July 1 - How's It Going? - American League Pitching Leaders

 

Doc Medich is doing his part to keep the Yankees close in the AL East. Medich is 15-2 with a 1.77 ERA at the beginning of July. Luis Tiant, These were the days of teams with multiple 20-game winners. Several pitchers are on track to reach that goal this season.

July 1 - How's It Going? American League Batting Leaders

 

In the American League batting race, Rod Carew is on top as usual.

The biggest surprise on this first page of leaders is probably seeing Bucky Dent  in the top ten in batting average.

Wow -- Dave Duncan already has 17 home runs. There are a lot of Cleveland players on the leader boards. Too bad for them that their pitching is having a tough time.

July 1 - How's It Going? American League

 

For some strange reason I didn't make note of how things were going at the end of each month until I got to July 1. So it's a bit of a fast forward here.

The Boston Red Sox are off to a great start and are leading the East by 3 1/2 games. Luis Tiant has been lights out and will probably end up being the starter for the All Star Game. Baltimore, the real-life division winners, have struggled out of the gate and are barely at .500. Inconsistent starting pitching from Jim Palmer and Dave McNally has been a problem along with an offense that doesn't quite click. The biggest underperformers so far have been the Detroit Tigers. In real life at this point they were 38-36 but in the replay they are an atrocious 22-52!

In the West, Oakland is leading as expected. The Chicago White Sox were right up there with the A's for the first 2 1/2 months but they have been tailing off lately.

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