Week (or two) in Review - American League thru April 28, 1929

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And with that…we are off and running.  As I mentioned in my introductory post, I’m still working out precisely how I want to post updates, but for now I like the idea of doing weekly updates with standings, recaps of some of the past games, league leaders, and highlighting some of the best performers during the week.  This post will actually be the first two seeks of the season, as the initial week was abbreviated so I thought it best go ahead and play the next week as well.  So with that out of the way, let’s take a look at the standings early in this season, up through games played on April 28, 1929:

American League                                    

Team         W   L   GB   PCT  Home  Road Strk  L10

Senators      7   2    ---    778   4-1       3-1   L-1   7-2    

Athletics     6   3    1.0   667   3-1        3-2  W-4  6-3  

Indians       7   4     1.0   636   4-2        3-2  W-1  6-4      

Tigers         7   6     2.0   538   2-3        5-3  L-1  6-4      

Yankees      4   4     2.5   500   1-2        3-2  W-1  4-4 

Browns       5   7     3.5   417   3-5        2-2  W-1  4-6

White Sox    4   6    3.5  400    2-2        2-4  L-1  4-6   

Red Sox        0   8    6.5  000   0-5         0-3  L-8  0-8 

A link to the actual standings standings on this date in 1929 is here (thanks to Baseball-Reference, as always, for the incredible info/data they provide.  There is clearly some early season variance, which I think is to be expected, but outside of the top and bottom teams in our replay standings, they look pretty close.  The Senators are off to a scorching start, whereas in real life they were sitting at 3-6 at this early stage in the season.  Conversely, the Red Sox have yet to log a win, although they have played a few close games.  The Red Sox were not a great team in 1929 (finishing the year 58-96), but in the actual season they did have 3 wins at this point.  Based on how their season went, I'm not too concerned about that one a at the moment.

AL Batting Leaders

There are some impressive offensive numbers to start the year - let's take a look at the leaders:









AL Pitching Leaders

 

Players of the Week (note: these are almost always going to be hitters/offensive players, it's just how my mind works and the stats that most interest me)


Lew Fonseca, Cleveland Indians * (AL Player of the Week) - He did win the batting title in 1929, so it should be no surprise that he starts the season hot.  Fonseca is currently riding a 10-game hit streak and has slashing at .422/.435/.689 at this early stage.  His OPS of 1.124 is fourth the AL.  Oh, and by the way, he leads the league in RBI with 14 and stolen bases with 4.  And hit a walk off triple to win the game of the week (see below).  There were some outstanding performers to start the year, and some strong competition for Player of the Week (also see below), but I have to give the nod to Fonseca, particularly with the Indians off to a 7-4 start.

Lefty Grove, Philadelphia Athletics - All Grove did to start the season was go 2-0, pitching two complete games and one shutout, while striking out a league a league-leading 13 batters.  Grove truly did have a monstrous 1929 season (149 ERA+, 7.3 WAR), so it's no surprise to have such a hot start.

Lu Blue, St. Louis Browns - On April 20th, in just his team's fifth game of the season, Lu Blue hit for the cycle against the Detroit Tigers.  While that is quite a feat, he has remained hot ever since, slashing at .347/.439/.714, blasting 3 home runs (tied for the league lead), and knocking in 17 runs.  His 1.153 OPS is second in the league.

Bing Miller, Philadelphia Athletics - In terms of individual performance (and those who believe RBIs have no value in evaluating individual performance), a strong case could be made for Miller as AL Player of the Week.  Through the first two weeks of the season, Miller leads the AL in batting average (.486), slugging (.714), and OPS (1.240).  Because of the strength of the A's lineup, he isn't getting as many opportunities to drive in runs, as he has only 4 RBI, but he's certainly delivering at the plate.

Game of the Week

4/22/1929
Chicago White Sox (2-3) at Cleveland Indians (3-2)

Teams        1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11   R  H  E
----------- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  -- -- --
White Sox    0  0  0  0  2  0  1  0  0  0  0   3  6  1
Indians      0  2  0  0  0  0  0  1  0  0  1   4 15  0

A close game all the way, with the Indians White Sox grabbing the lead in the top of the 8th, only for the Indians to tie it back up in the bottom of the inning.  The teams were then scoreless until the bottom of the 11th, when AL Player of the Week Lew Fonseca came to the plate with a man on first and no outs.  Fonseca smashed a ball into the outfield, hitting a walk off triple for the win.


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