Roger's 1911 APBA Replay: Week 13 Summary (07/03/1911

Week 13 is in the books and right after I declared at the end of last week that the Philadelphia Athletics pretty much had the AL locked up they went 2-7 this week, including losing four games out of five to previously struggling New York. The A's still maintain a comfortable 8.5 game lead over second-place Boston, but maybe I should temper my opinions going forward. Right behind these two Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland are all 10.0 games behind the A's, with surging New York now 10.5 games out of first place.

In the NL the Pittsburgh Pirates saw their lead over second-place New York dwindle to 2.0 games late in the week, but ended the week with a 3.0 game lead. The Cubs are in third place, but are 13.5 games out of first and may have to be content with holding off Philadelphia and St. Louis for the third spot in the standings.

All teams have now reached the 70 games played mark, with only Cleveland (78 games) having reached (and passed) the 77 games played mark, the halfway point of a 154-game season. Most of the teams will have reached this point by the end of the upcoming Week 14. Week 13 featured a Fourth of July doubleheader extravaganza as everybody rewarded fans with two games.

In the Joe Jackson versus Ty Cobb watch, Jackson finished the week hitting .533, well ahead of Cobb (.438). Cobb leads in runs scored over Jackson, 83-82, and Cobb has the RBI lead with 81 while Jackson is tied for second with Cobb teammate Sam Crawford (74). Jackson leads in hits with 162 (in 76 games played) with Cobb right behind at 144 hits (in 74 games played). Jackson has 46 doubles, Cobb is second with 21, Cobb leads in triples with 12, Jackson (and two others) have 11, and Jackson and Cobb both have 5 homeruns, with the AL homeruns leaders having 7. This means Jackson has a total of 62 extra-base hits, well ahead of Cobb with 38.

The Tigers are hitting .312 as a team, leading to their recent resurgence. Whereas the Tigers had gotten off to a slow start, Cleveland had gotten off to a fast start, then went through a month of struggles after Nap Lajoie got hurt, and recently began to regain their footing and are currently tied for third place with Chicago and Detroit. Both teams had earlier pitching woes that seemed to have settled themselves out. Speaking of Lajoie, he has returned from his recent injury but is still limited to pinch-hitting duties (and has required a pinch-runner). Cleveland fans are eagerly awaiting his return to full-time play, but it may be too late to make a serious charge to the top in the AL for the Naps.