SUPER-REGIONAL T:  This group of eight seemed to include a variety of unlikely contenders considering that six pennant winners had begun this group of 64, but none of them had survived past round three.   Of the eight that did persevere, not many were within hailing distance of an epic season, with the Rays being two years post their first pennant, and for the Mets and Brewers pennants would be 5+ years away.  Picking from among this group seemed to be a total crapshoot, but I figure the Brewers would emerge from the top half of the bracket and fall to the Rays in the finals.  The ELO rankings agreed with that prediction, portraying the four teams in the bottom of the bracket as much better than the dubious group at the top.

Round four action

Two rather unlikely regional winners square off in this round four matchup.  The 1976 Padres went 73-89 but pulled off three straight upsets to win Regional #153; however, they now faced the bane of the underdog squads in going to the bottom of their rotation in the form of Tom Griffin (9-6, 4.10), who was a base on balls waiting to happen.  The 1990 Brewers had a similar record at 74-88 but they sported a much better ELO ranking, and they did have some Hall of Famers such as Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and the newly inducted Dave Parker; Mark Knudson (10-9, 4.12) was tapped for the start from a variety of options.  The Padres jump to a quick lead in the top of the 1st on an RBI single from Dave Winfield that gets past SS-3 Bill Spiers, but Winfield is caught stealing by BJ Surhoff to prevent further damage.  Both pitchers work their way out of jams until Parker delivers a 2-out RBI single in the bottom of the 5th that ties the game, and Gary Sheffield follows with another for a Brewers lead.   When Griffin yields a double to Greg Vaughn and a walk in the 6th, he’s gone for Dave Tomlin, who ends the threat with no damage.   However, in the 8th Timlin is injured for the tournament, and Butch Metzger holds to send the game to the 9th with the Padres still down by a run.  But Knudson tosses a perfect 9th to hold on for the 2-1 Brewers victory and the end of the line for the upstart Padres. 

Another couple of teams that had no business making it to round four of the tournament, the 97-loss 2009 Royals and Kyle Davies (8-9, 5.27) taking on the arguably worse 64-90 1947 Senators, with Mickey Haefner (10-14, 3.64) sporting a nice card for a #4 starter on a 90-loss team that was no doubt enhanced by pitching in spacious Griffith Stadium.  The task for the Royals was complicated by lengthy injuries suffered by Mark Teahen and Alex Gordon in their regional final, and RF-2 Mitch Maier doesn’t help matters when he misplays an Eddie Yost single in the top of the 2nd that allows a run to score.  Things just get worse for the Royals when 2B Alberto Callaspo gets injured for 10 games in the bottom of the inning, with the KC bench already badly depleted.  A Sherry Robertson RBI double in the 4th makes it 2-0 Senators, and run-scoring singles from Stan Spence and Al Evans in the 5th extend it to a four-run lead.  The Royals try Jamey Wright from the pen to begin the 6th, and he holds the Nats scoreless for four innings.  However, that’s not quite as good as Haefner, who blanks the battered Royals for nine innings and finishes up a 2-hit shutout as the Senators move on with a 4-0, while the Royals return to the storage drawers to nurse their wounds.  

There were no particular partisans for the Zoom game of the week between the 2010 Rays and the 2007 A's; Tall Tactician liked the look of the 96-win, AL East-winning Rays while brother Chuck would try to squeeze the last dime out of the moneyball A’s, who had handled three pretty good teams in winning Regional #158 despite a mediocre 76-86 record.  Both managers were uneasy about their #4 starters, Wade Davis (12-10, 4.07) for the Rays and Chad Gaudin (11-13, 4.42) for Oakland, and were convinced this was going to be a high scoring affair.  Sure enough, the A’s Milton Bradley proves he’s a gamer with a solo homer off Davis’s generous gopher ball options in the bottom of the 1st, and although an RBI double in the top of the 2nd by Sean Rodriguez makes it a tie game, Mark Ellis homers in the bottom of the inning to put Oakland back on top, 2-1.  However, for the rest of his appearance Gaudin can’t escape an inning without allowing a run, with a Carl Crawford homer tying it in the 3rd, a 2-out RBI single by #9 hitter Bartlett in the 4th, and a run scoring single by Carlos Pena in the 5th providing Tampa with a 4-2 lead.   Meanwhile, Davis has taken control of the game for the Rays, but TT doesn’t trust those homer results and in the 6th moves immediately to Grant Balfour, but that turns out poorly as A’s DH Jack Cust crushes a 2-run homer to tie the game…one that would have been a 3-run homer but Shannon Stewart had been caught stealing.  Chuck then summons the A’s sole decent available relief pitcher, Huston Street, and although the Rays threaten, none score and the game enters the 8th still knotted.  At this point TT opts for the imposing Joaquin Benoit and his 1.34 ERA to try to send the game to extra innings, at which point Street will be toast with only terrible options remaining for the A’s.  However, Nick Swisher foils that plan with a long solo homer, and Street ends his eligibility for the super-regional with a 1-2-3 9th to seal the 5-4 win for the A’s and a trip to round five.  

This round four matchup was a Zoom game of the week, with Toronto-area resident Eaglesfly taking the reins of the 2000 Blue Jays.  The Jay had a middling 83-79 record despite oozing with steroid-era power that had bashed their way through Regional #160, but their rotation also bore the scars of that era and their #4 starter, Steve Trachsel (8-15, 4.80) was certainly no exception.  ColavitoFan volunteered to steer the 1995 Mets, who had a 69-75 record in that strike-shortened season that narrowed his #4 starting options to one:  Dave Mlicki (9-7, 4.26), and to make matters worse they would be without the services of injured 2B Jeff Kent for the foreseeable future.  The game begins ominously for the Jays, as Trachsel is injured while walking the first batter of the game, forcing a move to an already depleted bullpen resulting from some tough regional games.  Paul Quantrill then comes on and promptly allows a run-scoring double to Rico Brogna and the Mets move out to a 1-0 lead.  Unfortunately for the Mets, Mlicki does not get injured while allowing four hits to the Jays in the bottom of the 1st, including RBI hits from Carlos Delgado and Darren Fletcher, and Shannon Stewart adds another in the 2nd as the Jays move out to a 3-1 lead.  Mlicki then fails to get anyone out in the 3rd until allowing a 3-run homer to Tony Batista, and the Jays lead 6-1 but the good news is that ColavitoFan can finally pull the terrible Mlicki and Jason Isringhausen gets the assignment.  In the 4th, a last-minute lineup adjustment by ColavitoFan pays off as Chris Jones leads off the inning with a homer that narrows the gap to 6-2, and Ryan Thompson’s sac fly in the 6th makes it 6-3 as the Mets slowly inch back into the game.  In the top of the 7th, the Jays insert Lance Painter as their 4th pitcher of the game, and he paints the Jays a disastrous picture, yielding five hits including a big 2-run double to Brogna; by the time he’s pulled after recording only two outs, the Mets now hold a one run lead.  From there, it’s Doug Henry and John Franco thwarting the power-packed Jays lineup and the Mets pull off the remarkable comeback for the 7-6 win.  

The survivors:  round five

Two teams with losing records that nonetheless survived to round five, the 1990 Brewers and the 1947 Senators square off to determine which of them will play for the super-regional title.   Both teams were back to the top of their rotation, with the Nats’ Walt Masterson (12-16, 3.13) and Milwaukee’s Ted Higuera (11-10, 3.76) getting the honors.  In the bottom of the 1st, Buddy Lewis (who had just been the subject of a Friday Night Strat trivia question) hits a 2-out RBI double to give the Senators a quick lead, while Masterson is masterful in repeatedly bailing out the bad Nats defense.  The Brewers threaten in the top of the 7th with 1st and 3rd with one out, and the Senators bring in the infield; A-stealer Paul Molitor is tossed out trying to steal second and Masterson fans the next two batters to end the threat.  The Brewers get the tying run in scoring position in the 9th, but Masterson induces a grounder out of Molitor for the third out and the unlikely Washington Senators head to the super-regional finals with the 1-0 shutout gem. 

