Near Miss League Update

Cue the menacing “Jaws” theme, the 1925 Senators have closed on the 2008 Red Sox in the AL.  The National League is proving little more than a playground for Randy Johnson who has pushed the 1998 Astros ahead of the ’96 Braves.  Sisler and Suzuki are jockeying back and forth for the lead in batting.  The race in the NL East could not get tighter.  It’s June and things are just getting cranked in the Near Miss League.

AL Update

The Senators and Royals have hit their stride, while Mike Lynch’s ’22 St. Louis Browns have hit their first bump in the road.  The Browns still have the best record in the league, but have lost their air of invincibility with four straight defeats to start the month of June.  Their first June win did not come until the 8th, but with their balanced attack the Browns will be tough to unseat in the summer months.

Browns’ slugger Ken Williams leads the AL in homers with 15, George Sisler is third in batting behind Suzuki.  But the St. Louis pitching staff is still sublime.  Elam Vangilder, Urban Shocker–the names roll off the tongue–and Ray Kolp are the best threesome in the league and that includes Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz, though they are close behind.

The best arm in the league belongs to Paul Splittorff who gave the Browns something to think about when he shut them out 2-0 to end the month of May.  Kansas City is still six games behind the Browns, but Splittorff has 12 wins well before the halfway mark and his 2.28 ERA leads the league in that category as well.

The ’25 Senators have taken the lead in the AL East and are holding it.  Boston has fallen 3 games off the pace and Walter Johnson hasn’t even hit his stride yet, so Washington may be tough to beat.  Joe Judge (.365) and Roger Peckinpaugh (.361) still are near the lead in batting.  Three of the four starters for Senators whose nickname is not “Big Train” have ERAs below 3.00.  Stan Coveleski and Dutch Reuther lead in wins.

NL Update

Ron Antonucci’s Brooklyn Robins may be providing solace for the grief-stricken Indians fan as they are holding off the ’93 Phillies in the East.  But when the opponent is the cross-town New York ’51 Giants, there is only one team in the league that matters.  The Robins lost two heart-breakers, the last by a score of 1-0.  Larry Jansen and Sheldon “Available” Jones combined for the shutout.  Sal Maglie beat the Robins the night before and the two losses have trimmed the Robins’ lead to a half game over the ’93 Phillies.  The Giants have pulled to within a single game in a very tight NL East division race.

The two losses to the Giants highlight the Robins’ problems.  They cannot score runs, averaging only 3.2 runs per game.  The league’s best pitching staff has been paced by Jeff Pfeffer–8-2 with a 1.78 ERA.  Top to bottom the pitching has been outstanding.

Antonucci has been using Rube Marquard out of the bullpen primarily, a luxury few other teams could afford.  Marquard had a nine-inning shutout to start May in his only start, but with a 1.47 ERA and the team’s success to date, it is hard to argue with his role for now.

Houston has a wider margin in the NL West, leading the ’98 Padres by four games.  The Astros’ Randy Johnson has little to show–five wins, four losses–for the outstanding start to his season.  He has been a tough luck pitcher with little run support from his team mates.  The Astros are hitting the rest of the time and are near the top of the NL in offense.  Jeff Bagwell’s 14 homers are third in the NL.

The Cardinals continue to outslug opponents as Larry Walker and Albert Pujols sit atop the Near Miss League as a whole in many categories.  Walker leads in batting with a .393 average and an OBP of 1.163.  Pujols has 15 homers, five of which have come in the last week.  But no one is pitching well for the Cards and they just lost closer Jason Isrinhausen for three weeks.