SUPER-REGIONAL BB:  This group of regional winners was mainly made up of two franchises with three entries each:  three different Red Sox teams from three different decades, and three different Oakland teams from the relatively recent past.  The remaining two squads also looked competitive, involving a Reds team from the year following their most recent pennant, and a Mariners team that should be sporting some names like ARod, Griffey Jr., and Randy Johnson.  My hunch was that the most recent of the Red Sox teams would prevail in the finals against those Mariners; the ELO ratings agreed that 2016 Boston would take the finals, but predicted an all-Red Sox finals with 1999 making the 6th round as well.

Round four action

The 1996 Mariners were an 85 win team that were coming into their own, and they had proved their mettle in Regional #217 with two extra inning wins and a one-run victory in the regional final.  They would be taking on the 1999 Red Sox, who won 94 games and fell just short of a pennant in the ALCS that season; the Sox would send out knuckleballer Tim Wakefield (6-11, 5.08) against Seattle’s Bob Wolcott (7-10, 5.73) in a rather shaky-looking pitching matchup.  Sure enough, the scoring starts in the bottom of the 1st with an RBI single from Brian Daubach putting Boston up 1-0, but The M’s respond with RBI knocks from Edgar Martinez and Ken Griffey Jr. in the 3rd and Seattle leads.  Dan Wilson adds a solo homer in the 6th and they erupt in the 7th with a two-run ARod homer and a solo shot from Griffey and it’s 7-1 Seattle.  However, the Red Sox get to Wolcott in the bottom of the inning and by the time he’s pulled, the lead has narrowed to 7-4; Nomar Garciaparra adds a run-scoring double in the 8th and it’s a two-run game heading into the 9th.  A Jay Buhner insurance homer in the top of the 9th proves important as Jeff Frye singles in a run in the bottom of the 9th but Tim Davis comes in and records the final out as Seattle survives and advances with the 8-6 win.

The 1991 Reds fell from a Series championship the preceding year to a 74-88 record, but they had marched through Regional #219 behind timely hitting from a solid lineup; on the mound would be Randy Myers (6-13, 3.55) in his lone year serving as a starting pitcher.  The Billy Beane-led 2005 A’s flipped that record around at 88-74, with Moneyball paying off with a pitching staff that allowed an average of one run per game in their regional; Dan Haren ((14-12, 3.73) would get the responsibility of keeping that trend going.  The A’s help him out by battering Myers in the bottom of the 1st, with 4 hits off the pitcher’s card that include a 2-run single from Dan Johnson and another RBI single by Mark Kotsay for a 3-0 lead.   The A’s load the bases again in the 2nd, but this time come away with just a sac fly from Johnson that nonetheless extends the lead.  The Reds strike back in the 3rd with two out, back to back doubles by Hal Morris and Barry Larkin, and when rookie RF-3 Nick Swisher misplays a Chris Sabo single Larkin scores, narrowing the gap to 4-2.  In the 4th, a 2-base error by Swisher sets up an RBI double from Jeff Reed that makes it a one-run game, and multiple highlight reel plays by Reds SS-1 Larkin bail out a wild Myers to keep the A’s in range.  With the margin razor thin, a single in the top of the 6th provokes the A’s to summon closer Huston Street, but that doesn’t work as Bill Doran singles to send the tying run to third.  The A’s opt to play for the double play, and that also doesn’t work as Carmelo Martinez knocks a slow grounder and the only play is the force at second, allowing the tying run to cross the plate.  Meanwhile, the Reds are nervous about Myers but their top two relievers are burnt from the regional, and they opt to stick with Myers, who takes the tie into the bottom of the 9th and holds serve to send the game into extra frames.  New A’s reliever Octavio Dotel issues a walk to Hal Morris to lead off the 10th, and then Larkin pushes a single past the first baseman holding Morris to put the go ahead run on third.  In comes the infield; Dotel then whiffs Sabo but walks Paul O’Neill and the bases are loaded.  Up steps PH Chris Jones, infamous for a walk-off grand slam a few super-regionals ago.  Sure enough, it’s a 6-5, HR 1-19 on Dotel; even I can convert that split, and it’s a go-ahead grand slam for Jones and the Reds.  Myers has one more inning in him, and it’s 1-2-3, whiffing PH Bobby Kielty for the final out and the Reds come from down 4-0 to take the 8-4 win and will move on.  

I recruited brother Chuck to play a zoom game so that he could have the experience of managing Ted Williams on the 1959 Red Sox for this round four game, but we discovered that perhaps I wasn’t doing him any favors because Williams had his worst season, and two of their other starters, RF Jackie Jensen and SS Don Buddin, were out with injuries suffered in the regional.  He did have Bill Monboquette (7-7, 4.14) available as his #4 starter, who was a bit better than my options with the 2021 A’s, where I eventually opted for a homer-prone James Kaprielian (8-5, 4.07) in the hopes of reaching a rested and deep bullpen.  But it was the A’s Matt Chapman who finds a pitcher HR result first, a solo shot in the top of the 2nd that puts the A’s up 1-0.  However, in the bottom of the inning Kaprielian can’t get anyone out, loading up the bases for Bob Costas’s favorite Strat player Gary Geiger, and Geiger strokes a 2-run single followed by a Pumpsie Green sac fly that makes it 3-1 Red Sox.   The A’s strike back in the 3rd with a Tony Kemp RBI double to make it a one-run game, but the Splendid Splinter strikes back in the bottom of the inning with a 2-run single and Kaprielian is gone.  The A’s pen then holds Boston at bay, and although Kemp hits into a run-scoring double play to narrow the gap to 5-3 in the 5th, subsequent threats are foiled and Geiger adds insurance with a two run homer in the 8th.  The A’s mount a rally in the 9th and Mike Fornieles is summoned from the pen to put out the fire, which he does, and the Red Sox move on with a 7-3 victory; Buddin will be back for their round five game but the more important Jensen will remain sidelined for the foreseeable future.  

Fresh off a viewing of Moneyball, brother Chuck seized the opportunity to direct the pre-movie 1999 A's, who were a solid 87-win team, while I would manage the 2016 Red Sox, who won 93 games and the AL East.  As usual with a round four matchup, the teams were at the ugly end of their rotations, with Chuck gambling on Kenny Rogers (5-3, 4.30) while Boston’s Eduardo Rodriguez (3-7, 4.71) was hardly a sure bet either.  John Jaha gets the A’s off to a quick lead with an RBI double in the top of the 1st, but the Red Sox keep pace with a Mookie Betts single that ties it in the bottom of the inning.   However, Rodriguez runs into trouble in the top of the third, with Eric Chavez cracking a two-run triple in the 3rd, and from there it’s just knowing when to hold ‘em for Rogers as the A’s add a few more unnecessary insurance tallies courtesy of Randy Velarde and Ben Grieve.   Meanwhile, Rogers deals a 7-hit complete game and the A’s cruise to round five with the 5-1 victory.

The survivors:  round five

Given that Chuck had won previously with both contestants in this round five game, he got dibs and went with the 1999 A’s and Tim Hudson (11-2, 3.23), leaving me with the 1959 Red Sox and a rather pedestrian (and thus far unproductive) Ted Williams in support of Ike Delock (11-6, 2.95).  The A’s flex their superior offense in the bottom of the third with RBI hits from Jason Giambi and Matt Stairs, but that pales in comparison to their demonstration in the 4th, where five runs are plated including a three-run double from Stairs that makes it 7-0.  A John Jaha solo homer in the 6th adds to the damage, and although Sammy White gets Boston on the board in the 7th with an RBI single, Stairs responds in the 8th with a hit that drives in his 5th and 6th RBI of the game and the A’s crush the Red Sox by a 10-1 margin to earn a shot at the final field of 32.   

Brother Chuck had a big success with ARod and the 1996 Mariners in round four, and now they were facing an underdog 1991 Reds team that was still missing Eric Davis due to an injury suffered in the regional.  However, Jose Rijo (15-6, 2.54), who had finished 4th in Cy Young voting and had tossed a three-hit shutout in round one of the tournament, was back on the mound for the Reds, hoping to be the great equalizer against the durable Jamie Moyer (6-2, 3.31) for Seattle.  Unfortunately for the M’s, the duration for Moyer proves to be quite short, as the Reds pound him for six runs in the bottom of the 1st, including a Glenn Braggs three-run homer, and Moyer exits after 2/3rds of an inning.  In comes Randy Johnson, but he’s racked for RBI hits from Paul O’Neill and Bill Doran in the 2nd and Cincinnati leads 8-0 after two.  The Mariners don’t get their second hit of the game until the 7th, an inning after defensive replacement Mariano Duncan hits a three-run shot for the Reds off Mike Jackson, and the dice aren’t cooperating for Chuck this time around as Rijo finishes with his second 3-hit shutout of the tournament, sending the overachieving Reds to the super-regional final with the blowout 11-0 win. 

Super-regional finals

The super-regional finals featured two teams that had blown out tough opponents in round five.  The 1991 Reds were playing more like the pennant-winning version from their prior season than their mediocre actual record would suggest; they would send out Tom Browning (14-14, 4.18) for the final matched against Omar Olivares (15-11, 4.16) and the 1999 A’s.  Both teams were at full strength and had fully rested bullpens, and when Hal Morris hits the first pitch of the game for a solid homer in the top of the 1st, it looks like those pens might be needed.  It doesn’t take long for the A’s to respond, with Randy Velarde ripping a 2-run double in the bottom of the 2nd and in the next inning it’s RBI singles from Mike McFarlane and Eric Chavez giving the A’s a 4-1 lead.  Carmelo Martinez narrows the gap a bit in the 4th with a sac fly, but from there Olivares just gets stronger, allowing only two hits over the final five innings of the game, while solo homers from John Jaha and Miguel Tejada push the game out of reach.  Thus, it’s the pre-Moneyball A’s that move on to the final field of 32 with a 6-2 win, relegating the Nasty Boys to the storage drawers and earning a shot at the tournament title–if they can win five more games in a row.

