Week 18 Summary (08/07/1967 - 08/13/1967)

Week Eighteen of the 1967 BBW Replay is in the books, and as the season starts its wind down, the pennant races in both leagues continue to get interesting. The twist is that it might be the NL that has the down-to-the-last-day kind of pennant race before the winner can be decided and not the AL, so these last few weeks are going to be interesting. All teams have less than fifty games remaining to be played and we are starting to see a lot of minor league players getting their callup to the big team, and it is always exciting to see future all-stars and Hall-of-Famers walking through those doors. 

In the AL, Boston has maintained a 7.0 Games lead over Baltimore and Detroit. Boston hasn't necessarily played well - they recently got swept in a four-game home series versus Kansas City - but the Orioles and the Tigers have spent much of the last two weeks pummeling each other, allowing Boston to remain atop of the pile without much direct interference. Detroit actually managed to overtake Baltimore and moved into second place all by themselves, but only for a day, as the Orioles won the final game of their series versus the Tigers this week when Frank Robinson socked a grand slam homerun for an exciting come-from-behind victory.

 

Below the three AL leaders, Minnesota is on a bit of a roll (again) and now sit alone in fourth place with their .500 record. Chicago and Cleveland are both right on their tails, but so far, none of the three are playing like they really want it. Maybe one will get hot as they come down to the end, or, more likely, maybe not. Kansas City sits right behind these three, courtesy of a recent twelve-game winning streak. The A's spent much of the season trying to iron out a decent starting rotation and lineup, and while they still aren't a good team, they are currently playing much better than previous. The New York Mets are another team that suffered through a similar process, but once they were able to separate the wheat from the chaff they too began to play much better.


In the NL, St. Louis moved past Atlanta and into first place last week and they have managed to hold that spot since. Atlanta had hit a recent rough spot and slid into third place behind San Francisco for a day, but managed to regain their #2 spot by ending their week winning 4-of-5 versus Houston, a team that is really struggling. A previously red-hot Giants team has temporarily cooled off as they ended their week splitting a four-game series in St. Louis. San Francisco had thoughts of possibly taking over the top spot in the NL, but the Cardinals successfully held them off (at least for now).

Behind these three sits Cincinnati, the team with the best record over their past ten games (7-3) in either league.  The Reds are 2.5 games behind third-place San Francisco, but maintain a 0.5 games lead over Chicago, and both Los Angeles and Philadelphia are lurking at 2.5 games behind Cincinnati. There are ~50 games remaining, so I suppose it is possible that any of these four could make a serious run towards the top, but I think it more likely that they will serve as a nuisance to one or all the teams ahead of them.

 

We are at that point of the season when the fans realize it is now or never for their favorites. Some teams and some players are going to get hot as we go down the stretch - who will it be? Let's go find out.


 D.C. Stadium 1962 Art Print by Gary Grigsby - Pixels

 


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