Week 11 Summary (June 27, 1938 - July 3, 1938)

Week Eleven of the 1938 BBW Replay is in the books, and it was another interesting and fun week. No real changes in the standings, but both last-place Philadelphia teams decided it was time to assert themselves and win multiple games. Both teams have undergone roster and lineup changes over the course of the season, and in both cases, it looks like the changes are finally making a difference. Neither team is going to challenge for the pennant, but over the past few weeks, both have become much more competitive and have stopped being pushovers.

Philadelphia (NL) Manager
Jimmie Wilson
In the AL, the Yankees' dreams of running away to supremacy were slowed down a bit this past week, with Detroit and Boston, both 6.0 games out of first, making a bit of a dent in the Yankees' lead. Next are the surprising Washington Nationals. The Nationals team batting average is currently an amazing .330. On days when they get any kind of decent pitching, they can be very dangerous. Even on days when they don't, they are still a force. First baseman Zeke Bonura has been out of the lineup for much of the past two weeks, but even after scrambling the batting lineup, they continue to hit away.

The Browns are continuing their slow descent into darkness as they appear to have used all their good luck in the first month of the season. Cleveland sits in sixth place and continues to be disappointed. The real-life 1938 standings show the Indians atop the AL (the Yankees are just beginning to make their inevitable move), but they have spent most of the replay mired in the bottom of the standings. So far, they haven't even been able to take advantage of the St. Louis collapse.

 

In the NL, the battle between Pittsburgh and Chicago remains in full swing. Pittsburgh has a slightly better winning percentage, but Chicago is 0.5 games ahead, so depending on how you want to count it, they are effectively tied, leading to what should be an exciting pennant race in the second half of the season.

 

New York went through a bad few weeks but seems to have righted their ship, at least for now. Cincinnati continues its climb up the NL standings and is glad to be out of the bottom half of the standings. Meanwhile, St. Louis and Brooklyn have slid about as far as they can go, as it will be difficult for any team to move down past Boston and Philadelphia.

 

Jimmie Foxx hit for the cycle on Saturday, my fifth (!) cycle of the season, all in the past five weeks:

 

Buddy Myer (WAS) 05/30/1938 vs Philadelphia (Week 7)

Moose Solters (CLE) 06/08/1938 vs Boston (Week 8)

Lou Finney (PHA) 06/21/1938 vs St. Louis (Week 10)

Buddy Myer (WAS) 06/25/1938 vs St. Louis (Week 10)

Jimmie Foxx (BOS) 07/02/1938 vs Philadelphia (Week 11)

 

All American League players, so I suppose that is a bit odd, but the number is the real thing here. I have had players hit for the cycle in all my replays, maybe 1-2 per season, but five in such a short period of time is a real head scratcher. Of all these, Buddy Myer is definitely the outlier. He only hit six homeruns in 1938, but somehow, he managed to connect for a homerun on the two days when he needed one to complete hitting for the cycle.

 

Washington is the only team to have reached the 70-game-played mark (71).  To their credit, you want to be playing games when your team is on a roll. A few more teams will make it to 70 by the end of Week 12, and even though the upcoming week starts with a Fourth of July holiday doubleheader extravaganza, the league will immediately segue into the three-day All-Star Game period. It's always nice to get a day off, but with Week 12 being the halfway point on the calendar, almost no teams will have reached the halfway point for the number of games played (77).





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