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July 1 1961
The team has fallen back to 5th place at 35-36 after a 12-15 June. The month was characterized by scoring fewer runs and allowing more.
In player news, 3B Don Hoak is hitting a surprising .321. LF Bob Skinner is hittng the same. Prior plans were to upgrade to a power hitter at LF but Skinner is hanging in there. C Smokey Burgess is hitting an even .300 while 2B Bill Mazeroski is at .299.
RF Roberto Clemente is having a poor year (for him) hitting .272. This is 79 points below his actual 1961 batting average of .351 which won him his first of four NL batting titles.
CF Richie Ashburn has not converted his better ratings into better performance than Bill Virdon. He's hiiting .262. Ashburn is 34 years old and wants a big multi year contract so I'm not keeping him for 62.
Except for Rocky Nelson (.323) the bench players are hitting under .219. But still the biggest problem is run prevention. It appears much of this is due to poor fielding.
Don Hoak, Bob Skinner, Smokey Burgess, Roberto Clemente, Richie Ashburn
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