As we reach the halfway point of the season and are still a half-dozen games in arrears, one damning stat sticks out like the proverbials: we haven’t won consecutive games since mid-June. So am I to take it as a good omen or just coincidence when we do so with games 69 and 70 for the year? At this point I’ll take pretty much anything.
Seybold drifts back into sheer unproductivity (071 with 2 RBI thru the first ten games of the month), and my patience is up. First step is to flip Hoffman into the everyday RF slot, with Socks only starting v LHP. But as an age-32 defensively one-dimensional player on a decent wage, his time with us is limited and I begin actively looking for a longer-term solution. Just not sure what that is yet.
Of course, the very next game he hits a pinch 2-run homer.
We do lift our game in this first half of July, winning seven of our first ten to get four games above 500 for the first time all year. In the tenth of these, Hickman comes alive with a pair of two-run homers, the second of which walks it off for a dramatic 6-4 win. (He has a 4 hit / 5 RBI game a few days later as well in a nice little stretch.)
Meanwhile the Beaneaters have cooled off again and the field squeezes up once more to leave just 3˝ games between first and sixth as we host Boston for three with them on a losing streak of five at the series’ outset. We take two of three as the Cards slip into first.
This could take a while.
I find my guy to replace Seybold, but the price needs a fair bit of haggling – both in my own mind and with my counterpart on the other side – before we finally nut it out.
TRADE 2 OF 5: (07/17): RF Socks Seybold, OF Ernie Courtney, and RP John Malarkey and Wiley Piatt to Washington for OF Kid Nance.
Kid profiles as a younger version of Socks, with perhaps just the gentlest upgrade in quality on offence (along with a fair step down on defence in RF). Yes, it costs us three more players for that putative increment, but none of them really had much of a future at the club anyway. Yes, we’ll take a bit of a turnstile-hit because of Socks’ personality, but the club is still too young for budgetary constraints to really have any overt influence. So I am happy with the deal in every regard.
Kid will now be our everyday RF, with Danny back to backup duties, which is what he is best suited for at this early stage of his career.
While I’m in the mood for wheeling and dealing, I lock Hickman down for three years @ $2400 per.
All of which is mere prelude for the key stretch that takes us to the end of July, in which we play both the Reds and Cards four times each. We enter it in third place at 46-40, 4˝ back of leaders St. Louis and 1˝ to the good of Cincy, with Brooklyn, Boston and Chicago all thereabouts.
We win the first three of these to make it five straight, the first time all season we’ve won more than four in a row, then drop two to our bogeymen the Reds, then finish the month off on a positive tip with three straight Ws.
We are tied for first.
A stunning performance by the group to get back into contention, as we put together a 19-9 month. We’ve gone from being unable to string wins together to only losing back-to-back games twice.
That said, there is still so much work to do in what is turning out to be the tightest NL race yet.
This promises to be one hot August.
Hot- Our starters: very few dips in production all month and some truly outstanding performances among them. Wagner gets the league’s PotM award, but Clarke and McIntyre would have been equally deserving recipients.
- Our SP1 thru 3: Phillippe and Chesbro have been monumental almost all year and Owen has worked super hard for us in the three-spot.
Not- Our bench: there will come a time before this season is out that our bench will be crucial to our success, and guys like Schreckengost, Hoffman and Irwin simply must start contributing when called upon.
- SP4: The McJames Experiment, as I am calling it, is only a couple poor starts away from being ditched. Altrock looks likeliest to be given the next shot, but hopefully Doc can turn things around and we don’t have to go there.
Around the Leagues- Just unbelievably tight in the NL, with the top six still all well and truly up to their necks in it.
- As much because of a dropoff in form by the Naps as their own strong performance, the White Sox take a stranglehold on the AL race, leading the league by seven games.
- A strained medial ligament ends Americans 3B Tommy Leach’s season. A broken elbow bone from being HBP does likewise for his teammate Heinie Wagner right at the end of the month.
- The updated Top 100 Prospects list is released. Charlie Smith is at #4. He gets called up after the Nance trade and acquits himself well in (very) limited opportunities. It has also accelerated his dev, which is great.
Awards- 07/06 POTW: AL – Kid Nance (Washington) 500 / 6 RBI; NL – Ed Delahanty (Brooklyn) 500 / 1 HR / 8 RBI.
- 07/13 POTW: AL – Doc Gessler (New York) 593 / 2 RBI; NL – Bob Rhoads (St. Louis) 2-0 / 0.45 ERA / 6 K / 20 IP.
- 07/20 POTW: AL – Wid Conroy (Detroit) 524 / 4 RBI; NL – Weldon Henley (St. Louis) 2-0 / 0.00 ERA / 11 K / 17 IP.
- 07/27 POTW: AL – Bill Bradley (Cleveland) 500 / 4 RBI; NL – Honus Wagner (Pittsburgh) 474 / 5 RBI.
- AL Batter of the Month: Doc Gessler (New York) 466 / 0 HR / 12 RBI.
- NL Batter of the Month: Honus Wagner (Pittsburgh) 379 / 1 HR / 23 RBI.
- AL Pitcher of the Month: Charles Bender (Philadelphia) 6-2 / 1.61 / 48 K / 72.2 IP.
- NL Pitcher of the Month: Deacon Phillippe (Pittsburgh) 7-1 / 2.29 / 25 K / 70.2 IP.
- AL Rookie of the Month: Charles Bender (Philadelphia).
- NL Rookie of the Month: Weldon Henley (St. Louis) 6-0 / 1.15 / 26 K / 55 IP.
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