1964 Season
April- Not a brilliant start to the year as we go 15-12 and stand 4.5 games behind the Giants in 5th place. Lolich had a bad month and 5th starter Ray Culp has been dismal, just as he was in his short stint last year. Jenkins & Cloninger have been awesome. I think they'll work it out. The bottom of the lineup, McCarver, Mota & Aparicio have been pretty stinky but the rest of the boys are hitting well. No need to panic just yet.
May- We had a really good May despite losing closer Fred Talbot for a couple of weeks with a broken foot. Culp is coming around but Lolich can't get his head out of his ass, he has a 5.30 ERA. Jenkins, Cloninger & John are carry the team right now. McCovey has 19 homers and Robinson is hitting a robust .350.
June- We went 15-12 in June and stand at 49-32, 3.5 games behind the Pirates in 4th place. The lower half of our lineup is not hitting as I'd hoped. They aren't awful, well McCaver is. Culp has slowly righted himself but Lolich looks lost out there, glad I payed him a whores ransom. Rollie Fingers went 1st overall in the amateur draft to Kansas City. The Cardinals took Reggie Jackson 3rd.
July- We had a good July, but we got swept by the 1st place Pirates in a big series that really hurt us. We're 65-42 and 7 games out of 1st in 4th place.
August- Holy macaroons, we go 25-3 in August and storm past the Pirates to take a 4 game lead in the NL. Our record is 90-45. Lolich ERA has come down a full run from it's high point though Culp has regressed some. McCovey leads the league in homers with 39, he's actually tied with our old buddy Jim Greengrass. Cloninger has 22 wins to lead baseball and he and Jenkins are 2-3 in ERA at 2.31 and 2.34 respectively. Like the mother said to her daughter, please don't blow it.
September- Wizzily winks! We finish the year 109-53 and win the pennant by 5 games over the Dodgers, the Pirates faded all the way to 12 games out. We'll meet the White Sox in the world series as they repeated as AL champs by going 111-51 to beat the Yankees by 6 games for the pennant.
McCovey finished 3rd in homers with 42 and 6th in RBI with 112. Brooks Robinson rewarded us for giving him the three hole by leading baseball with 227 hits, Julian Javier was 4th with 213 and he led the league in runs with 132. McCovey & Robinson also placed in the top 10 in runs.
On the mound, Cloninger with 23, Jenkins with 22 and John with 21 finished 2nd, 3rd and 4th in wins while Jenkins 2.33 ERA was good for 2nd in baseball, Cloningers 2.45 was good for 4th and Johns 2.84 was good for 8th.
It should be a classic world series as the White Sox have a ridiculous offense, but so do we. And I dare say our pitching is pretty clearly better. Still, it's going to a fun fall classic.