Slow drip revisited...again.July was not a fun month for the National League WRT interleague play. The two weeks surrounding the All-Star Break were a disaster: they lost 12 of 15 during that stretch.
They held their own otherwise, but the damage was done. All in all, the AL went 24-14 in July.
The Brewers and the Dodgers, two .500+ NL teams, combined to go 1-8 in cross-league contests.
Theo Epstein had fun, however, when his Cubs beat the Red Sox twice in Fenway at the beginning of the month.
The battle of last year's league doormats (Marlins and Astros) was the other bright spot for the NL during July. The Fish knocked the 'Stros out of asynchronous orbit with a three-game sweep.
August, somewhat alarmingly, will be a much, much busier month for interleague play: with the O's-Nats rainout from 7/8 rescheduled for this coming Monday (8/4), there will be a total of 69 interleague games in August, with much of it occurring in the 8/4-8/10 time frame.There are several big matchups during the month:
--The Dodgers and Angels will play four games next week; the Pirates and Tigers will play four over the following week.
--The Braves will face one AL west leader (the A's) and one pretender (the M's).
--The Cardinals will hope to get their momentum going with a series at home against the Red Sox in a series next week (8/5-8/7) that might pit the recently traded John Lackey against his former teammates; they'll then follow up with a road trip to Baltimore.
