More often than not it is the periods when you are playing poorly but still managing to find ways to win that can make or break a season. That being the case, the early part of this month may well prove pivotal for our 1933 campaign. Our bats go cold, our arms grow even wilder, and yet we manage to win 6 of our first 7 games in July. In one of these against the Cards, we blow a 6-0 lead and need 3 in the 9th to walk off a 9-8 thriller. Games like this might still only get you one win, but can mean so much more in the grand scheme of things. That is, as long as you get back on track and start playing the sort of baseball you should be.
Which is something, as we pass through the Dog Days of Summer, we unfortunately do not seem to be able to do, as a series of what can only be described as manic performances ensues, including four in a row decided in the final inning and losses of 9-10 and 3-11 which show just where our pitching appears to be headed.
Then they proceed to throw back-to-back shutouts and allow just one run in three games in which we ourselves score just 7 runs on 16 hits combined. Then we get belted 14-6 by the Jints, only to beat them 11-7 the next day.
Like I said,
manic.
When the dust settles on perhaps the most bizarre month I’ve encountered as a manager, we have gone 18-11 for the month and neither made nor lost barely any ground in the standings.
Once again you won't find anything jumping out from across our metrics. It's simply been one of those seasons you come up against every now and then when things don't gel how you'd like them to. Still, we are right in the hunt again so that is all I am focused on for now. I'll leave looking longer-term until the offseason.
It might be just a wee bit too early to speak definitively, but unless things change dramatically the NL race still looks to be down to four, with the AL a one-on-one dogfight between the Yanks and Tigers.
Here are the Top 20s by WAR to this point:
While Turkey Stearnes no longer seems an absolute cert to claim the AL Triple Crown, he still leads in all three stat cats and also gets his 250th career round-tripper. Other milestones this month include Pie Traynor reaching 2000 hits and Freddie Lindstrom 1500, with Gabby Hartnett also knocking out HR #250 and Brooklyn’s Don Hurst his 100th.
Awards, news leaders.
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