JOHNSOWNED!! Nelson was totally scared of his power. If Lou brings up Ward here..... ugh. Who do you suggest? Not pulling Dempster, that is what I suggest. Dempster is at 110 pitches. What you suggest would be foolish.
It seems that teams have adjusted to Marmol by largely never swinging at the slider and waiting for a mistake fastball. As long as Marmol can throw the slider for strikes, he's unstoppable.
The best thing that could happen would have been the Cubs winning more than 1 of 3 in the desert. I'm not talking about the Cubs. Your point is so obvious it doesn't really need to be made. You would think so, but there are a lot of people around here who neglect to remember the Cubs aren't dependent on any other team to win the division.
Williams only had 10 at bats in '52 and 91 in '53. FINE, '41 THEN :P Ted Williams, July of 1957: .440/.579/.893/1.472 Williams' September of '57 was unconscious, but he only got 33 PA.
It's also quite possible that Ted Williams (1.410 OPS in 1953, 1.400 OPS in 1952) or Babe Ruth (1.382 OPS in 1920, 1.358 OPS in 1921, 1.309 OPS in 1923) had months that good, but nobody has the split information that far back (BR has it as far back as 1956).
Sosa had a .298/.331/.842/1.173 line that June. While quite impressive, considering there have been 30 players who have a higher OPS than that for an entire Season(including Sosa in 2001), I don't think it ranks that highly for greatest months for a hitter. Without going through his entire career, Sosa's best month is probably August of 2001. .385/.469/.936/1.405. Barry Bonds put up a .472/.696/1.132/1.828 line in April of 2004, that's probably up there for all time best months. That was the best OPS month in history. Here are the other top months (as of 2004...I don't think anyone has had a month that good since then...anyone?): http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2826
In June of 1998, Sosa had a .331 OBP, to total a 1.173 OPS. Barry Bonds, in 2002, had a 1.381 OPS for the year. In that year, in August, Bonds had a .447 BA, a .621 OBP, and a .961 SLG to toal a 1.581 OPS.