Interesting card of Super-Regional BB:  The fact that this Strat card is unremarkable is what makes it remarkable; it represents what was by far the worst season in the career of the Splendid Splinter.  It’s far from a terrible card, what with a very nice .372 on-base percentage and a .419 slugging percentage that wasn’t bad at all.  Those combine for a .791 OPS in a season where the league average was .707, underscoring that Williams was still a better than average offensive weapon. In fact, he was elected to the All-Star team and received votes for MVP.  But in his 19 seasons in the majors, 1959 was the only one in which he failed to have an OPS over 1.000–a truly remarkable accomplishment.  In ‘59, he experienced neck issues during spring training, often wearing a neck brace trying to overcome it.  Most people expected him to retire, and his MVP votes may have been intended to honor the end of a great career, but Williams didn’t want to end on that note.  He asked to play one more season but insisted on a 30% pay cut because of his “poor” 1959, and he finished out with a 1960 season posting a 1.096 OPS and famously homering in his final at-bat in the majors.  Was there ever a better pure hitter than him?

 

SUPER-REGIONAL AA:  Five pennant winners had begun this group of 64, but remarkably none of the five survived the first round.  Nonetheless, a number of promising clubs made it through their regionals, including a pandemic White Sox team that made the post-season with the league MVP of that abridged year, a couple of Mariners teams from around the time of their record-setting club, a Tigers team from a few seasons after their great 1984 run, and entries from the Cards, Rangers and Cubs that seemed to be in the midst of good runs, certainly in the first three rounds.  Trying to pick a winner here without reviewing their performance to this point felt like a crapshoot; I thought that between the jinx and the pandemic restrictions the Sox had no chance, so I guessed it would be a 21st century finals with the Cardinals against the more recent Mariners team, and I gave the edge to the Cards strictly on a whim.  The ELO ratings were less whimsical, as they weren’t subject to my memory limitations, and they predicted those Mariners would best the Tigers in a close matchup and represent this group in the final field of 32. 

Round four action

Because brother Chuck had a hot hand with the Cubs lately, I figured I’d recruit him to guide the 1992 Cubs while I would roll the dice on behalf of the 1995 Mariners, who would be favored on paper as they won the AL West with a 79-66 record in that strike year.  Both teams were at the bottom of their rotation, with both the Cubs’ Shawn Boskie (5-11, 5.01) and Seattle’s Bob Wells (4-3, 5.75) forced into action by the innings limitations of their teams’ rotations.  A couple of walks by Wells in the top of the 2nd sets up a sac fly by Joe Girardi and a two out RBI single from Jose Vizcaino, and then in the third Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson start the inning with back-to-back homers; Wells fails to get anyone out in the inning giving up a 2-run triple to Steve Buechele and an RBI single from Girardi and it’s now 7-0 Cubs.  Edgar Martinez gets the Mariners on the board, driving in a run on a single in the bottom of the inning, but Girardi continues his RBI run with a 2-run double in the 5th against the Mariners bullpen and the 9-1 lead looks insurmountable.   That is, until Boskie falls apart in the bottom of the 7th; he remains in as the Cubs try to rest their pen with the big lead, but the hits keep coming; Joey Cora and Mike Blowers both drive in a pair, and Jay Buhner and Dan Wilson add to the total for a 6-run inning and suddenly it’s a 2-run game.  With no faith remaining in Boskie, Chuck has to summon Bob Scanlan from the bullpen, even though this will burn him for the near future; Scanlan does the job to earn his second straight save and the Cubs hold off the M’s for a 9-7 win and a welcome return to the top of their starting rotation. 

The 2003 Mariners were a 93-win team slowly losing pieces of the record-setting M’s of a few years earlier, but they were still dangerous although #4 starter Freddy Garcia (12-14, 4.51) did not have one of his better seasons.  The 78-84 2017 Rangers largely had a two outcome offense, whiff or homer, but had enough of the latter to power their way through their regional, and they were hoping trade acquisition Miguel Gonzalez (8-13, 4.62) would keep things close enough to allow that trend to continue.   The Mariners get on the board in the top of the first on an Edgar Martinez RBI single, but the Rangers pull even in the 4th courtesy of a Nomar Mazara double.  Dan Wilson drives in a run in the 5th that puts Seattle back in the lead, but Garcia gets in trouble in the bottom of the 6th, loading the bases for Adrian Beltre, who response with a grand slam for an instant Texas lead.  A solo homer by Mike Cameron in the 7th narrows the gap to two, but Mike Napoli responds in the 8th with a solo shot of his own and the Rangers again power their way past superior opposition with the 6-3 win.

Although my Sox jinx meant that I had yet to win a game against brother Chuck while managing the south siders, I nevertheless recruited him to direct the 2018 Cardinals against my 2020 White Sox.  Although it was the weird pandemic season, those Sox were a playoff team, missing the division title by one game and sporting the AL MVP in Jose Abreu.  Furthermore, my mandatory #4 starter, Dane Dunning (2-0, 3.97), was a solid pitcher who looked at least as good as the Cards’ John Gant (7-6, 3.47).   I was pleased to see the Sox come racing out of the gate with a string of hits off their own card, with Eloy Jimenez driving in a run on the day after he had been released in real life, and later a 3-run homer by one of the few survivors from that team, Luis Robert Jr., make it 4-0 Sox after half an inning.  However, they give one back when 1B-3 Abreu fails to stop a throw to first, allowing a runner that Paul Dejong ultimately drives in.  But then the Cards are done against Dunning; Jimenez adds an RBI single in the 5th while Tim Anderson drives in another in the 7th while not getting into any fights, and the Sox overcome the jinx with a strong 6-1 win behind Dunning’s 5-hitter.

The 98-win AL East winning 1987 Tigers were a team that belonged in the super-regionals of this project, while the 99-loss 2008 Padres, not so much.  I decided to zoom in brother Chuck to roll for the bracket-favorite Tigers to negate my tendency to jinx any good team, and he opted to start swingman Eric King (6-9, 4.89).  I had no option at all for the Padres, since they had traded away half their rotation in mid-season, and so Josh Banks (3-6, 4.75) had to start as the highest-inning card, which wasn’t a promising sign.  Neither was the tendency for Chuck to roll hits on Banks’ card in the top of the 1st, with RBI singles from Matt Nokes and Kirk Gibson staking the Tigers to a quick 2-0 lead.  However, in the bottom of the inning the Padres served notice that they would not go down without a fight, as a dropped popup by C-4 Nokes sets up a run-scoring single from Scott Hairston, who had provided much of the San Diego offense in their regional.  But Lou Whitaker triples in a run in the 4th to make it 3-1 Detroit, and Kirk Gibson homers to lead off the 6th and limps around the bases to further pad the lead, so I summon closer Trevor Hoffman from the pen.  He does reasonably well but Chuck finds his hits in the 8th, with Chet Lemon driving in a run, and meanwhile King is cruising until the bottom of the 9th, when he loads the bases with nobody out to put the tying run at the plate.  At that point the Tigers move to Doyle Alexander, put into a relief role due to his lack of innings, and he promptly induces a double play from Kevin Kouzmanoff that scores one but kills the rally, and the Tigers move on to round five with a 5-2 win as the clock strikes midnight on another Cinderella.

The survivors:  round five

As with most round 5 matchups, this one between the 1992 Cubs and the 2017 Rangers featured a return to the top of the rotations, and this was big news for the Cubs with Hall of Famer Greg Maddux (20-11, 2.18) having a Cy Young-winning season.  The Rangers would start Yu Darvish (6-9, 4.01) before trading him to the Dodgers, but they got their last measure out of him, as he tosses six shutout innings before he gets into some trouble.  The Texas bullpen bails him out and the shutout continues, but the problem is that Maddux is virtually unhittable and after nine innings the game is still locked in a scoreless tie.  Maddux goes out for the 10th and delivers a perfect inning to wrap up a 2-hit performance, but the Cubs can’t score either and the game heads to the 11th, where Joe Girardi finally raps an RBI double off the Rangers’ fifth pitcher, Matt Bush; Chuck McElroy then comes in for the bottom of the inning to dispatch Texas and send the Cubs to the super-regional final winning the 1-0 duel.

With brother Chuck visiting, as a good host I figured I should give him the opportunity to eliminate another one of my White Sox teams in a round five game, so I had him manage the 1987 Tigers against the pandemic 2020 White Sox, with both teams back to the top slot in their rotation with Detroit’s Frank Tanana (15-10, 3.91) against the top IP arm on the Sox, Lucas Giolito (4-3, 3.48).  Unfortunately, Chuck’s first roll for the Tigers in the bottom of the 1st was Giolito’s 6-5 split HR result, and he converts the split for a leadoff homer for Lou Whitaker.  Giolito quickly recovers and strikes out two of the next three batters to end the inning, and from there on out he is dominating, striking out 10 while only allowing 5 hits and no runs for the rest of the game.  The problem was, Tanana was better:  he holds the Sox to four hits and shuts them out for a 1-0 win with the entire offense provided by the first batter of the first inning.  The Tigers thus move on to the super-regional final, and the pandemic Sox’ only consolation is the reception at the airport by their cardboard cutout fans on their way back to the storage drawers.

Super-regional finals

The super-regional final has the 1992 Cubs trying to continue the recent successes of the franchise in these finals; they would have Mike Morgan (16-8, 2.55) against the 1987 Tigers with the redoubtable Jack Morris (18-11, 3.38), who received some Cy Young votes, on the mound.  Back to back RBI doubles by Andre Dawson and Steve Buechele in the top of the 1st give the Cubs a 2-0 lead and it looks like their success will continue; however, despite a strong record, Morgan simply cannot get the Tigers out in the bottom of the first.  Matt Nokes rips a two-run double and then Darrell Evans singles him home; a walk then sets up a three run homer by limping Kirk Gibson and Morgan leaves the game allowing six runs without retiring a single batter.  In desperation the Cubs summon closer Bob Scanlan and he does a fine job for four innings, holding the Tigers at bay while the tandem of Dawson and Buechele provide two more runs in the third to bring the Cubs within two.  However, Morris then takes control and solo homers from Evans and Chet Lemon add unneeded insurance and the Tigers move on to the final field of 32 with the 8-4 victory.

