So, urged on, I decided to forge ahead unchanged, and in the short term it wasn't pretty. I dropped five straight, and one day when Williams was exhausted I had to field a lineup that looked like this.
However, mercifully the other top contenders didn't take full advantage, and the bunch of scrubs actually managed to pull off something amazing, sweeping a double header against the White Sox, behind Walt Dropo, Dom Dimaggio, and Ted Williams all finding their home run strokes, and some very nice work by Mickey McDermott in game 2, pitching through a day-to-day injury of his own. I then got Pesky back, and he came back big, going 3-4 with 3 RBI and 3 runs scored in a 12-8 slugfest (that also featured 2 HR from Dropo) and going 2-4 the following day. Goodman is nearly back as well, and Mays should be in another two weeks or so. Vollmer and Stephens are basically done for the year, and Doerr will be another month, but this might just work.