet AL Cy Young voting.

Dazzy Vance
Chuck Klein continues his monster season for the Phillies. Klein (.426) leads in hitting over Bill Terry (.413) and Lefty O'Doul (.412), and Klein is the first to reach and surpass 200 hits (203), well ahead of Terry (178) and O'Doul (173). O'Doul (117) is the runs leader, with Kiki Cuyler (115) and Klein (112) right on his heels. Hack Wilson (127) has regained the RBI lead, just ahead of Klein (124) and well ahead of Del Bissonette (106). Harry Heilmann (42) is holding onto the lead in doubles but has Klein (41) and Johnny Frederick (40) right behind him. Wilson (33) has the homerun lead, but Babe Herman (29) and Klein (28) have now both passed Wally Berger (27). The Cubs tandem of Charlie Root (17-5) and Pat Malone (17-6) still lead the NL pitchers, but there are five pitchers with fourteen wins - which one is going to have a strong finish and make the difference in this oh-so-close pennant race? Or will someone else come out of the pack to be that guy?


The replay moves ahead without issue. I wrote about the two tie games in the Week 18 Results post and how I am going to play/score them. I will get that exact process figured out as I get there in few days. Both leagues have surpassed their shut-out totals for the season, but the league batting average and ERA remain relatively close to their actual results. Everything is coming along real nice, and I am looking forward to this dogfight in the NL over these final six weeks.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

1930 World Series

https://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/1930_WS.shtml It's all come down to this. The 1930 Philadelphia A's were a little slow out of the chute in the regular season but they got going before mid-season and they easily rolled to the American League pennant. The 1930 St. Louis Cardinals were in a bit more of a dogfight in the National League, but they got healthy late and got hot with a month to go in the season and roared down the stretch to capture the NL pennant. These two teams were clearly the best in their respective leagues and now it was time for the fall classic. No multiple rounds of playoffs, just the two best teams going at it, and getting started quickly. The last day of the regular season was on a Sunday, the first game of the World Series coming on a Wednesday. A two-day respite will come in handy for both teams as they will meet in Philadelphia to get things started. Let's Play Ball, and may the best team win. Wednesday, October 1, 1930 ...

Introduction

I am going to do a replay of the 1930 baseball season using APBA Baseball for Windows . If you are reading this I am assuming you are familiar with the APBA baseball game, the concept of doing a full season replay, and baseball in general. If not, suffice it to say that, yes, I am going to replay an entire baseball season from 85+ years ago. APBA Logo I know that Google , like Facebook , has kind of queered itself in the marketplace with its misplaced privacy policies and its decisions to become involved in the filth of politics in general. However, I have used Blogger previously, am familiar with its quirks and foibles, and at free I can't beat the price, so I am going to stick here for now. There will likely be tweaks made to the blog layout, especially at the beginning, and as I figure what I think works best. The initial intent is to walk through and document my set-up procedures (what I call Week 0 ), if for nothing than my own benefit. From there I...

1930 AL and NL League Leaders (Updated)

Update: I must admit I really hadn't given much thought to pinch-hit homeruns, no-hitters, or hutting for the cycle when I started this, but they were events that occurred and were worth noting. And of course, I then neglected to include them in my initial publishing, so here they are: