1973 Season
April- Well how about this, that Mets team looks to be aiming for us. We go 21-6 but are a game behind the Mets. The Mets are helmed by a strong starting staff of Don Sutton, Doyle Alexander and Mike Flanagan. On offense they're powered by youngsters Jose Cruz and Al Oliver and veteran power hitter Bill Roman. I don't expect them to hang with us all year, but it's nice to see some competition. We lost closer Bill Champion for two weeks with a sprained back.
May- Hmmm, we finish May 42-12 and we're 3.5 games back. The Mets are an amazing 47-10. Dick Simpson and Tim McCarver are really struggling, both hitting under .235 though Simpson does have 12 homers. Gary Matthews is playing fine and Julian Javier is hitting .342. Mike Caldwells 4.75 ERA is a concern.
We lost SP Don Durham for a few weeks with a broken foot. Heralded prospect Eric Reich took his place.
On May 31st, at home against the Expos, Willie McCovey hit his 500th home run.
June- We finish June 61-20 and STILL 3.5 games behind the Mets. We suffer a big loss when Julian Javier hurts his hip and will miss between 6-8 weeks. Rod Carew takes over at 2B. When Don Durham returns he takes Mike Caldwells rotation spot as Eric Raich has proven more than capable of starting.
Our pitching has been great but our 4-5-6 hitters have struggled some. Robin Yount went 1st in the amateur draft to the Astros. Jack Morris went 2nd to the Brewers.
July- We end the month 77-28, 5 games out. This is getting silly now, that team can't be this good. We actually closed to within half a game of them early in the month but they pulled away some now.
Klages, John & Jenkins have the top 3 ERA's in baseball. Setup man Bill Zepp breaks his toe mid month and missed a couple of weeks. Willie McCovey sprained his finger near the end of the month and will miss a couple of weeks. Grrr. Dick Simpson moves to 1B and Lou Piniella takes over in RF.
August- We end August 99-35, on a 10 game winning streak, and just half a game behind the Mets, this is clearly going down to the wire. McCovey and Javier return just as Piniella tweaks his knee and misses a few weeks.
September- On September 15th we're a half game up.
On the 22nd we're a half game back and Al Bumbry has effed his ankle up and is out for 3 weeks, garhhrh. Matthews moves to center and Piniella will play left.
On September 27th we're 118-41 and a game behind the Mets. Our final 3 games are against the 49-110 Expos while they play the 86-73 Dodgers. We lost the 1st game of our series but so did they. We each won the 2nd game and on the final day of the season, Fergie Jenkins and Mike Pazik combine to throw 10 innings of shutout ball and an Ed Brinkman solo homer in the 10th inning gives us a 1-0 win in Montreal. At the same time, the Dodgers beat the Mets 6-2. So after 162 games it still isn't decided, we'll play the Mets tomorrow to decide the winner of the NL East. Jesus. Tommy John will match up with 24 game winner Reggie Cleveland in the one game playoff at Shea Stadium.
We would score first in the top of the 3rd on a Lou Piniella RBI single, it was all downhill from there. A two run single from Bill Roman in the bottom of the 3rd would cap a three run inning to give them a 3-1 lead. They would add runs in the 4th and 5th to make it 5-1 and behind a racous home crowd, Reggie Cleveland would only allow a 2 run homer to Ed Brinkman the rest of the way. Their closer, Buddy Harris, shut us down in the ninth and the Mets won the game 6-3 and earned the 1973 National League East title. Super bleh.
I'm extremely disappointed, but I'm not overly worried. We are getting older but I can't for the life of me imagine the Mets having another year like this one. I think this is just a situation where everything fell perfect for them. But then again, all I've done all year is underestimate them, and now they're in the playoffs and we're going home, so yeah.
I still can't wrap my head around winning 120 games and not making the playoffs. In the divisional era no less.
Dick Simpsons 33 homers tied for 6th best in baseball. Simpson with 120 and McCovey with 113 both were top 10 in RBI's.
Gary Matthews placed in the top 10 in hits with 200 and runs with 126, Al Bumbrys 115 runs were good for 10th in baseball.
Klages with a 1.97 ERA was best in baseball, Raichs 2.26 was 2nd and Johns 2.29 was 3rd. Jenkins 2.59 was 5th. Klages 25 wins tied for 3rd best in baseball and Tommy Johns 23 tied for 5th.
One last note, our finances are really bad. We lost close to $700K this year and down to about $100K in cash so we will have to do some selling in the offseason.
The Mets will take on the Braves in the NLCS. The Braves had a one game playoff of their own as they were tied with the Giants at 89-73 to end the regular season. The two played an insane 14-10 game at Fulton County Stadium to put the Braves into the playoffs.
