Just because the rotation is looking a bit wonky of late, I flip Alex Hardy to the Reserve and promote Nick Altrock. Let’s hope he barely pitches an inning—that means all is good with the starters.
After we win two of two against Cincy, the wheels completely fall off in a homestand with Brooklyn as we drop both games in back-to-back doubleheaders and play abysmally. The hits dry up, the pitching blows up, Matty McIntyre pulls up lame—it’s a complete disaster.
The mid-season blues are upon us. In earnest.
After that Brooklyn series, we lose four more of our next five. Then, just as we seem to have righted the ship somewhat with a couple good wins over the Giants, we lose Ossee Schreckengost for the year with a severe hip strain.
Rains, pours, you know the drill.
He has been superb for us, hitting 341 and rarely oscillating like some of the others have. We are fortunate to have the depth we do at the position, but Maloney will need to get it together as his buck-eighty-three to this point just won’t cut it and we need Dexter kept free up for utility duties. He’ll get the chance to re-establish himself at the position, but if he doesn’t then a trade will almost certainly be in order. And with the deadline less than three weeks away, he won’t want to spare the horses.
The Reds, smelling blood in the water, close to within a half-game.
We’ve got nothing to offer by way of resistance, losing far more games than we win including five in a row, two of which are consecutive shutouts at the hands of the Orphans in which we collect the grand total of six hits, and finally falling out of top spot for the first time in some time. Wagner goes hitless in an unheard of four games in a row during this time and is having a dirty month indeed (more below), but he isn’t alone by any means.
The only redeeming feature in all this is Cincy start going just as poorly as we are and the Cards are pretty up and down as well. Which means that, when we do finally stem the bleeding right at the end of the month and string a few wins together, we have regained the standings lead by two games.
The trade deadline comes and goes without any action on my part. I’m too tired to wheel and deal. After that (12-15) month, what I need is a long lie down.
Hot- Jimmy Williams: almost Kiplingesque in how he kept his head while all around were losing theirs, Jimmy went 353 with a team-leading 18 ribbies, 176 OPS+ and 188 wRC+.
- Fred Clarke: Cap turned it around to hit 316 with an OPS+ of 137 and 147 wRC+.
Not- Honus Wagner: while we were, almost to a man, incredibly poor this month, Honus was – relatively speaking – the worst, hitting just 253 in July with 6 RBI and an OPS+ of only 79, which has seen his overall mark dip precariously close to under 300. He is our talisman, and our best player, and needs to pick this side up and drag it over the line.
Around the Leagues- If we can take heart from anything that happened in July, it is that the A’s were similarly challenged as we were but fought back to close out the month 4 ½ games ahead of the White Sox. But both divisions are still totally up for grabs.
- Brooklyn’s Joe Kelley has 6 hits and 4 RBI in a 10-2 win over the Reds.
- The updated Top 100 Prospects list is released and two of our players feature near the top, with Nick Altrock at #4 and Charlie Smith #8.
Awards- 07/07 POTW: AL – John Farrell (Washington) 577 / 8 RBI; NL – Bill Keister (Brooklyn) 405 / 1 HR / 8 RBI.
- 07/14 POTW: AL – Chick Stahl (Baltimore) 500 / 2 RBI; NL – Doc Casey (Boston) 536 / 5 RBI.
- 07/21 POTW: AL – Buck Freeman (Boston) 476 / 1 HR / 8 RBI; NL – Sam Crawford (Cincinnati) 571 / 1 HR / 6 RBI.
- 07/28 POTW: AL – Nap Lajoie (Philadelphia) 471 / 2 HR / 8 RBI; NL – Rube Waddell (Chicago) 2-0 / 0.50 ERA / 23 K / 18 IP.
- AL Batter of the Month: Nap Lajoie (Philadelphia) 362 / 3 HR / 26 RBI.
- NL Batter of the Month: Joe Kelley (Brooklyn) 359 / 2 HR / 25 RBI.
- AL Pitcher of the Month: Eddie Plank (Philadelphia) 6-2 / 1.81 / 30 K / 74.2 IP.
- NL Pitcher of the Month: Jesse Tannehill (Brooklyn) 7-1 / 1.88 / 32 K / 72 IP.
- AL Rookie of the Month: Addie Joss (Cleveland) 3-5 / 2.42 / 21 K / 67 IP.
- NL Rookie of the Month: Fred Glade (New York) 4-2 / 3.60 / 22 K / 60 IP.
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