Week 3 Summary (04/28/1941 - 05/04/1941)

Week Three of the 1941 BBW replay is in the books and the Yankees and the Dodgers are continuing to try and run away with their respective leagues. It's still early obviously, so teams in both leagues are continuing to hang around as best they can, and should the leaders blink at some point during the season, they want to be ready to jump into a lead of their own.

1941 New York Giants
At the completion of Week One the Yankees were averaging 9.3 runs per game. They are now down to "only" 6.8 runs per game but are clearly leading the AL in this category. Perhaps more importantly, they have lowered their ERA from 4.71 in Week One to 3.17 at the end of Week Three. The star for the Yankees so far has been left fielder Charlie Keller. Keller leads the AL in hits (37), doubles (9), homeruns (10), runs (26), RBI's (32), and is second in average (.416). Batting in the fifth spot in the lineup, Keller has cleaned up on whoever has set the plate in front of him, with Joe DiMaggio (.370, 23 runs scored, seven homeruns) batting in the fourth spot. DiMaggio has had a thirteen-game hitting streak, which surpassed Keller's eleven-game hitting streak.

Chicago and Cleveland are tied for second place in the AL, with the White Sox slightly ahead by percentage points. Chicago leads the AL in ERA (2.91) and has relied on extremely timely hitting on their rise towards the top. The Indians had an interesting Week Three - they started off the week by scoring 21 runs in a game, and then they ended the week by giving up 28 runs to Boston in a game. Ted Williams was limited to pinch-hitting duties the first two weeks of the season and only returned to the starting lineup in Week Three and Boston has already served notice to the rest of the league that they fully intend to compete for the AL title.

 

New York (NL) Manager
Bill Terry
In the NL, the Dodgers are third in hitting but lead the league in runs scored (115), 35 more runs than the two teams tied for second. Brooklyn does lead in ERA (2.44), so their first-place ranking is more than appropriate. St. Louis is sitting 1.0 games behind Brooklyn and is second in both hitting (.280) and ERA (2.68). Cincinnati got off to an awkward start, but they have turned it around recently and are comfortably in third place, while Pittsburgh leads the NL in hitting (.311) and remains right on the tail of the Reds.

In Week One we had an inordinate number of triples, but by Week Three the number of triples is still high, but this is starting to level off, much as one would expect. The other statistic that is way off is shutouts, and this has not slowed down (at least as of yet). The AL has had thirteen shutouts to date, while in the NL the number is twenty-two. If this were to continue the AL would exceed their actual number of shutouts by ~45 and the NL would exceed their actual number of shutouts by ~100. However, despite the number of shutouts, the replay ERA still slightly exceeds their actual ERA at this point. I do expect the number of shutouts to level off as play continues, but so far this number has really stood out.

 

The replay is off to a good start with a lot of interesting games. This past week we saw a nineteen-inning game, the Yankees finally defeating the Browns 4-3 in St. Louis. I am thinking this is the longest BBW game I have played in any of my replays. We had our first Tie Game of the season (of thirteen) this past week. Teams are still shedding their extra players in order to get their rosters down. Teams are also already looking for ways to improve weak spots in their lineups and there are several trades in the upcoming weeks. Hank Greenberg is going into the army in a few more days, which is not good news for an already struggling Detroit team. As always, let's go play!


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