Week 1 Summary (04/10/1967 - 04/16/1967)

Week One of the 1967 BBW Replay is in the books, and we are certainly off to an interesting start. All the teams had scheduled off days during the week, plus there were a few rainouts as well, but at the end of the week things kicked into gear when every team played on Saturday (ten games in all) followed by another full day on Sunday that also included four doubleheaders, fourteen games in all.

The week also saw several potential shutouts lost when teams waited until the ninth inning to get on the scoreboard, there were three ninth-inning pinch-hit homeruns, and we have had several extra-inning games already as well. Most of the games were close and the number of pinch-hitters and relievers was through the roof. All of this bodes well to be an exciting season.

In the AL, California surprised everyone by jumping off to a 6-0 start, including a home doubleheader sweep against Baltimore on Sunday. Left fielder Rick Reichardt leads all of baseball with four homeruns and his timely hitting has been key to the Angels' early success. The Red Sox and the White Sox are right on their tail, both with 4-1 records. Both teams have relied on their pitching and are 1-2 in league ERA. Detroit, Baltimore, and Minnesota are all huddled behind them, so expectations of an all-out brawl for the AL pennant are still in order.

 

In the NL, the Phillies currently sit atop the standings, thanks to their 0.78 team ERA. Philadelphia has not hit a homerun yet so that ERA has proven useful. San Francisco and Chicago sit right behind Philadelphia, but most of the NL standings are a muddled mess. Who will step forward?

 

The replay manager is solely responsible for several stats: Complete games, Intentional walks, sacrifice hits, and stolen base attempts. Given this was only the first week of the season and there is still plenty of time to adjust their usage, but all of these are lagging already. The other challenge of a replay is … who exactly are these guys? We are all familiar with the stars, but there are still plenty of players to get a read on. How often does this one play defense versus how many times does he pinch-hit? Lefty-righty? Same for relievers. Who is going to be released or sent down shortly and needs to get their few appearances in sooner rather than later? It takes a couple of weeks to truly learn the teams, but that is all part of the fun.

Week Two will commence shortly, but there is some holiday coming up in another week, and Grandpa is going to be off to see the grandkids, so there will probably be no posting for a while. Regardless, have a great holiday and we will see you next year.



Busch Stadium 1967 Digital Art by Gary Grigsby - Pixels



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