In the American League, The Yankees went 105-57 and bested the Red Sox by 6 games to win the East, while the West was again a blistering race that the Angels won by going 90-72 and bettering the White Sox by a game and the Rangers by 3 games. In fact the Twins finished in last place, 6 games out of first, that's how crazy that division was.
1973 Phillies Hitting
Code:
1973 Batting Team G AVG AB H 2B 3B HR BB K SB CS R RBI SLG OBP
Matthews, Gary PHI 159 .309 648 200 29 5 23 82 85 18 5 126 82 .475 .386
Bumbry, Al PHI 140 .313 576 180 35 4 8 75 64 34 7 115 58 .429 .389
Javier, Julian PHI 123 .314 503 158 21 5 9 35 50 9 2 81 76 .429 .358
Simpson, Dick PHI 158 .253 604 153 16 4 33 75 140 5 10 80 120 .457 .341
Brinkman, Ed PHI 160 .263 581 153 18 5 19 54 60 4 4 82 89 .410 .324
Hebner, Richie PHI 153 .281 501 141 17 0 27 93 63 1 0 91 66 .477 .399
McCarver, Tim PHI 139 .255 541 138 25 4 10 42 50 3 3 64 63 .372 .311
McCovey, Willie PHI 136 .254 520 132 19 5 26 75 80 0 0 91 113 .460 .355
Carew, Rod PHI 58 .330 209 69 12 2 1 17 28 7 0 28 27 .421 .377
Piniella, Lou PHI 44 .376 125 47 7 2 1 15 10 2 2 22 16 .488 .448
Jenkins, Fergie PHI 33 .237 97 23 7 0 3 2 26 1 0 11 12 .402 .248
Luzinski, Greg PHI 58 .275 80 22 6 1 3 15 9 0 1 16 22 .488 .394
John, Tommy PHI 33 .198 91 18 1 0 1 5 20 0 0 7 5 .242 .240
Campaneris, Bert PHI 22 .298 57 17 2 2 1 4 7 3 2 7 15 .456 .344
Oates, Johnny PHI 25 .288 59 17 1 0 1 5 4 0 1 3 7 .356 .338
Raich, Eric PHI 24 .206 68 14 3 0 0 2 17 0 0 6 4 .250 .229
Hosley, Tim PHI 29 .239 46 11 2 0 2 10 7 0 0 8 8 .413 .375
Klages, Fred PHI 31 .108 93 10 4 0 0 5 28 0 0 3 9 .151 .152
Martin, Jerry PHI 11 .280 25 7 0 0 0 2 8 1 0 5 4 .280 .321
Belanger, Mark PHI 7 .353 17 6 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 2 2 .353 .353
Durham, Don PHI 28 .082 73 6 0 0 0 3 25 0 0 5 4 .082 .118
Caldwell, Mike PHI 11 .143 35 5 0 0 0 0 13 0 0 3 0 .143 .143
Champion, Bill PHI 51 .333 6 2 0 0 0 1 3 0 0 0 1 .333 .429
Roberts, Dave PHI 4 .200 5 1 0 0 0 1 3 0 0 0 0 .200 .333
Henderson, Steve PHI 1 .000 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000
Skidmore, Roe PHI 2 .000 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 .000 .000
Zepp, Bill PHI 27 .000 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000
Musgraves, Dennis PHI 13 .000 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 .000 .000
Pazik, Mike PHI 12 .000 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .333
Lauzerique, George PHI 2 .000 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000
1973 Phillies Pitching
Code:
1973 Pitching Team IP ERA G GS W L SV K BB R/9
Jenkins, Fergie PHI 274.2 2.59 33 33 21 5 0 206 33 8.36
John, Tommy PHI 267.2 2.29 33 33 23 9 0 172 36 8.98
Klages, Fred PHI 256.1 1.97 31 31 25 3 0 199 38 7.90
Durham, Don PHI 211.0 3.28 28 28 17 7 0 141 68 10.28
Raich, Eric PHI 187.1 2.26 24 24 17 4 0 108 33 8.70
Caldwell, Mike PHI 86.2 4.47 11 11 7 4 0 37 15 10.90
Champion, Bill PHI 70.2 2.55 51 0 1 4 18 45 18 10.83
Zepp, Bill PHI 38.0 0.71 27 0 6 3 7 15 9 9.47
Pazik, Mike PHI 22.0 1.23 12 0 2 0 1 8 6 6.95
Musgraves, Dennis PHI 18.1 1.96 13 0 1 1 3 10 8 11.78
Roberts, Dave PHI 15.1 11.15 4 3 0 3 0 7 6 21.13
Henninger, Rick PHI 5.0 5.40 3 0 0 0 0 2 0 10.80
Lauzerique, George PHI 3.2 2.45 2 0 0 0 0 2 3 19.64