We score 4 in the 9th to steal the first game of the month and this sets the tone as we stretch our win string to 10 games and hit the front with 20 to play.
We orchestrate another miraculous escape against the Braves, again scoring 4 in the final frame for a 9-8 walkoff win, then walk off another one a couple days later. Yet another win on the final play of the game against the Jints a few days after that and suddenly there’s an air of destiny around the joint as we stretch our lead to 6 and shrink our MN to 4.
Perhaps the boys start believing their own hype, however, as we get a dose of the staggers. But they regather themselves and we cruise to our 7th straight NL pennant, eventually going 20-6 for Sep / Oct and winning the division by 6 games from the Braves with an 89-65 record.
It's funny how things work out sometimes. Had our negotiations with Carey gone differently then Heinie Mueller would have been looking at a few years' wait to get his chance to play on an everyday basis. Instead, he got that chance this year and boy did he make the most of it. All the bats remain as fantastic as they've been the entire season and we are only heading back to the Big Dance again because of them, but Mueller's spark at the top of the lineup is a major part of that. I hope he is rewarded with a RoY Award despite his call-up coming relatively late in the campaign. He ends up with a slash line of 389/416/568 with 4 HR, 39 RBI and 3.0 WAR over 60 games / 249 PA, and his 3.2 ZR shows he is a more than capable replacement for Scoops defensively as well. Fingers crossed it's not the flash in the pan sort of deal his 407 BABIP suggests.
Train comes good at the right time to lock down the Sep pitching award. But, save Leblanc, our pitching is fairly on the nose all year and this area of our game will take up a large proportion of my off-season focus.
A surprisingly gentle on the heart AL pennant this time around for the Browns which sets up our fifth WS meeting with them in seven years.
As revealed in the previous post, Heavy Johnson becomes just the fourth player in history to hit 400 for a season, thereby giving him his third AL batting title. Ray "Bummer" Grimes of the Phillies has an outstanding sophomore season, hitting 394 to take the title - his first - in the senior circuit. Amazingly close to the IRL figures, in which Harry Heilmann led the AL with a 394 mark and Rajah led the NL with 397. The Babe goes a bit quiet late, finishing with 48 HR (HJ and Biz Mackey are tied for second with 23), while Ghost Marcell and Cy Williams jointly lead the NL with 21, ahead of Ken Williams with 19. Chicago's Dave Brown leads the NL in wins and ERA but misses the TC with a third-place finish in strikeouts, his 173 well behind leader Bullet Rogan's 230. Washington's Dick Redding also leads 2 of the 3 categories and both Waddell Award races should be rippers this year, as should the Wagner-Lajoie Medals.
Awards, news and final leaders. back for a look at the Series soon.
Oh, and just before I go, this was our Game 153 of the season. A nice tune-up for the entire squad.
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