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Week 16 Summary


Week 16 is in the books and the season has moved into the month of August. New York is the only team that has not hit the 80-games-played mark (they are at 79), but looking ahead there is a flurry of doubleheaders this coming week, including New York with two of them. Boston (AL) and Baltimore have a back-to-back home-and-home series that features nine games in six days, including four doubleheaders. Washington and Philadelphia (AL) are doing the same, including the four consecutive doubleheaders in a five day period. That's one way to get some games in.

John McGraw and Wilbert Robinson
In the AL Chicago remains riding high, having opened a seven-game lead over second-place Boston. Those two teams have nine games remaining against each other, and while the White Stockings have truly been running hot recently if they should cool off and Boston can take advantage we may have a pennant race yet. Detroit had their twelve game winning streak ended in mid-week and find themselves in third, only two games behind Boston. Those two teams have ten games remaining, so Boston's fortunes could go either way. Baltimore has started to run out of gas but has still managed to play well even if the wins are starting to get scarce. Washington and Philadelphia are tied for fifth place, so their upcoming nine games against each other in the next six days might give a boost to one team over the other. At the bottom, Milwaukee and Cleveland remain fodder for the teams at the top to chew up and spit out.

Pittsburgh  has a comfortable five-game lead over Philadelphia. Pittsburgh has the league-best ERA and is third in hitting, while Philadelphia is just the opposite. Like Chicago in the AL, both teams feature good pitching that keeps them close and they hit enough that when an opponent makes a mistake they can take advantage of it. Brooklyn was charging in June and into July, but over the past few weeks the wheels have fallen off. Their pitching has been hit hard recently and they currently find themselves sixth in the NL in pitching. Boston and New York are tied for fourth place as New York has made a charge up the standings recently. The Giants pitching as led by Christy Mathewson has been solid and their leadoff hitters, center fielder George Van Haltren and left fielder Kip Selbach and #1 and #2 in OBP in the NL. Boston is second in the NL in pitching, but they have scored the fewest runs of any team in the replay. Chicago is comfortably ahead of St. Louis and Cincinnati at the bottom of the NL, but they can't seem to get on a hot streak themselves.

Nap Lajoie (.420) continued on his pace to hit over .400, while Washington right fielder Sam Dungan, who had been dancing on and off with .400, had a bad week and is now third in hitting (.385) behind John Anderson (.386). Lajoie leads in runs (72) over Anderson (68) and Mike Donlin (66) and Lajoie leads in RBI's (87) over Ducky Holmes (75) and Anderson (70). Anderson leads in hits (144) over Lajoie (136), Anderson still leads in doubles (42), ahead of Lajoie (30), and Lajoie is second in homeruns (10) behind Pop Foster (13). Jimmy Williams has the lead in triples (15), just ahead of Sam Mertes (14) with several others in close pursuit. Cy Young (20-4, 1.40) is just in a class by himself as a pitcher.

In the NL it is a close race for the NL batting title with Kip Selbach (.391) maintaining a close lead over Jesse Burkett (.388) and Selbach's outfield running mate, George Van Haltren (.387).  This past week Burkett became the first player to reach 150 hits and Burkett is one of six players tied for the NL lead in homeruns with seven. Further, Burkett and Selbach are both in the middle of a 23-game hitting streak. Topsy Hartsel leads in runs (72) over Ed Delahanty (68) and Selbach (66), while Delahanty and teammate Elmer Flick both have 71 RBI's. Tom McCreery has 15 triples, just ahead of Bobby Wallace and Danny Green, both with 13. Selbach also leads in doubles (25), just ahead of Wallace and Delahanty, both with 24. Christy Mathewson (17-10) is on a four-game winning streak in an attempt to pull the Giants into the upper-division.

Orioles Park IV, Baltimore MD
While there are plenty of games left to play we are at the two-thirds point of the schedule and time is definitely starting to run out for some teams. Teams are still jockeying for position and there is always a team or two that get hot (or cold) at the end of the season - who will it be this year? Let's go find out.


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