Sorry for the long delay in recaps. Been a busy couple of weeks but hopefully a little more time available going forward for the next bit.
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 1967
Did not get to a recap for a while as had been pretty busy but I was still playing games out regularly. We now have one week to go in the schedule and the National League race is very much undecided. The Los Angeles Dodgers have won 4 straight games while the San Francisco Giants have been on a 4 game losing skid, the result of which now puts the Dodgers 1 game ahead of the Giants with a 91-64 record.
Los Angeles finishes the season with 7 home games, entertaining Pittsburgh for 3 starting today before the lowly Mets come to Dodger Stadium for the final 4 games of the year. The Giants are also home for the final week starting with 3 against the Mets before finishing the season with a 4-game set vs Philadelphia.
The American League race is all but decided as the Minnesota Twins, at 106-51, are 5.5 games ahead of the Cleveland Indians. Minnesota's magic number is down to one with the Twins having 3 games at home against California before ending the season with a 2-game set at Fenway Park. The Indians have 4 games remaining - 2 in Boston followed by 2 at home to Baltimore.
As far as individual stats go, despite this season being dominated by pitching we may only have one twenty-game winner this year. Cleveland's Sam McDowell is 24-8 with a major league leading 1.82 era and 291 strikeouts. Minnesota's Jim Kaat has 19 wins with one start remaining. The top National League pitchers for wins are Dodgers teammates Sandy Koufax and Don Sutton, with 18 each. Koufax has clinched his 11th straight NL strikeout title as he has 271, a 27 k lead on runner-up Luis Tiant of Pittsburgh. Speaking of Koufax, he also threw his first career no-hitter this season. The only other one so far this year came from Kansas City Athletics rookie Fred Norman.
Norman, a 24 year old, has been a huge surprise for the A's. He was called up September 1st and won his major league debut 10-2 over Detroit before no-hitting the Indians in just his second career start. He followed that up with a complete game, 4-hit shutout of Minnesota before beating California 4-2 two days ago. At 4-0 with a 1.06 era, 3 complete games with 22 strikeouts vs 10 walks, the A's are hoping Norman could develop into a future star but it is more likely just an anomaly as Norman's minor league numbers are not overly impressive.
The other notable pitching accomplishment in the last couple of weeks came from Dodgers 23 year old righthander Bill Singer. Singer set a major league record by striking out 18 Philadelphia Phillies in a game last week. It surpassed the previous mark of 17 set by Detroit's Hal Newhouser in 1944 and equaled by Singer's teammate Sandy Koufax in 1961. Singer is 17-7 with a 2.21 era and 229 strikeouts so far this season. Talk about an imposing rotation. Here are the Dodgers starters numbers this season as they lead the majors with a starters era of 2.53:
Code:
NAME T GS W L IP BB K ERA AVG WAR
Sandy Koufax L 34 18 8 262 50 271 2.06 .196 9.3
Don Sutton R 32 18 7 248 54 218 2.03 .212 7.4
Bill Singer R 32 17 7 244 70 229 2.21 .194 5.7
Don Drysdale R 31 17 10 235 43 162 3.13 .238 5.9
Tommy John L 26 9 12 195 32 124 3.45 .241 4.8
Offensively the big story is Minnesota's Harmon Killebrew, who leads the majors in homers (45) and rbi's (125). Only two American League batting qualifiers presently are hitting over .300 - Carl Yastremski (.315) of Boston and Detroit's Willie Horton (.304). The National League is faring much better in that regard led by Cincinnati's Pete Rose who is batting .344.