Week 11 Summary

The pennant races in both leagues really tightened up last week and this week they became even tighter. In the NL, Pittsburgh and Brooklyn took turns knocking each other out of first place over the past week and at the end of the week, they both found that someone else was in first place. Philadelphia has been on a tear and has won its last nine consecutive games and currently sits atop the NL, but only by the slimmest of leads. Chicago is in fourth place in the NL, but has lost their last four and they are four games under .500 - someone out of those bottom five teams are going to go on a hot streak here eventually, but I don't think any of those teams are going to challenge the three at the top.

1901 Milwaukee Brewers

In the AL, it is one of those anomalies where Boston has the better winning percentage but is one-half game behind Chicago in the standings. These two have been trading the top spot for the past two weeks, but if either of them should falter a red-hot Baltimore team is right on their tail. The Orioles have won nine in a row as well and have taken over the AL lead in hitting. Similar to the NL, of the teams below those top three you have to figure someone is going to get hot and make a move up the standings at some point, but I am thinking the top two are pretty safe in that regard and we'll see if Baltimore can maintain its momentum.

Nap Lajoie (.459) still leads the AL in hitting, ahead of John Anderson (.428) and Sam Dungan (.424.). There aren't any more .400 hitters remaining, but of the next four hitters, three are from Baltimore. Lajoie still leads in runs (60) and RBI's (61) and is tied with Anderson for hits (101). Anderson leads in doubles (30) over Lajoie (20), but Lajoie still has the homerun lead (9). Sam Mertes (10) and Fred Hartman (9) from Chicago lead the AL in triples, with plenty of competition right behind them. Cy Young (14-1, 1.36) continues to almost singlehandedly prop up Boston.

Milwaukee Player-Manager Hugh Duffy

In the NL, St. Louis outfielder Jesse Burkett has been on a hitting binge over the past few weeks and is currently hitting .403, ahead of Ed Delahanty and Ginger Beaumont, both at .382. Burkett leads in hits (104) and is tied for first in homeruns (6) with Elmer Flick and Bill Dahlen. Delahanty leads in runs scored (54) but is now second in RBI's (47), behind teammate Flick (50). Brooklyn teammates Tom McCreery (12) and Jimmy Sheckard (11) lead in triples. Burkett and Delahanty are also tied for the lead in doubles (15), a list that also includes Bobby Wallace and Kip Selbach. Jack Powell (11-4) and Doc White (11-5) lead the NL pitchers, but there are four pitchers right behind them with ten wins and three more after that with nine.

Two teams - Baltimore and Washington - haven't reached the 50 games played mark yet, but in a 140 game season, all teams have now surpassed the 33% games played mark. At the completion of this coming week, the replay will be at the 50% mark as far as the calendar goes, so both leagues are still well behind when it comes to games played. The NL has seen quite a few doubleheaders over the past two weeks to begin to address this, but both leagues have some serious catching up to do yet. The Fourth of July is coming up next week and there will be doubleheaders for everyone, so every little bit helps.

So while there are a lot of games left to play almost every team is experiencing problems with injuries. Not necessarily long term injuries (although there are some of those) but the kind of bumps and bruises that are serious enough to keep a player out for a week or so, and if a team should experience multiple injuries it can get rough. Many teams rely on the use of a pitcher (or two) to cover another position and will shuffle their other position players around to cover a key spot as needed. Teams do reach out and sign a free agent occasionally, but they certainly aren't proactive about it and the benches are extremely thin to begin with. The teams at the top of the standings in both leagues also tend to be the teams with the fewest injuries, although Pittsburgh has been without its regular shortstop and third baseman for the past few games and they have struggled.

Note: The picture was titled Lloyd Street Grounds, but the picture was labeled Borchert Field. Both fields were in use in Milwaukee during this time frame.

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