[b]The Pennant Race Heats... Well, It's Sort of A Race[/b
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America/Asia Standings
American Division
Team W L PCT GB Home Away XInn 1Run M#
Chicago Defenders 64 35 .646 - 31-17 33-18 5-1 18-11 57
Cincinnati Reds 57 42 .576 7.0 28-23 29-19 5-2 14-7
New York Giants 47 52 .475 17.0 26-22 21-30 5-1 16-14
USA Baseball Engineers 35 64 .354 29.0 21-30 14-34 3-3 9-15
Pioneer Division
Team W L PCT GB Home Away XInn 1Run M#
RC Mounted Baseballists 66 33 .667 - 32-16 34-17 2-5 13-14 52
Mexico City Aztecs 54 45 .545 12.0 27-24 27-21 2-7 11-15
Tokyo Rising Sun 51 48 .515 15.0 26-22 25-26 6-9 18-20
Shanghai Dragons 43 56 .434 23.0 26-25 17-31 7-3 18-16
Rio de Janeiro Carnival 42 57 .424 24.0 18-30 24-27 2-4 13-11
Sydney Outback 36 63 .364 30.0 19-32 17-31 4-6 10-17
European League Standings
Euro West
Team W L PCT GB Home Away XInn 1Run M#
Paris Revolutions 66 33 .667 - 31-17 35-16 8-0 17-14 56
Brussels Painters 58 41 .586 8.0 27-24 31-17 5-2 19-9
Amsterdam Admirals 51 48 .515 15.0 29-19 22-29 2-8 14-14
Madrid Matadors 42 57 .424 24.0 19-32 23-25 8-8 15-17
London Monarchs 41 58 .414 25.0 26-22 15-36 8-3 11-19
Euro East
Team W L PCT GB Home Away XInn 1Run M#
Vienna Musik 67 32 .677 - 36-15 31-17 5-2 19-5 47
Moscow Proletariat 50 49 .505 17.0 30-21 20-28 3-9 13-13
Athens Philosophers 41 58 .414 26.0 21-27 20-31 3-4 11-19
Rome Cardinals 41 58 .414 26.0 23-25 18-33 3-4 10-19
Berlin Teutonic Knights 38 61 .384 29.0 18-33 20-28 3-8 17-17
At the risk of sounding like a broken record... thank goodness for the expanded playoffs, or else there'd be nothing to talk about. All four division winners are running away with things, and are all projected to attain 100 victories. In this extreme season of haves and have-nots (3 clubs project to lose 100), we have to look down to the teams that have a little but not the whole thing to see some real competition. The A/A wild card race is not quite as close as it looks due to Cincinnati getting an all but automatic playoff berth thanks to playing in the same division as the hapless US Army Baseball Engineers and the struggling New York Giants. Still, Mexico City is just barely staving off a Tokyo Rising Sun challenge that's based almost entirely on pitching. In the Euro League, you've got Brussels, Amsterdam, and Moscow all duking it out for two playoff spots.
The Rising Sun lead the league in ERA with a 3.53 mark, and are propelled by new staff ace Shinsaku Iwasaki. Iwasaki, known to Japanese fans as the Divine Wind, missed a year's worth of service between 1919 and 1920 with bone chips in his elbow but, now that he's healthy, ranks among the league leaders in innings pitched (#1, 207), ERA (#2, 2.52), wins (#3, 15), and strikeouts (#2, 83). Amazingly, they've been getting it done without the services of RF 'Super' Hiro Sato, whose been gone since the end of June with a sprained elbow and who has played in just 18 games for Tokyo overall.
Mexico City's own pitching staff, of course, is nothing to sneeze at. They led the league in ERA last year and are a close second this year with a 3.62 mark. Manuel Figueroa is the Aztecs' stopper, and he's certainly lived up to the role. He's 18-3 and has rattled off two separate 8-game winning streaks (he's still working on the second one). On the hitting side of the ledger, 2B Luis Vargas is one of a handful of players chasing .400 (he's at .396). LF Edgar Diaz is not far off that mark (.382). Center field has been a problem for them all season long, but looks to not be now that they've zipped off a trade with the Madrid Matadors for Felix Hernandez. Hernandez isn't much with the bat but has a tremendous glove, which should only help that monstrous Aztecs pitching staff.
If it looks like Moscow has risen from the dead, that's because they have. Several players came off of war suspension earlier this season to push the Soviet into wild card contention. Chief among these is LF Yury Pahmutov, now hitting .410 with 11 home runs in just 234 at-bats. If he doesn't win the MVP this year, it'll be because of injury or voter blindness. Joseph "The Red" Vranitsky, who famously defected from Austria in 1919, is another man the Proletariat has added thanks to relative peacefulness within the Russian borders. His 8-6 record belies the success he's had this season, striking out 97 men in 119.2 innings. Another useful cog added via other means is 3B Eustace Winschermann, acquired from Berlin in the reparations draft. He's hitting a solid .298 and has stabilized a position that was a huge mess for the team last year.
Amsterdam's another Cinderella story made possible in part by the falls from grace by London and Berlin. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what the Admirals are doing to slip into the 4th playoff spot right now. They are 2nd in the EU in hitting with a .307 average but their run production doesn't really add up to that. SS Haico Westerhout, the darling of so many baseball mavens last year with his speed and gritty play, is just another guy this year, although his 33 steals are still good enough for 2nd in the continent. The pitching has been just so-so, with excellent performances by Robert Bax (11-4, 2.85) and Dobbe Arden (10-6, 3.24) just barely outdoing season-long slumps by Vasil Bouwman (9-8, 4.79) and Yannick Rikxoort (5-9, 5.81).
And then there's Brussels, who last year just missed getting into the playoffs in their first season in the league. The Painters have learned from their mistakes and, more importantly, have a healthy 1B Gary Lemaitre to rally around. Lemaitre has blown away the league this season to the tune of a .411 average, 11 homeruns, 70 RBIs, 65 runs, and an on-base percentage of .489. It's hard not to score runs with a guy like that in your lineup. He's accompanied in superstardom by SP Onne Van den Akker, who hasn't been quite as flashy as Austria's Florian Knaus (now 19-2) or Paris' Hendri Arents (13-0 in 12 starts; how is that even possible?), but is still mowing down opponents with 16 wins against 6 losses, a sub-3.00 ERA in a 4.25 ERA world, and 15 complete games. One secret for his success is that hitters never know when to stand in and when to bail out when van den Akker is on the mound: his 7 hit batsmen lead the team.