One thing I noticed when replaying AL seasons with no dh is that AL pitchers strike out much less than the NL pitchers; at least 33% less.
Do a team batting report with the "show pitchers as a group" checked (default setting) and you'll see that NL pitchers in real life strike out on average about 130-140 times per team per season and in the AL, most likely about half of the teams pitchers strike out less than 100 times per team.