Interesting card of Super-Regional AA:  In 1987, the Tigers were locked in a tight divisional race with the Blue Jays, and needed some pitching help as the bottom of their rotation was getting lit up.  So, they made a trade in mid-August with the Braves, getting this guy in return for a young and rather unheralded 22nd round draft pick by the name of John Smoltz.  Although that Smoltz guy went on to have some success, Alexander held up his end of the bargain, as in only six weeks he put together a performance that earned him 4th place in the Cy Young voting and 13th place for AL MVP.  In this project, starting pitchers are required to have at least 100 innings to be eligible (unless there are none remaining, as may happen in pandemic or strike years).  As a result, Alexander was relegated to relief duty, which was not a bad thing because the Tiger bullpen was quite shallow; in the six games in a row the Tigers have won, he made three appearances totaling five innings, allowing no hits or runs and recording two holds and one save.  Perhaps the real-life Tigers should have considered that strategy, as for them he lost both of his ALCS starts as the Tigers were beaten by the underdog Twins, and his overall postseason record was 0-5, 8.38 in 6 starts with four different teams.  But here as a reliever, he was a big part in getting his Tigers to the final field of 32; it’s hard to find a hit on his card, and not just because of the ill-advised blue-on-blue print scheme that Strat abandoned after one season.

SUPER-REGIONAL Z:  There were three pennant winners among the 64 squads that began this super-regional, but only one had survived to make this group of eight–a flash-in-the-pan Marlins team that went from wild card to Series champs.   However, there were some teams here that were with a season or two of their own pennants, including the Once Upon a Time in Queens Mets, the Bash Brothers A’s, and the Killer B’s Astros.  My guess was that it would be the A’s and the Mets in the final, with the A’s power prevailing over the Mets pitching; the ELO rankings selected the pennant-winning Marlins over a Cardinals team from the nineties to win what it portrayed as a fairly mediocre group of survivors.

Round four action

The 1984 Mets had most of the pieces in place that would frustrate Bill Buckner shortly thereafter, but they faced a pretty big dropoff in moving to their #4 starter, Bruce Berenyi (12-13, 4.45).   In contrast, the 1959 Orioles had begun a tradition in their new home in Baltimore of strong rotations, and Milt Pappas (15-9, 3.27) was an enviable option to have at the tail end of it, although the Orioles lacked the offensive weapons wielded by the boys from Queens.  Even so, the O’s load the bases in the top of the 1st courtesy of some walks on Berenyi’s card, but they can only convert one run on a sac fly from Gus Triandos.  The Mets cause isn’t helped any when leadoff hitter Wally Backman is knocked out of the game with an injury in the bottom of the 3rd, but his replacement Ron Gardenhire rips a ball past the infield that was holding Jose Oquendo on 1st and that ties the game in the 5th.  Mets DH Kelvin Chapman adds a 2-out RBI single in the 6th to give them the lead, and in the 7th Mookie Wilson chops a 2-out single, steals second, and scores on a Keith Hernandez hit to add to the lead. In the top of the 8th, a Gene Woodling leadoff single is followed by a double from Bob Nieman, and with the two runners in scoring position the Mets move to the pen for Doug Sisk, but Bob Boyd pokes a squib single to score one and then Mets C-3 Mike Fitzgerald can’t stop an errant Sisk pitch with two outs and the tying run crosses the plate.  However, in the bottom of the inning backup SS Rafael Santana bloops a 2-out RBI single, and then Gardenhire drives another hit that is misplayed by O’s LF-4 Bob Nieman and the Mets reassert their lead heading into the 9th.  The game is then turned over to Mets closer Jesse Orosco, and he shuts down Baltimore in order to close out the 5-3 win that sends New York to round five with the dominating top of their rotation coming up.  

The 1993 Cardinals won a solid 87 games and cruised through their regional outscoring opponents 22 to 7, and although #4 starter Rheal Cormier (7-6, 4.33) was quite hittable, their bullpen was deep despite closer Lee Smith needing rest.  The 1984 Rangers lost 92 games but had been able to overcome bad defense with decent pitching and timely hitting in their regional, and Danny Darwin (8-12, 3.94) was a pretty good option at the bottom of a rotation for a 90-loss team.  In the bottom of the 1st Larry Parrish finds Cormier’s solid 6-5 homer for a 2-run shot, and then an error by Cards 1B-4 Gregg Jeffries sets up another run on a fielder’s choice to make it 3-0 Texas after one.  Bernard Gilkey wastes no time striking back, leading off the 2nd with a triple and scoring on a Todd Zeile sac fly, and in the 6th Rangers SS-4 Curtis Wilkerson makes his second error of the game and that allows a run when PH Gerald Perry rips a single past 2B-4 Wayne Tolleson.   With the tying run now on third, the Ranger move to closer Dave Schmidt and he whiffs Mark Whiten to preserve the one-run lead.  A leadoff hit by Billy Sample and Cormier hits the showers, with Mike Perez tasked with keeping things close and he retires the side without damage.  However, in the 8th defensive replacement George Wright comes up with a clutch 2-out single that scores the speedy Sample and provides the Rangers with an insurance run; things get ugly from there as Perez loads the bases and Parrish delivers a 2-RBI single.  Les Lancaster then comes in only to walk the bases full once again, and Gary Ward delivers the grand slam; two walks later it’s backup catcher Marvis Foley with a 3-run homer and the Rangers bat around for a 10-run inning that has the Arlington crowd forgetting about the heat.  Hoping to preserve an overused Schmidt for a possible appearance in a regional final, Dickie Noles comes in to mop up and although he and the bad Ranger defense try to make it interesting by allowing a couple of runs, it’s not enough as Texas moves on with a dominating 13-4 win.

For Friday Night Strat, we recruited our Canadian representative Eaglesfly to manage perhaps the last remaining Montreal representative in the tournament, the 91-win 1987 Expos, to face me and the Bash Brothers in the 1987 A’s, whose 81-81 record was only a prelude to a couple of pennants that would follow.  We were at the dregs of the rotation and Montreal’s Floyd Youmans and the A’s Curt Young (13-7, 4.08) needed to hang on faced with depleted bullpens.  Tim Wallach’s RBI double in the bottom of the 1st provides les Expos with an early lead, and Vance Law and Hubie Brooks add run scoring hits in the 4th to extend their lead to 3-0.  Wallach adds a solo homer in the 7th and Mitch Webster adds a sac fly in the 8th, while Youmans is brilliant through 8 innings, fanning eight and holding the powerful A’s to three hits.  However, in the 9th Youmans comes back to reality, as Mark McGwire, Terry Steinbach, and Mike Davis all poke run-scoring singles and the A’s put the tying run on base as Eaglesfly nervously summons Andy McGaffigan to try to get the third out before the lead crumbles entirely.  And he does the job as the Expos survive a 5-3 win and move on, while the A’s run ends at three wins as they head back into storage.

Strat enthusiast Kevin decided to make a pilgrimage to Endless Tournament Central for a shot at leading some of the remaining entries from the Astros franchise towards the final stages of the project.   For this game, he would helm the 2003 Astros, a solid 87-win team that lost their division by one game and who would go on to win the NL pennant two years later; however, in this round four game they were down to their #4 starter, an uninspiring Ron Villone (6-6, 4.13).  That left me to manage the 1997 Marlins, whose 92 wins were only slightly better than Houston but who had gone on to win the Series championship from a wild card playoff slot; they would have Al Leiter (11-9, 4.34) on the hill.  Both pitchers get off to a strong start, and Craig Biggio doesn’t break the scoreless tie until the top of the 4th with an RBI single, while the Marlins are held hitless through four.  However, they get their first hit in the bottom of the 5th when Villone loses control and walks in two runs, and when Jeff Conine adds a 2-run homer in the 6th for only the third Marlins hit, Villone is pulled for Brad Lidge.  The Marlins don’t record another hit, but the Marlins pen in the form of Robb Nen and Dennis Cook prove to be too much for the ‘stros and the pennant-winning Marlins close out the 4-1 win to survive and advance.

The survivors:  round five

It’s an altogether Orwellian round five game between the 1984 Mets and the 1984 Rangers, but the prospects look bleak for the Rangers, who lost 92 games while the Mets won 90 in the same season.  To make matters worse, the Mets would be sending out Rookie of the Year winner and Cy Young runner-up Doc Gooden (17-9, 2.60) and they would be getting Wally Backman back in the lineup after a minor injury.  The Rangers were hoping that Mike Mason (9-13, 3.61) would do better than he did in round one, when he staked the 2008 Dbacks to an 8-0 lead before getting pulled, precipitating a furious comeback for a 13-9 Texas win.  In the bottom of the 3rd, Gooden walks .182 hitter Ned Yost and then a single on his card is his first hit allowed; that seemed to rattle him because then Larry Parrish delivers a 2-out, 3-run homer and the Rangers continue an offensive display that has averaged over eight runs a game through the first four rounds.  A sac fly by Wayne Tolleson makes it 4-0 after four, and from there Mason is dominating.  He doesn’t allow anything off his card until a Rafael Santana single to lead off the 9th, but then he walks two and the bases are loaded with one out.  George Foster then hits a grounder towards the terrible Rangers up-the-middle defense, and true to form 2B-4 Tolleson drops it and one run scores, putting the go-ahead run at the plate in the form of Darryl Strawberry.  The Rangers stick with their ace Mason, and he walks Strawberry and now the tying run is at second.  A glance at the Texas bullpen yields no obvious solutions, and so Mason pitches to Hubie Brooks, who pops out rolling in his prime column.  The Mets then summon an ancient icon to pinch hit for weak-hitting catcher Mike Fitzgerald:  40-year old Rusty Staub, with a chance to recapture past glories.  But it is not to be; Mason strikes him out for whiff number 7, just one shy of Gooden’s total, and the underdog Rangers earn a berth in the super-regional finals with a 4-2 win.

With Canadian partisan Eaglesfly having led the 1987 Expos through round five, he had to reprise his leadership against a world champion 1997 Marlins team, with both squads returning to the top of their rotations:  Florida’s Kevin Brown (16-8, 2.69) against Montreal and Dennis Martinez (11-4, 3.30).  It’s the tail end of the Expos order that gets them on the board first, with Casey Candaele and Herm Winningham contributing RBI knocks in the 2nd and Candaele adding an RBI double in the 3rd to make it 3-0 Montreal.  However, Marlins guest manager ColavitoFan had made a last-minute lineup replacement to insert Cliff Floyd into the order, and he responds with a 3-run homer in the bottom of the 6th to tie the game.  Gary Sheffield then gives the fish the lead with a run-scoring triple in the 7th, and Martinez is pulled for Tim Burke, but that doesn’t go any better as Craig Counsel raps a bases-loaded single for two more runs in the 8th.  Meanwhile, Brown continues to work himself out of jams and he manages to close out a 6-3 win for the Marlins, and the last surviving Montreal squad goes down to eliminate their shot at the tournament title.

