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Week 20 Summary (08/26/1957 - 09/01/0957)

Week 20 is in the books and we have only four weeks remaining. All of the teams (except the Cubs) will be at or passed the 130 games played mark after tomorrow (it's a Doubleheader Monday as it is Labor Day and everybody will play two). Of course, if it's Labor Day, that means the calendar has now reached September.

The Braves ended last week with a 4.0 game lead over St. Louis and ended this week with a 4.5 games lead. Stan Musial will be out for another week so things aren't running smoothly for the Cardinals, but they are managing to hold on while the Braves seemed to have found that higher gear they couldn’t get to earlier in the season. The Dodgers have continued to play well over the past few weeks and have now passed Pittsburgh into third place in the standings. The Pirates have already surpassed their actual 1957-win total (67-to-62) but don’t want to fall any farther. Philadelphia swept a doubleheader at home versus Pittsburgh on Sunday and now have a half-game lead over Cincinnati and those two will likely duke it out for fifth place (which really may be the thing that will allow Pittsburgh to remain in fourth place). The Cubs had temporarily climbed up into sixth place a few weeks ago, but are now 3.5 games behind the sixth-place Reds, and New York is 8.5 games behind the Cubs, so last place appears to be a lock at this point.

 

The White Sox are still dominating the AL, but the Yankees have snuck to within 3.5 games of Chicago. New York took 2-of-3 in Chicago this past week, but these two teams only have two games remaining, but those two games could end up being very important before it is over. Boston has opened up a 2.5 game lead over fourth-place Detroit, but Ted Williams is going to miss the next two weeks so the Tigers will get their chance to reclaim third place. Baltimore is on a bit of an island in fifth place, as is Cleveland in sixth. Washington had temporarily moved ahead of seventh-place Kansas City as of a few weeks ago, but both have now settled back into their most common standings position.

 

Ted Williams triple crown watch: Williams is hitting an ML leading .421, he leads in RBI's (114) over Mickey Mantle (107), and is second in homeruns (36) behind Roy Sievers (39). Of course, sitting on the bench for the next two weeks will preserve the batting average, but it won’t help his RBI or homerun totals. I think we can pretty much write this off at this point.

 

So yes, things are starting to draw to a close. No teams have actually completed their season series against any other team year, but some have played 21 of their 22 games. The Cubs have nine games left versus the Braves and Pittsburgh has ten games remaining versus New York, but those are the outliers. The White Sox have eight remaining home games and seventeen road games, and the Yankees have almost the exact opposite (15 home and nine away). Of course, the White Sox have a better home record than road record … all I am saying it ain't over 'til it's over.


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