Week 8 is in the
books and it was another topsy-turvy week in 1901. Pittsburgh and Boston remain
atop of their respective leagues, but underneath them, there was a lot of churn
as the other teams, especially those in the middle of the pack, took turns
getting knocked down and then knocking down someone else. Eight weeks into the
season means we are 33% of the way through the calendar, but both leagues sit
at about 26% of their games played, so there is plenty of baseball remaining.
1901 Philadelphia Athletics |
In the AL, Boston is
now seventh in hitting and fourth in pitching, but they somehow managed to
expand their lead by two more games from last week. The remaining seven teams
in the AL either went 4-6 or 5-5 for the week, but out of this mess both Chicago
and Detroit, two of the better teams who have been stuck in a morass these past
few weeks, began to show signs of coming to life. Both teams also have a quality pitcher that just rejoined the roster and I am dubious Boston can keep
this up forever, so it is likely we will get a real pennant race in the AL
before this is over.
Pittsburgh continues
to lead the NL in pitching and they are third in batting, more than enough to
keep them on top of the NL, although second-place Brooklyn has served notice
that they should not be overlooked as they are 7-3 over their past ten games. Philadelphia
has lost seven in a row and has fallen out of the top half of the NL, allowing
Chicago and St. Louis to move up. Boston has begun to play better and would
like to move out of the bottom half as well, but they are last in the NL in
hitting and their third-place pitching staff hasn't been able to overcome that
just yet. In 1901 Cincinnati and New York were actually 1-2 in the standings at
this time, although they faded soon after. In this replay, they started their
fading early.
Philadelphia A's manager Connie Mack |
Nap Lajoie
continues to be Mr. Offense as he leads the AL in hitting (.456), hits (72),
runs (45), RBI's (44), is tied for first in homeruns (5) and is second in
doubles (17). Sam Dungan
(.423), John
Anderson (.417), and Lave Cross
(.404) are still hitting over .400, but we will see for how much longer.
Anderson has an amazing 22 doubles in only 38 games and his 23 game hitting
streak was the longest of the season. Cy Young
(10-0. 0.99) continues to carry Boston on his broad back.
Ginger
Beaumont finally saw his batting average drop below .400 to .383, but he
still leads Ed
Delahanty (.377) and Danny Green
(.364). Delahanty leads in runs scored (35) over Topsy
Hartsel (32) and Billy
Hamilton (31), while Kitty
Bransfield leads in TBI's (28), just ahead of Delahanty (27) and Joe Kelley
and Sam
Crawford, both with 26. Jimmy
Sheckard now leads in triples (8) and Bill Dahlen
sits atop in homeruns (4). Kip Selbach
leads in doubles (12), ahead of Jesse
Burkett and Cupid
Childs, both with 10. Jesse
Tannehill (8-1) leads in wins, ahead of three pitchers with 7 wins and six
pitchers with 6 wins.
I noted in Week 7
that Baltimore right fielder Cy Seymour
had 12 RBI's in their Decoration Day doubleheader against Detroit. After I
posted that I started to think about it, so I looked it up (Baseball Almanac).
Two players have had 13 RBI's in a doubleheader, the first being Nate
Colbert for San Diego in 1972. Five players have had 11 RBI's in a
doubleheader, the first being Earl
Averill in 1930. If Seymour had actually accomplished the 12 RBI's that is
a mark that would have stood for a long time, plus the fact there is still no
one with exactly 12 RBI's in a doubleheader. Further, it would have likely
stood as the mark for RBI's in consecutive games until Tony
Lazzeri had 15 in 1936.
Columbia Park, Philadelphia PA |
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