Super-regional finals

The super-regional final matches the World Series champion 1997 Marlins against an unlikely 92-loss 1984 Rangers team that had slugged their way past more highly rated opposition through their first five games; both starters were decent with Frank Tanana (15-15, 3.25) on the hill for the Rangers and Alex Fernandez (17-12, 3.59) getting the assignment for Florida.  The upstart Texans jump to a quick lead on an RBI single from Pete O’Brien in the top of the 1st, but then a series of misfortunes strikes.  First, the top of the 3rd inning ends with consecutive injuries to Buddy Bell and Larry Parrish, depriving the Rangers of two of their best hitters.  Then, in the bottom of the 3rd Tanana, who is cruising, is also injured, and closer Dave Schmidt comes in to immediately allow a single and then a two run homer to Charles Johnson and Florida leads with Texas having few weapons to work with.  They finally squeeze a few hits off Fernandez in the 8th, and Alan Bannister manages a squib single that ties the game, but Livan Hernandez comes in to shut things down and the game heads to extra innings.  Jay Powell enters the game in the 10th for the Marlins and he shackles the depleted Ranger offense, and in the bottom of the 11th Gary Sheffield converts a TR 1-3 against Dave Tobik that provides the walk-off RBI as the pennant-winning Marlins add a super-regional title to their list of accomplishments, moving on as one of the last 32 teams left standing.

Interesting card of Regional Z:  The 1997 Marlins were an interesting team, winning this super-regional and also the World Series, despite finishing under .500 in 1996 and losing 108 games in 1998.  This one-hit wonder achieved their moment with a collection of good ballplayers who I tend to associate with other teams, guys like Kevin Brown, Alex Fernandez, Moises Alou, Edgar Renteria, and the infamous Bobby Bonilla, whose salary was largely paid by the Mets.  There wasn’t much in the way of homegrown talent on this team, but one player who made a splash debut with the Marlins was this guy.  Livan Hernandez (not to be confused, like I do, with his half-brother El Duque) was a phenom in Castro-era Cuba, leading Cuba to the 1992 and 1993 World Junior Championships and having a dominant performance in the 1994 Baseball World Cup.  However, he defected through Mexico to the US in 1995 at the (alleged) age of 20, and given his background he was a perfect fit with the Marlins given Miami’s large Cuban community.  After one appearance in late 1996, he was brought up to the majors for good in mid-June 1997, and he made the most of it, being runner-up to Scott Rolen for NL Rookie of the Year.  However, it was in the post-season where he really made his mark, winning the MVP award for both the NLCS and the World Series, only the fourth time that had been done.  For his career, he had only appeared in 18 major league games when he started Game 1 of the 1997 Series, still the record for the fewest of any Game 1 starter in the World Series.

SUPER-REGIONAL Y:  There were three pennant winners that began this group of 64 teams, and two of them clashed in round two; however, only the third such team, the Cubs that finally broke the curse of the billy goat, made it to the super-regional level.  There were actually two Cubs teams represented here, which probably spelled doom for my White Sox given their jinx; I suspected that the 2016 champion Cubs would take this group, probably in an all-Cubs final just to taunt me.  The ELO ratings also pointed to those Cubs as the favorite, picked to defeat a middling Marlins team in round six, although the 2012 Cards were tapped as actually the second best team in the bracket, giving the Cubs a potentially dangerous rival in round five.

Round four action

The 1995 Cubs went a mediocre 73-71 but they had pulled off three straight wins in Regional #195 despite losing SS Shawon Dunston for perhaps the entire tournament; although #4 starter Kevin Foster (12-11, 4.51) had some trouble keeping the ball in the park, he had a fully rested bullpen behind him.  The 2005 Marlins had a similar performance at 83-79, and after three good starters at the top of their rotation they were now left with Brian Moehler (6-12, 4.55), whose card was littered with copious amounts of hits–but after three complete games their bullpen was also locked and loaded.  So, on paper it looked like a race to see who could knock out whose starter first.  The Marlins get a good start on that competition as Juan Encarnacion finds Foster’s solid HR result for a 3-run shot in the bottom of the 1st, but the Cubs get one back in the top of the 3rd when a 2-out Sammy Sosa triple is followed by a squib single past Marlins SS-2 Alex Gonzalez.  They add another with back to back doubles from Todd Zeile and Rey Sanchez in the 4th, and then a 2-run homer by injury replacement extraordinaire Todd Haney gives the Cubs the lead.  A 2-out solo shot from Luis Gonzalez makes it 5-3 Cubs, and come the 6th inning both teams head for the bullpen, with the Marlins bringing in Ron Villone and the Cubs going with Larry Casian.  They hold serve, and in the 8th both squads opt for their closers, Todd Jones for Florida and Randy Myers for the Cubs.  Myers makes it exciting as the Marlins get two runners on in the bottom of the 9th to set up a possible walk off homer, but the Cubs closer records the last out to earn the save in the 5-3 victory.  

It’s a Friday Night Strat grudge match between ColavitoFan’s 1989 Indians, regional winners despite a 73-89 record, and my 2019 White Sox, one of two Sox teams to still survive the Sox jinx despite a nearly identical 72-89 mark.  The Tribe had a pretty solid #4 starter in Bud Black (12-11, 3.36) while the Sox had no options and had to go with Dylan Cease (4-7, 5.79), who would develop into a decent pitcher, but not in 2019.   The Sox stake him to a quick lead in the bottom of the 1st as they keep pounding Black’s 6-5 split result, providing RBI singles for Jose Abreu, James McCann and Adam Engel, and Cease settles in to pitch some decent innings.  A solo homer for Brook Jacoby in the 6th narrows the Sox lead to 3-1, and a leadoff walk in the 7th and it’s time to desist with Cease.  In comes Evan Marshall to throw fuel on the fire, loading the bases with a single and a walk, and I have seen enough and will burn Aaron Bummer to try to stop the rally.  PH Dave Clark can’t get his Five, but he does get one with a sac fly, although it’s a Bummer for Indians fans as they can’t push across a tying run.  Bummer is perfect in the 8th, and for the 9th Alex Colome comes in to wrap things up and the Sox escape with the 3-2 win, setting up a round five matchup with their bitter rivals, the Cubs.

The  2012 Cardinals were an 88-win wild card team that came within a game of a pennant, and they also demonstrated their perseverance in winning some tight games in Regional #199; they had a variety of okay options for a number four starter, going with Joe Kelly (5-7, 3.53) against their cross-state rival, the 2011 Royals.  Befitting a 91-loss team, the Royals did not have great options at the bottom of the rotation and they hoped that Jeff Francis (6-16, 4.82) could deliver a competitive game to a fully rested bullpen.  It quickly becomes apparent that isn’t going to happen in the top of the 1st, as an RBI double by Allen Craig followed by 2-run homers from Yadier Molina and David Freese sends Francis to the showers before he can finish an inning.  The Royals try to begin a comeback in the bottom of the 2nd with a Mike Moustakas solo homer, but Freese responds with a sac fly in the top of the 3rd that makes it 6-1 Cards.  Eric Hosmer narrows the gap by a run with an RBI single in the 6th, but a solo shot from Carlos Beltran provides additional insurance for St. Louis in the 8th.  Jeff Francouer leads off the 8th with a homer for the Royals, but Matt Holliday provides the Cards with a 2-out 2-run double in the top of the 9th and Kelly wraps up the complete game 9-3 as St. Louis ends the unlikely run for the Royals and marches on to round five. 

For the Zoom game of the week, the Philly Phan known as the Tall Tactician would be at the helm of the 1965 Phillies, who won their regional to atone for their epic collapse in the preceding season.  However, they faced a formidable obstacle in the 2016 Cubs, who had broken the curse of the billy goat to become Series champions, and brother Chuck would attempt to continue his string of successes with Cubs teams in this tournament.  For the Phils, it would be Bo Belinksy (4-9, 4.84), who seemed to have more success with the ladies than with the curveball; the Cubs had a #4 starter in John Lackey (11-8, 3.35) who was as good as many teams’ number one.  However, the Cubs did have to contend with ongoing injuries to Javier Baez and Albert Amora, which put a few holes in their defense, but in this game it seemed that it was the “1” fielders for the Cubs who kept dropping the ball, one of which helped set up Bobby Wine for the first RBI of the game in the top of the 2nd.  However, the Phils could only watch in horror as Belinsky issues three walks in the bottom of the 3rd, and then Anthony Rizzo goes yard for the grand slam and it’s quickly 4-1 Cubs.  A 2-run single by Dexter Fowler in the 4th extends their lead, and a Kris Bryant sac fly in the 6th makes it look hopeless.  However, in the 8th the Phils show signs of the perseverance that got them this fair, with Richie/Dick Allen and Wes Covington driving in runs to make it 7-3.  A leadoff triple by Cookie Rojas in the top of the 9th and Chuck is starting to get nervous about Lackey, and Tony Gonzalez knocks a sac fly to put the Phils within three.  However, they would get no closer as Lackey lets the bullpen rest in a 7-4 Cubs victory that propels them on to round five.

The survivors: round five

The 2016 Cubs and Kyle Hendricks (16-8, 2.13) would face a stiff challenge in round five in the form of the 2012 Cardinals, with Kyle Lohse (16-3, 2.86) seeking to be the top Kyle in the bracket.  Even so, it didn’t take long for the Cubs to get things rolling, as Dexter Fowler leads off the top of the 1st with a homer and Willson Contreras adds an RBI double later in the inning; Anthony Rizzo adds a sac fly in the 2nd and the Cubs lead 3-0.  A solo homer from Allen Craig in the bottom of the 2nd narrows the gap a bit, but the Cubs explode against Lohse in the 4th as he can’t get an out; Matt Szczur buys a vowel in the form of a bases-clearing double as part of a five run inning and the Cards begin a parade of relievers to no avail.  The Cubs aren’t even done with the five run innings, either, adding another one in the 7th with injury replacement Javier Baez ripping a 3-run homer as the rout is on.  St. Louis makes a token rally in the 8th with RBI singles from Jon Jay and PH Pete Kozma, but the game is well out of hand by this point as Hendricks coasts to a 15-3 victory to propel the Cubs to the super-regional final.

