Week 8 Summary (June 6, 1938 - June 12, 1938)

Week Eight of the 1938 BBW Replay is in the books, and another exciting week it was. The hitters have loosened up in the warm summer heat, and teams are routinely pounding the opposing pitchers, especially if they can get into a team's bullpen. All teams surpassed the 40-games-played mark, two have reached the 50-games-played mark, but according to the calendar, if we have played eight weeks of a twenty-four-week season, everyone should be over the 50-game mark. We will get there, but that means there are still plenty of games left to play. 

New York (NL) Manager
Bill Terry
In the AL, the Yankees have suddenly decided to dominate as they ended the week with eight consecutive wins and have opened a 3.5 games lead over second-place Detroit. New York's pitching has solidified, their offense has taken off, and the rest of the league can only look on in wonder. Detroit and Boston are fighting for second, while Washington, which just saw their ten-game winning streak ended, has climbed past Cleveland and St. Louis into fourth place. Cleveland feels they should be doing better in the standings, but they keep experiencing periods of malaise, while St. Louis, which spent several weeks atop the AL early in the season, are slowly sinking to their expected finish towards the bottom of the AL. The big highlight of this past week was a second Cycle of the 1938 season, completed by Cleveland left fielder Moose Solters,

In the NL, it is one of those curiosities where Chicago has a 0.5 games lead over Pittsburgh, but Pittsburgh has a better winning percentage. It seems likely these two will duel it out for the remainder of the season before the NL pennant can be determined. New York has struggled through several tough weeks recently, and as much as they would love to move back into the lead in the NL, they are going to have to recover some of the spark they have lost. St. Louis and Brooklyn were playing a bit over their heads for the early part of the season, but they have recently started easing back down the NL standings as expected, while Cincinnati, once at the bottom of the NL, has spent the past few weeks slowly climbing upwards.

 

At the eight-week point of the schedule, the ERAs for both leagues is up around a half-run per game over the actual ERA. The batting average in the AL is up by .014 points, while the NL is up 0.22 points, and the projections for final runs scored in the AL is well ahead of actual; in the NL, the projection is lagging. The 1938 season is a power-packed season, somewhat reminiscent of 1930, but I did not re-grade pitchers like I have done in other seasons, so if teams can knock out the starter and get into the beleaguered bullpen, it is open season for the poorly graded relievers.

 

New York Giants
The other observation is that error totals and double plays are lagging as well, just like in every other replay I have completed. From a day-to-day game-playing perspective, I see plenty of errors and double plays, but when I take a step back and look at the league totals, the numbers are just way off, and it is not even close. I don't have any answers here; it is just an acknowledgment.

Even though there are plenty of games yet to make up, Week Nine starts off with a travel day, so a much-needed off day for everybody. The NL East teams will return to the East Coast, while in the AL, it is the West teams that will be returning home to the Midwest. Enjoy your train ride and sleeping in your home bed, but on Tuesday, play resumes, and I see plenty of doubleheaders on the schedule over the next several weeks. Let's go play!



 


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