In this round five grudge match, it’s the 2019 White Sox against the 1995 Cubs, so I have to recruit brother Chuck to manage the hated Cubs while I try to avoid the Sox jinx.  And sure enough, the gaming begins badly as the Sox started off getting crushed, but as the game progresses my scan of the historical documents reveals an anomaly–I’ve identified the round four starters for each team (i.e., the bottom of the rotation) instead of the staff aces at the top.  In consulting, we agree that it is unfair to both the eventual loser and winner of this game to skip the top rotation slot, and so it’s a do-over, with the Sox getting the far-better Lucas Giolito (14-9, 3.41) and the Cubs going with their ace, Jaime Navarro (14-6, 3.28).   And things go quite differently this time around, with Giolito being dominant in the early going.  Brian McCann continues his hot hand in this tournament with multiple teams, swatting a solo homer in the 2nd to put the Sox ahead, and then the Sox pile on the hits against Navarro in the top of the 5th, converting five singles into three runs and a 4-0 lead.  McCann adds another solo homer in the top of the 9th, and Giolito goes into the bottom of the 9th with a 2-hit shutout, but he’s losing his stuff and allows a couple of hits including a Rey Sanchez RBI single that gets the Cubs on the board.  Nonetheless, Giolito hangs on and the White Sox win the do-over 5-1; the Cubs file a protest with the tournament commissioner but since that’s me, that doesn’t go very far.  However, a much better Cubs team awaits the Sox in the super-regional final eager to make amends.

Super-regional finals

With the 2019 White Sox having defeated a Cubs team under suspicious circumstances in round five, the North Siders were itching for revenge with the Series champion 2016 Cubs ready to teach their younger siblings a lesson, with Jon Lester (19-5, 2.44) looking far better than the Sox’ Ivan Nova (11-12, 4.72).  Once again brother Chuck will roll the bones on behalf of the Cubs, but it’s me that starts off the top of the first hot, with a leadoff single followed by a double from a missed HR split on Tim Anderson.  With a 1-15 Leurys Garcia itching to head for home on the play, the peanut gallery opines that my split rolling would result in a sure cut-down at the plate, and they convince me to hold Garcia at 3rd; of course, Lester then strikes out the next two batters and a popout means the rally results in nothing.  The Sox do load the bases in the top of the 3rd, but all they can manage is a sac fly by Eloy Jimenez, good for a 1-0 lead, but a Brian McCann solo shot in the 6th and the Sox are up by two.  Even though Ivan Nova is giving up fewer hits than Aldo Nova had hits, his solid 6-5 homer is making me anxious and I move to closer Alex Colome to begin the bottom of the 6th, even though the peanut gallery point out that Colome still has a homer at 5-5, but only a 1-11 split.  Of course, the first roll of the inning by Chuck:  5-5.  He misses the split, making me feel a little better, but the second roll of the inning: 5-5 by Kris Bryant, and Chuck doesn’t miss the split this time.   The third roll of the inning is finally not a 5-5; it’s a 2-5, a solid homer on Anthony Rizzo, and the freaking Cubs have the lead; Colome exits for Aaron Bummer, but Dexter Fowler adds an RBI single and the Cubs lead 4-2 after six.  Lester is then in command, and with two out in the top of the 9th I turn in desperation to PH Wellington Castillo and point out that a 1-4 roll would make it a one run game.  A cooperative Wellington brings the beef with a 1-4, and now it’s Chuck’s turn to get nervous, so he summons the virtually unhittable Aroldis Chapman from the pen, and down go the Sox as the 2016 Cubs not only quash the curse of the billy goat, but they win the super-regional to gain the final field of 32–one of the few Series winners to do so.

Interesting card of Super-Regional Y:  Despite a lifetime as a Sox fan who has no time for the North Siders, I have to give it to the 2016 Cubs as they managed to not only break a 107 year streak by finally winning a World Series, but they also managed to win a super-regional in this tournament, reeling off six straight wins culminating in a victory over my Sox to send them to the final group of 32 teams left alive in this project.  Furthermore, their starting pitching was good enough that they only had to dip into their bullpen twice in that streak, both times resulting in a save for their closer Aroldis Chapman.  Chapman is currently in the 16th year of his career in 2025, and he made the All-Star team at age 37, which is a nice callback to the years when he was the dominant closer in baseball.  Leading up to the 2016 season partially represented on this card, he had been on a strong run for the Reds, but an offseason domestic violence charge coupled with the last year of his contract made him a target to move.  He was thus traded to the Yankees, and although the charges against him were not pursued by authorities, MLB suspended him for 30 games and he began his season in mid-May.  Although pitching well in New York, their bullpen was well stocked and so they dealt him to the Cubs in late July, where he joined the team just in time to finish out a game against none other than the cross town White Sox.  As evidenced by this card, he was pretty unhittable for the Cubs, and was strong in the postseason, at least until Game 7 of the World Series, where he blew the save and allowed the Indians to tie the game in the 9th.  However, that accomplishment actually set him up to be the first Cubs pitcher to earn the win in the final Series game in 108 years, when Chicago scored twice to take the lead for good in the 10th.  

SUPER-REGIONAL X:  Two of the four pennant winners that began this group of 64 teams had survived to the super-regional level, including the Cardinals and one of the few Senators teams to perform well in this project.  Overall, I felt that the squads in the left side of the group were stronger than those in the right, although I had initially assumed that the Senators wouldn’t be particularly good.  Regardless, I picked the pennant-winning Cardinals to emerge from the top half of the bracket and then best the pandemic Indians team in the finals; the ELO ratings disagreed and tagged the Senators as a top 75 team of all time, picking them over a strong modern Rays team in the finals.

Round four action

I recruited brother Chuck to help with one of the marquee matchups of this group.  He would manage the Series champion 2006 Cardinals, whose mediocre 83-78 record was good enough to win the NL Central and allowed them to take care of business in the post-season.  However, he faced a number of challenges, such as a dubious #4 starter in Jason Marquis (14-16, 6.02). a badly taxed bullpen with his two best relievers burnt in an extra-inning regional final, and a lingering injury to star CF Jim Edmonds.  I would direct the 2021 Rays, who won 100 games and the AL East; although their bullpen was also stretched from a tight regional, it was very deep in case Michael Wacha (3-5, 5.05) wasn’t up to the task of facing a tough core of the Cards lineup.  The Cards load the bases in the top of the 1st with one out, but Wacha gets tough and strands them all, while a 2-base error by Marquis hands the Rays a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the 1st.  From there both starters bend but don’t break until injury replacement Scott Spiezio manages to find Wacha’s solid HR result in the 5th for a game-tying solo shot, but Brandon Lowe responds with a 2-out RBI single to put the Rays back up 2-1 in the bottom of the inning.  Undaunted, the Cards tie it again in the 5th on a Ron Belliard single and I dig into that Rays pen for Colin McHugh, who keeps St. Louis off the board for the remainder of regulation.  Meanwhile, with only one decent arm in the pen, Chuck tries to nurse the outs out of Marquis, but finally with the go-ahead run on 3rd in the 8th he signals for Braden Looper out of the pen, who retires the side and then holds serve and the game is still knotted after nine.  I’m feeling good about extra innings with the depth of my pen and with Looper down to his last two outs of eligibility; Tyler Glasnow comes in to begin the 10th and my good feelings quickly disappear.  A couple of squib singles and then Preston Wilson’s two-out roll comes up on Glasnow of DO 1-10/flyB.  The game thus hinges on a 50/50 split roll, and it’s an 8; one run scores but 1-13+2 Juan Encarnacion is cut down at the plate for the third out.  Still, the Cards now hold a one run lead but they are going to have to come up with a reliever after Looper quickly records his two outs, and so it’s up to Josh Hancock to try to record a one-out save.  He promptly walks speedy Rookie of the Year Randy Arozarena to put the tying run on, but then Hancock puts his signature on the game by recording the final out and the Cardinals survive the tight 3-2 battle to advance to round five where Jim Edmonds will return to further bolster the lineup.

The 2013 Dodgers were a strong team that won 92 games and the NL West, and they had cruised through Regional #187 with three complete games and no injuries; furthermore, Ricky Nolasco (13-11, 3.70) was a quite respectable option as a #4 starter.   As such they were favored over a mediocre 76-86 1996 Cubs and a bad Jim Bullinger (6-10, 6.54), but these Cubs had knocked off a pennant-winning Dodgers team in their regional and they always do well just to spite me.  But it’s the Dodgers who get off to a quick start in the top of the 2nd when Michael Young drives in one on a sac fly, and then Mark Ellis slaps a 2-out single under the glove off Cubs SS-3 Jose Hernandez.  Carl Crawford then cracks a double and Ellis races home to make it a 3-0 LA lead.  Juan Uribe and Andre Ethier go back to back in converting Bullinger’s HR split for consecutive solo shots in the 3rd, and the Cubs summon Turk Wendell from the pen who manages to get the third out.  To make things even worse for the Cubs, their main offensive weapon, Sammy Sosa, is injured for the tournament to lead off the bottom of the 4th, which at least gives some playing time to Stratomatic legend Doug Glanville, and in the 6th they lose DH Tyler Houston to injury.  New Cubs reliever Larry Casian yields RBI hits to Uribe and Yasiel Puig in the 7th to dig the hole deeper, and from there it’s a walk in the park for Nolasco, who closes out a 4-hit shutout and the Dodgers continue to dominate with a 7-0 thrashing of the Cubs and advance.  

For the Friday Night Strat zoom, the pandemic 2020 Indians would be managed by Tribe partisan ColavitoFan, or at least a cardboard cutout of him, while the opposing 2010 Braves were more or less guided by the FNS collective.  The “bottom” of the rotation for the Indians was determined strictly by IP due to the restrictions of the 60-game season, and Zach Plesac (4-2, 2.28) was about as good a #4 starter as one could hope for.  Meanwhile, Derek Lowe (16-12, 4.00) was on the hill for the Braves, trying to last long enough to get to a strong Atlanta bullpen.  That looks unlikely quickly, as Jose Ramirez crushes a three-run homer before Lowe can record an out in the top of the 1st and the Indians are off and running.  An RBI single from Franmil Reyes in the 2nd makes it 4-0 Cleveland, but the Braves respond in the bottom of the inning with a 2-run shot by Brian McCann that cuts the lead in half.  In the 5th, Melky Cabrera makes it a one run game with an RBI double and in the 6th it’s McCann with another 2-run blast and suddenly the Braves are on top and their bullpen immediately takes over.  Meanwhile, the Tribe’s pen isn’t faring so well, with Brad Hand coming in for the 8th only to get pelted by a succession of four hits and three runs, meaning that the Braves hold an 8-4 margin heading into the 9th inning with new Hall of Famer Billy Wagner coming in to the tune of Metallica ringing through the laptop speakers.  Unfortunately, the soundtrack soon shifts to Nancy Sinatra as Wagner walks the bases loaded, walks in one run and allows an RBI single to Tyler Naquin and Cleveland now has the go-ahead run at the plate.  But Wagner bears down and gets the final out as the Braves escape with the 8-6 win to move on to round five, while the Cleveland team is returned to the 2020 file drawer, wrapped in an N95 mask.

The 1973 White Sox had survived the Sox jinx to win their regional, but now they faced one of the few old-school teams actually added to the Strat pantheon courtesy of the Diamond Gems, these being the pennant-winning 1933 Senators.  Brother Chuck zoomed in to manage the Nats against my Sox, for whom I had to pitch Steve Stone (6-11, 4.24) who might have been more effective in the broadcast booth, against Washington’s Jack Russell (12-6, 2.69), known as a terrier on the mound.  Unfortunately, Stone never gets rolling, with Heinie Manush, Dave Harris, and Fred Schulte driving in runs in the first, and Joe Kuhel adding a 2-run double to another Harris RBI single to dispatch Stone and post the Senators to a 6-0 lead after two innings.  Carlos May breaks the ice for the Sox with a sac fly in the 6th, and Dick Allen raps an RBI single in the 8th to make it a little closer, but super-PH Cliff Bolton and his .410 batting average provide a 2-run triple in the bottom of the inning and the Senators coast to round five with an 8-2 win, sending these Sox back into storage to join many of their colleagues.

The survivors:  round five

Since brother Chuck had seen some luck with the 2006 Cardinals in round four, he agreed to continue the quest in round five with ace Chris Carpenter (15-8, 3.09) on the mound.  The Cards now had a more rested bullpen and Jim Edmonds back from injury, but they would need all that against the 2013 Dodgers, who had dominated their opposition and their ace, Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw (16-9, 1.83), would pose a significant challenge.  But the Dodgers, who had outscored their opposition by a remarkable 38-4 margin in the first four rounds, strike quickly with a 2-run homer by Yasiel Puig in the bottom of the 1st.  Nonetheless, Carpenter then reels off five hitless innings and the Cards mount a few threats against Kershaw, but the Dodger ace repeatedly comes up big to quash rallies.  LA finally pieces together a couple of hits in the 7th that includes a Carl Crawford RBI double to add some insurance.  In the top of the 9th, Scott Rolen finally gets the Cards on the board by leading off with a homer, but Kershaw demands to stay in the game and he finishes out the 3-1 win to send the Dodgers on to the super-regional final.

The 2010 Braves and the 1933 Senators were looking for a pitchers' duel as they head back to the top of their rotations for round five, with Tim Hudson (17-9, 2.83) finishing 4th in the Cy Young ballots for the Braves while Earl Whitehill (22-8, 3.33) would be on the hill for the AL champion Senators.   And this time expectations were met, as neither team could muster any offense against the ace of the other team, with the game remaining scoreless until the bottom of the 7th, when Luke Sewell doubles in a run to give the Nats a 1-0 edge.  Meanwhile, Whitehill takes a 2-hitter into the 9th, but he runs out of gas in the 9th, as he loads the bases and gives way to Alex McColl to try to hang onto the lead.  And he almost escapes, but PH David Ross comes off the bench and rips a two-run single and suddenly the Braves hold the lead for the first time in the game.  It’s now up to recent HOF inductee Billy Wagner to come in and try to seal the victory for Atlanta, and for a change he doesn’t make it interesting; three straight outs and the Braves head to the super-regional final with a 2-1 come from behind win.  

Super-regional final

Two solid teams facing off for a spot in the final field of 32:  the 2013 Dodgers and Zack Greinke (15-4, 2.63) against the 2010 Braves and Tommy Hanson (10-11, 3.33).  Both teams had avoided the injury bug but the Braves had to burn closer Billy Wagner to reach this round, meaning that they were hoping Hanson would be able to go deep in the game.  However, Hanley Ramirez converts a TR 1-2 split in the top of the 1st and scores on a squib single by Adrian Gonzalez to give the Dodgers a quick edge, one that only lasts until the bottom of the second when back to back doubles from Brian McCann and Alex Gonzalez tie things up.  From there, both pitchers hang tough; Greinke gets into trouble in the 6th putting two runners on, and so I tap the strong but thus far largely unused Dodger pen and beach boy Brian Wilson comes in and successfully puts out the fire.  Hanson continues to hang tough, but in the top of the 9th it’s Adrian Gonzalez again, this time with an RBI double, and he also scores when Hanson throws an Andre Ethier grounder into the Dodger dugout.  Now visibly rattled, Hanson grooves one to PH Scott Van Slyke, who puts it into the Turner Field grandstand and the wheels have come off the Braves bus.  Takashi Saito comes in to finally record the third out, but Atlanta goes quietly in the bottom of the 9th as Ronald Belisario comes in to mop up the game for the Dodgers, who win their sixth in a row 5-1 and advance to the next round–but without 2B Mark Ellis, injured for the duration of the tournament in the win.

Interesting card of Super-Regional X:  The Diamond Gems 1933 Senators didn’t win the super-regional, but perhaps if Cliff Bolton wasn’t restricted by tournament usage guidelines, they might have.  Bolton’s .500 on-base percentage translates to a card where about 59% of the results on his card will get him aboard, and only considering his at-bats, he’s good for a .618 batting average when rolling on his card.  Of course, seeing this reminds me of the malpractice that Strat wreaked upon Eddie Murphy of the Diamond Gems 1919 White Sox (see Super-Regional T), who outhit Bolton .486 to .410 in essentially the same number of at-bats (39 to 35)--but Murphy’s own card results total a .379 average, barely half that of Bolton’s.  So somewhere between the release of the 30s and the deadball gems, the decision to nerf low AB wonders was apparently made.  I can’t help but wonder if this will also apply to Yankee players moving forward–I will note that in the 1990s Diamond Gems, the 1998 Yankees didn’t even get a card for low-AB legend Shane Spencer, so perhaps I should just be happy that there was one for Murphy at all.  As for Bolton, he wasn’t a total flash in the pan, with a career batting average of .291 in over 1000 plate appearances, and he and his teammates had a credible showing in this project, going five rounds deep before succumbing to more modern opposition. 

SUPER-REGIONAL W:  This group of regional winners had a collection of franchises that had relatively few survivors at this level, such as the Browns, Mariners, and Royals; it also had two entries from the Blue Jays who would face off immediately for bragging rights in round four, a classic Red Sox team that unfortunately had lost one of the best cards in Strat history to injury in the first round of the tournament, and a very good Astros team that had just fallen short of a pennant in the playoffs.  That Astros team seemed like a likely candidate to capture the crown in this super-regional, with the teams in the bottom portion of the bracket looking like a crapshoot to me–I thought perhaps the Mariners might make the final.  The ELO ratings agreed with that assessment, with none of the bottom four rated as strong teams.

Round four action

For this round four matchup between the 1998 Astros and the 1941 Red Sox, Strat enthusiast Kevin traveled to Endless Tournament Central to helm his 102-win Astros against a Boston team that had lost .400-hitting Ted Williams to injury in the very first round of the tournament.  Still, these Red Sox, who finished 2nd in the AL, still boasted other Hall of Famers like Jimmie Foxx and Joe Cronin, although #4 starter Joe Dobson (12-5, 4.49) was at a disadvantage against Kevin’s Mike Hampton (11-7, 3.36).  The Red Sox grab the lead in the bottom of the 3rd courtesy of an RBI single from Dom Dimaggio, while Moises Alou singles in a run in the 5th to tie the game although the Astros leave the bases loaded.  Nonetheless, it’s killer bee time in the top of the 7th with Bagwell and Biggio driving in runs for a 3-1 Houston lead and Dobson heads to the showers.  However, with their best reliever burnt from their regional final, the Red Sox have to try their luck with another Hall of Famer, 41 year old Lefty Grove, but he is a shadow of his former self as Alou and Derek Bell drive in two more; Billy Wagner pitches the 8th and the 9th and the Astros head to round five with the 5-1 win, and the Splendid Splinter heads back to the card catalogs with almost no chance to show his stuff in this project.

For the round four matchup between the 86-win 1990 Blue Jays and the 76-win 2017 Blue Jays, we had to give Toronto denizen Eaglesfly the choice of which team to manage, and he went with the earlier version to avoid Vlad Jr., who wasn’t even on the team yet in 2017.  So brother Chuck was responsible for the underdog 2017s, with homer-prone Marcus Estrada (10-9, 4.98) getting the call against 1990’s Jimmy Key (13-7, 4.25) testing the bottom of the rotation for both squads.  Furthermore, both teams had their starting catchers injured with 2017’s backup also hurt, so backstops were at a premium, but fittingly it was 90’s catcher Greg Myers who connects with Estrada’s solid HR result for a solo shot in the top of the 3rd to give the elders the early lead.  In the 4th, it was Kelly Gruber’s turn, a solo shot on his own card, and that 2-0 lead only lasts until the bottom of the inning, when Key can’t lock down the 17s who rap out four runs, three of them on a bases-loaded double from Jose Bautista.  Tony Fernandez responds with an RBI single in the top of the 5th but he’s thrown out stealing, contributing to an 0 for 3 rate on SB attempts for the 1990 team courtesy of my terrible split dice rolling.  It remains a one-run game until the bottom of the 7th, when supersub outfielder Teoscar Hernandez converts Keys’ HR result for a 2 run shot, and Eaglesfly summons Jim Acker bemoaning that he left in Key for one batter too long.  However, in the top of the 9th it’s Chuck who gets that feeling, as the redoubtable PH Glenallen Hill locates Estrada’s solid 5-homer for a 2-run shot and it’s a one-run game with nobody out.  At that point, Chuck has to burn closer Pablo Osuna, but it proves worthwhile as he strikes out the side and the 2017 Jays hold on for the contested 6-5 win over their earlier counterparts.

The 94-loss 1997 Royals were another one of those teams that seemed to have no business participating in a super-regional, but that didn’t stop brother Chuck from volunteering to roll on their behalf against me and the 88-win 2007 Mariners.  Although the Royals’ Tim Belcher (13-12, 5.02) did little to instill confidence, he was still better than the only remaining option for the Mariners, a terrible Jeff Weaver (7-13, 6.44) who had one of the worst pitching cards to start in this project.  Sure enough, the Royals get a run in the top of the 1st with a Chili Davis RBI single, but they leave the bases loaded, and then Weaver gets a scoreless inning in the 2nd and things are looking a little better.  That is, at least until the 3rd, when Jeff King rips a 2-run triple past a fumbling RF-4 Jose Guillen, and then a solo homer by Jose Offerman in the 4th later followed with a 2-run homer from Jay Bell and then a decent Mariners bullpen can finally take over to try to dig out of a 6-0 deficit.  They make a good start at it in the bottom of the 5th with Ichiro and Guillen each driving in two to make it a two-run game after five.  King ups his RBI total with a solo shot in the 7th, and although the M’s load the bases in the bottom of the 8th to threaten, they can only produce one run on a Guillen sac fly; Dave Veres comes in from the pen to earn the save in a 7-5 win that keeps the Royals run alive.

This game involved an increasingly rare matchup of two old-school die-cut teams,those being the mediocre 80-82 1973 Yankees and the Cinderella 1950 Browns that had somehow won their regional despite a dismal 58-96 record.  However, it was hard to envision any glass slippers for the Browns with two of their best players injured during the regional, and some ghastly options for a #4 starter with Dick Starr (7-5, 5.02) perhaps the least bad.  Meanwhile, the Yankees had already gotten through the wife-swapping portion of their rotation, and they figured that Pat Dobson (9-8, 4.24) might be able to handle the Browns and keep swingman Lindy McDaniel available for relief work.  That decision is called into question when the second batter of the game, Dick Kokos, rolls Dobson’s solid HR result for a quick 1-0 Browns lead.  The Yanks don’t get a hit off Starr until Bobby Murcer’s single in the 4th, but although a couple of walks load the bases they come away empty.  With the offense not generating any scores, the Yanks move to McDaniel to begin the 6th even though Dobson has only allowed the one hit; NY threatens again with the bases loaded in the 6th but once again #9 hitter Gene Michael can’t bring anyone home.  And Starr continues to pitch over his head, shutting down PH Jim Hart for the final out of a 2-hit shutout and the Browns somehow manage to move on despite notching only three hits themselves.  

The survivors:  round five

After having his ‘90 Jays downed by Chuck and the 2017 Blue Jays, Eaglesfly abandoned the Jays and decided to let Chuck test his luck against the formidable 1998 Astros.  With pinch-roller Kevin out of the country, it would fall to me to direct the Killer B’s in their round five matchup, with ace Jose Lima (16-8, 3.70) going against the Jays’ Marcus Strohman (13-9, 3.09) in a good pitching matchup.  And both keep the game scoreless until the top of the 4th, when Jeff Bagwell scores from first on a Carl Everett double for a 1-0 lead.  But Toronto storms back in the 6th when 3rd string catcher Luke Maile, in because Russell Martin managed to get his second three-game injury in five tournament games, drives in a run on a single and he scores on a Teoscar Hernandez double to make it 2-1 Jays.  However, a critical error in the 7th by Toronto 3B-2 Josh Donaldson helps to set up a two run double by Bill Spiers, and then PH Sean Berry adds a sac fly and Craig Biggio contributes a 2-out RBI single and the Astros lead 5-2 after 7.  A leadoff double in the 8th chases Lima, and with Billy Wagner burnt Houston goes to Scott Elarton, who is the beneficiary of some insurance in the 9th courtesy of a Spiers RBI single.   The Jays get two on in the bottom of the 9th and Donaldson comes to the plate with a chance to make it a one run game, but he misses the 3-4 homer with a 3-3 roll and the Astros walk away with the 6-2 win, and a chance at a berth in the final field of 32.  

One would not have expected the 94-loss 1997 Royals and the 98-loss 1950 Browns to have been two of the 128 teams able to knock off four straight opponents in this tournament, but here they were; Chuck would try to replicate his previous success with the Royals with their ace Kevin Appier (9-13, 3.40) on the hill, while I would lead one of the only two Browns teams to win their regional, with top starter Ned Garver (13-18, 3.39) getting the assignment–with this Browns squad short two starters due to injuries.  The game began a lot like the Royals’ round four game, with Johnny Damon leading off with a triple and Chili Davis knocking him in with a single.  However, in the bottom of the 4th Les Moss ties the game with a solo homer, making him the top home run hitter named Les in this project; nonetheless, KC regains the lead as Jay Bell raps an RBI single past 2B-4 Owen Friend in the 5th.  Chuck inserts a slew of defensive replacements in the 6th to shore up a shaky Royals defense, but Appier hits a rough patch as a Moss double puts runners on 2nd and 3rd, and PH Bill Sommers cracks a single that scores two when the 1-10+2 Moss hoofs it home to give the Browns their first lead.  From there the Royals are Garvered, as they can only muster one hit in the final four innings and even though a St. Louis insurance run is cut down at the plate with a 1-14 chance, the insurance isn’t needed as the lowly Browns survive and advance to the super-regional final with a 3-2 win.

Super-regional finals

It was another David v. Goliath matchup for the super-regional final, although the slingshot has often proved to be a successful weapon in so many games in this tournament.  This time it was the 102-win 1998 Astros against the 58 win 1950 Browns, and to make matters even more lopsided, the Browns still had their best hitter, Don Lenhardt, on the DL, and they had a Houston problem with Randy Johnson (19-11, 3.28) on the mound against the Brown’s less impressive Al Widmar (7-15, 4.76).  However, Widmar keeps pace and the game begins as a pitching duel with only three hits between the two teams through four scoreless innings, but in the top of the 5th Bill Spiers continues his strong tournament performance with a triple, and Brad Ausmus lofts a sac fly for a 1-0 lead that looks like it might hold up the way that the Big Unit is delivering.  Jeff Bagwell then adds a solo shot in the 6th, and two more tallies for the Killer B’s are recorded in the 7th from Derek Bell and Bagwell which is more than enough for Johnson against the undermanned Browns.  The Unit finishes with a 3-hit shutout, fanning 11 and leading the Astros into the final field of 32 for the tournament, while the Browns head back to the card catalogs but should take pride in reeling off five straight wins against supposedly superior opponents.

Interesting card of Super-Regional W:   With a strong rotation, the super-regional winning 1998 Astros may not have needed much help from the bullpen, but that pen included a closer that was one of this year’s Hall of Fame inductees, Billy Wagner.  This card nicely captures my recollection of his characteristics as a closer–ungodly strikeout numbers, an uncomfortable number of walks, and the hint of disaster lurking in the form of that 5-10 result.  Wagner describes this 1998 season as a turning point for him, when he was hit in the head by a line drive off the bat of Kelly Stinnett around the All Star break.  Wagner was able to return after a three week stint on the DL, which he said changed his perspective on pitching; after his return he described pitching more calmly and with greater control, and he had a career year the following season with a 1.57 ERA to finish fourth in the Cy Young award.  In this tournament he has racked up two saves in five and two-thirds scoreless innings, helping his Astros reel off six straight wins to become one of the final 32 teams surviving from the original 2,060 that began the project.

SUPER-REGIONAL V:   This group of eight regional winners featured a bunch of teams that were great and near-great, with the 1993 Blue Jays a pennant winner that would have to face an earlier version of themselves in their first game in the bracket and the 2019 Nationals being another pennant winner in that half of the group.  The ‘47 Cardinals had won a pennant with an all-time great team in the prior year, the 2021 Giants were one of the winningest teams in recent years, and the 1984 Cubs had provided a respite from decades in the wilderness with a division title.  All in all, this was one of the strongest groups of eight I’d encountered in quite a while, and other than a surprising 2019 Tigers team none of the entries seemed like longshots.  I figured that the depth and power of the more modern teams would prevail and guessed that the Giants would top the Nationals in the final; the ELO ranks picked the same two in the final but had the Nationals as the favored squad in the bracket.

Round four action

The 1984 Cubs had won their division to spite White Sox fans who had celebrated their first division win in the prior season, and these Cubs also sought to spite me in particular by winning their regional over some pretty strong competition.  They got the easiest draw in this super-regional in the shape of the surprising 2019 Tigers, a 114-loss team that won their regional as a #8 seed but looked hopelessly overmatched at the super-regional level.  The pitching matchup of #4 starters was predictably lopsided, with the Cubs’ Steve Trout (13-7, 3.41) a seemingly huge advantage over Detroit’s Jordan Zimmerman (1-13, 6.91).  Zimmerman starts off well but an error by 1B-5 Miguel Cabrera sets up a 2-out Henry Cotto RBI single, and then a distracted Zimmerman grooves one to powerless Larry Bowa, who hits the pitcher’s solid homer result for a 3-run shot and a big Cubs lead.  The Tigers move to reliever Buck Farmer to begin the 6th in an effort to stay in the game, but in the 7th Keith Moreland drives a bases-loaded triple past RF-4 Nick Castellanos, Ron Cey follows with a 2-run homer, and the fat lady is singing loud.  The Tigers find Trout’s weaknesses in the 8th and rack up five hits and two runs, but George Frazier comes in to end the inning with the Cubs still up 9-2.   Chicago gets another run when Rob Cey hits into a DP in the top of the 9th, and Frazier tames the Tigers to seal the 10-2 win and the Cinderella run for the Tigers comes to an end.  

The Zoom game of the week was a David vs. Goliath matchup with the role of the big guy played by the 2021 Giants, a 107-win team ranked among the top 75 ELO ratings.  The underdog wass the 1986 Orioles, an 89-loss team that was stacked with many big names, most of them well past their sell-by dates.  On the mound for the Giants was Alex Wood (10-4, 3.83), while the O’s Scott McGregor (11-15, 4.52) had seen better days; both bullpens were depleted from tight regional finals, but SF’s pen was far deeper than Baltimore’s.  Giants’ fan StratFan Rick would be steering them, while ColavitoFan, freshly back from a Far East sojourn, agreed to helm the Orioles, and that guidance gets off to a good start with a Fred Lynn solo homer in the bottom of the 1st for a quick Baltimore lead.  RBI singles from Evan Longoria and Brandon Crawford push SF ahead 2-1 in the top of the 3rd, but the O’s are assisted by an error from SF CF-2 Austin Slater in the 4th and they move out to a 3-2 lead.  When Brandon Belt belts a homer to lead off the 6th, McGregor is pulled for Nate Snell, who prevents further damage and the game remains tied heading into the 8th.  Slater bounces a solo homer off the foul pole in the top of the inning to atone for his error, but in the bottom of the inning it’s C-1 Buster Posey who earns the goat hordes with a passed ball and it’s tied 4-4 heading into the 9th.  ColavitoFan summons Odell Jones from the pen to begin the 9th, and things quickly go south; with 3B-4 Juan Bonilla at the hot corner after a series of pinch hitters, he watches as a single goes through his legs, and then after a few walks Bonilla adds a bases-loaded 2-base error to deliver the lead to the Giants.  Belt then singles home the two runners perched in scoring position, and the Giants break open the hard-fought game in the 9th and set the Orioles down for the 8-4 win to advance.  

For the Zoom game of the week Toronto area resident Eaglesfly had the dilemma of picking between the 1993 Blue Jays and the 1984 Blue Jays to see who would advance further to represent the franchise.  It didn’t seem to take him long to select the Series champion 1993 version, which was one of his favorite teams, so brother Chuck would roll the bones for 1984.  Both teams were down to their #4 starters, with 93’s Todd Stottlemyre going against swingman Jim Gott  going for ‘84, and although both pens were rested, the depth of the ‘93 version was far greater than anything the ‘84s could muster.  Things start off nicely for the ‘84s in the top of the 1st with an RBI triple by slow-footed DH Cliff Johnson, and George Bell scores Johnson on a sac fly for an early 2-0 lead.  However, the 1984’s experience an Orwellian nightmare in the bottom of the inning.  After Rickey Henderson leads off with a walk and is promptly caught stealing, the ‘93s rack up hit after hit, and they don’t get retired until Henderson comes around again to provide the third out with the 93s leading 6-2.  Alfredo Griffin and Rance Mullineks each contribute RBI singles in the 2nd to narrow the gap to 6-4, but Chuck then calls a 2-run shot by Paul Molitor in the bottom of the inning and it’s 8-4 after only two innings of play.  With nothing in the pen, Chuck prays that Gott can keep the 93s in single digits for a few more innings, although John Olerud adds to the lead in the 4th and Ed Sprague and Roberto Alomar drive in two more in the 5th to dash those hopes.  Meanwhile, Stottlemyre is getting out of jams, but Roy isn’t taking any chances, bringing in Frank Castillo to quash any possible comeback.  The 84’s make the effort, with a Griffin RBI in the 8th and a Bell homer to lead off the 9th, so just to be safe closer Duane Ward is summoned for the last out and the 1993 Jays hang on and advance with the noisy 11-6 win.  

The 93-69 2019 Nationals were World Series champions and had a season-ending ELO rating placing them among the top 40 squads of all time.  The good news for the Nats was that their #4 starter, Anibal Sanchez (11-8, 3.85) was a solid option, but the bad news is that Juan Soto would be unable to play due to an injury suffered in their tight regional final. The opposing 1947 Cardinals were also no slouches, going 89-65 as the NL runner-up one season after fielding an epic championship team., and they were perhaps even better stocked with Red Munger (16-5, 3.37) an All-Star on the hill.  The Nats get a solo homer from Anthony Rendon in the top of the 1st for a quick lead, and in the 2nd Soto’s replacement Michael Taylor doubles in a run to put Washington up 2-0.   Doubles from a pair of Hall of Famers, Stan Musial and Joe Medwick, in the bottom of the inning narrow the lead to 2-1, but once again Munger can’t keep the Nationals off the board as Asdrubal Cabrera’s sac fly adds another run to the lead.  The Cards respond again, as Musial's two-out single scores one but 1-17+2 Enos Slaughter is out going to 3rd with a 20 split roll to cut off the rally.  In the 6th, back to back doubles off Munger’s card provide another Washington run, but a 2-out double by Ron Northey in the bottom of the inning lead them to yank Sanchez for Daniel Hudson, who whiffs Medwick to end the threat.  But Hudson issues 2 straight walks in the 8th, setting up a Marty Marion single that scores one, but 1-16 Red Schoendienst is nailed going to third with yet another 20 split.  The Nats sense the gap closing and pile on Munger in the 8th, with RBI singles from Victor Robles and Adam Eaton chasing Munger for Gerry Staley.  But Staley can’t stop the bleeding and when the dust clears the Nats have batted around to score five more, and they trust that lead enough for homer-prone closer Sean Doolittle to finish out the 9-3 win to survive and advance, with Soto scheduled to rejoin the lineup for round five.  

The survivors:  round five

This round five matchup pitted two division winners that both arguably were the best teams in their respective leagues, the 1984 Cubs and the 2021 Giants.  With both teams returning to the top of the rotation, this merited a Zoom game of the week, and Giants fan StratFan Rick would have Kevin Gausman (14-6, 2.81) on the hill while brother Chuck, born in the Chicago area, would spare me from having to manage my nemesis, with Cy Young winner Rick Sutcliffe (16-1, 2.69) sporting a ridiculous winning percentage.  Although both lineups have some weapons, this has the markings of a pitchers’ duel and that’s what we get, with both pitchers racking up strikeouts until Cubs OF Henry Cotto manages to convert a TR 1-3 on Gausman’s card to record a run in the top of the 3rd.  Gausman settles down from there, but Sutcliffe is dominating, ending the lone whiff of a Giants rally in the bottom of the 5th with two consecutive strikeouts.  Gausman ends the game with 10 Ks and only one run allowed on a lucky split roll, but Sutcliffe is better, with 13 strikeouts in a 5-hit shutout as the Cubs squeak into the super-regional finals with the 1-0 pitching gem.  

Two Series champs squaring off with their top starters in this round five game, the type of squads one expects to see (but rarely does) at this point in the tournament.  This merited Zoom game of the week status, with Torontoan Eaglesfly once again directing the 1993 Blue Jays with Pat Hentgen (19-9, 3.87) and the Tall Tactician stepping in for the second time to manage the 2019 Nationals and Stephen Strasburg (18-6, 3.32).   Eaglesfly nominated me to actually roll the dice on his behalf given that I had staked them to a 6-run first inning last time they played, so out came the trusty dice but this time I could only manage one run on a John Olerud single in the top of the 1st.  However, a bases loaded single by Joe Carter courtesy of Strasburg’s 4-8 TR 1-3/SI split and RBI hits from Paul Molitor and Tony Fernandez gives the Jays a 4-run 3rd inning and a 5-0 lead.  Trea Turner gets the Nats on the board with a 2-run homer in the bottom of the 3rd, but my dice continue to pound that 4-8 outcome, hitting it five times in total while converting two of them for triples, and by the time Strasburg is mercifully lifted after the 6th following a 2-run Rickey Henderson homer, he’s allowed 13 hits and the Jays lead 10-2.  PH Kurt Suzuki raps an RBI single for Washington in the 7th, but Molitor matches that with a 4-8 split RBI single off reliever Wander Suero, and Hentgen hangs on as the Jays march to the super-regional final with a dominating 11-3 win. 

Super-regional finals

The matchup for the super-regional final was appropriate for determining a team that would be one of the final 32 survivors out of the over 2,000 teams that began this tournament, because it paired the Series champion 1993 Blue Jays against the 1984 Cubs, with the NL’s best record that season.  Two veteran managers for each team faced off on Zoom, with brother Chuck attempting to repeat his success with the Cubs and Dennis Eckersley (10-8, 3.03) against Toronto’s own Eaglesfly with Juan Guzman (14-3, 3.99) on the hill.   The Cubs get off to an auspicious start, as Bob Dernier leads off the game by getting injured, but by Grabthar’s Hammer, he would be avenged:  his teammates extract their revenge on the Jays as Chuck manages to roll and convert every possible hit outcome on Guzman’s card in the first inning and a third.  After Ron Cey squibs a single that puts the Cubs on the board and loads the bases, it’s Jody Davis checking off Guzman’s HR split for a grand slam and the Cubs lead 5-0 after one.  Inning two goes no better, with a three-run homer by Leon Durham and an RBI double by MVP Ryne Sandberg and it’s 9-0 Cubs, and the Jays have yet to record a hit.  Durham and Davis knock in two more runs in the 4th and the Cubs have a double digit lead, while the Jays can’t mount a threat until the 7th when injury replacement C Randy Knorr belts a three-run homer to make it 11-3.  The teams exchange runs in the 8th, which finally chases the beleaguered Guzman, but that proves far too late as the Cubs continue to taunt Sox fans everywhere with an easy 12-4 win, earning a trip to the sectionals where Dernier will be ready to resume his centerfield duties.

Interesting card of Super-Regional V:   At 6 foot 7 inches and sporting a distinctive red beard, Rick Sutcliffe was an imposing presence on the mound, but his 1984 season began rather painfully: early in his season with Cleveland, he was suffering from severe dental issues that required four straight days of root canal surgery.  Sutcliffe had led the AL in ERA in 1982 but the dental work seemed to have impacted him, so to speak; he was 4-5 with a 5.15 ERA in June and was due to become a free agent at the end of the season.  With the Indians hopelessly out of the running, they found a willing buyer in the Cubs, who were in a fight to make their first post-season appearance since 1945 and who had just been upstaged by their cross-town rival White Sox who had won the AL West the preceding season.  Having suffered some key injuries to their rotation, the Cubs shipped Mel Hall and Joe Carter to Cleveland for the big right-hander, and you could say that it paid off.  Sutcliffe assembled a remarkable 16-1 record in 20 starts for the Cubs, and he was the unanimous choice for the Cy Young while being the first player to have pitched in both leagues while winning the award.  Sutcliffe was on the mound when the Cubs clinched the NL West; he was the Game 1 starter in the NLCS, where he pitched a shutout and hit a home run to boot.  However, in the deciding Game 5 against the Padres, Sutcliffe blew a 3-0 lead and absorbed the loss as the Cubs dream of their first pennant in decades evaporated.  Regardless, he came through big in this super-regional, shutting out an imposing 2021 Giants offense to pull out a 1-0 round five win and helping send his team to the round of 32 after six straight victories.