Brother Chuck had led the 2007 A’s to a come-from-behind win in round four, and although in the process he had burnt Oakland’s best reliever, he would have top-of-the-rotation Dan Haren (15-9, 3.07) on the mound, with RF Travis Buck still out with an injury suffered in the regional.  The matchup against a 1995 Mets team that had pulled off a remarkable comeback in their prior game seemed to merit a Zoom faceoff, and I would try to continue their luck with Bill Pulsipher (5-7, 3.98) hopefully doing better than he had in his round one start that had been won by his bullpen, a game in which Jeff Kent suffered an injury that continued to keep him out of the lineup.  Despite their best hopes, once again Pulsipher proves generous with the hits, yielding a series of RBI hits to Nick Swisher, Mark Ellis, and Dan Johnson as the Mets again are faced with a steep deficit after the top of the 1st.  However, as has been their way they immediately chip away at the lead, with a run scoring on a double play ball hit by Bobby Bonilla and a 2-out RBI single by Todd Hundley narrowing the gap to 3-2 in the bottom of the 1st.  Edgardo Alfonso ties the game in the bottom of the 2nd with an RBI single but Eric Chavez homers to lead off the 3rd to reestablish an Oakland lead.  In the 4th, Chaves adds a 2-run triple giving him the two hard parts of a cycle, and he scores on a Johnson single and it’s 7-3 A’s; the good news for the Mets is that Pulsipher can now be pulled, and Mike Birkbeck comes in to hold the A’s at bay for four innings.  In the meantime, Hundley picks up another RBI hit in the 5th and Rico Brogna makes up for missing a HR 1-16 split earlier with a solid HR solo shot in the 7th, and once again the Mets appear to be creeping back into the game.  A leadoff triple by Johnson in the 8th and I decide to go with John Franco for the strikeout to keep the Mets in the game; however, he does one better, with a LOMAX wiping out the running at third and a whiff to finish the inning with emphasis.  However, Mark Ellis gets to Franco with an RBI double in the top of the 9th, meaning that the A’s take an 8-5 lead into the bottom of the inning needing three outs to move on.  With little to work with in the pen, Chuck lets Haren take his shot at the final inning, but after recording an out Jose Vizcaino slaps a base hit, bringing up Bobby Bonilla; Chuck, showing inordinate fear of Bonilla, or perhaps his contract, opts to intentionally walk Bonilla for the second time in the game, a controversial move that puts the tying run at the plate in the form of Todd Hundley.  Hundley then draws a bases on balls, and suddenly the tying run is aboard and Chris Jones steps to the plate.  Now, Jones is only in the game because ColavitoFan had opted for his bat over Tim Bogar’s glove in the prior game, and I had retained that lineup since, after all, it had worked swimmingly in the prior round.  So Haren delivers, the roll is 1-6; a solid home run for a walk-off grand slam that gives the Miracle Mets a 9-8 victory.  A little research revealed that this is actually the 5th walk-off home run of the tournament, and the second (after the 1954 White Sox, how could I forget) to be immortalized on a Zoom game. 

Super-Regional final:  round six

In a very unlikely matchup for a super-regional final, the 64-90 1947 Senators, winners of five straight upsets, found themselves facing the 1995 Mets, who had put together two remarkable comebacks in their past two games to reach this spot.   The Nats would again be the underdogs according to the ELO ratings, but the Mets had some factors that might be equalizers, with Jeff Kent still out to injury, and closer John Franco burnt while their starter Pete Harnisch (2-8, 3.68) was not a Hall of Famer, unlike Washington’s Early Wynn (17-15, 3.64).  The Mets get to start playing from behind once again when the Senators get runs via a Mickey Vernon single and a 2-out double by Sherry Robertson, but Harnisch settles down and the Mets narrow the gap in the 4th when Bobby Bonilla leads off with a tape measure homer.  Two batters later, it’s round five hero Chris Jones with a long 2-run blast and the Mets have uncharacteristically come back to take the lead early in the game.  Although Harnisch is now mowing down the Nats, the Mets move to Jason Isringhausen to begin the 8th, but he loads the bases with two singles and a walk, and then he walks Stan Spence to tie the game with still nobody out.  After a lineout, PH Rick Ferrell laces a 2-run single, another PH Gil Coan adds an RBI single, and Eddie Yost provides a sac fly and suddenly the Mets are once again looking at another large late-inning deficit.  A single to begin the top of the 9th chases Isringhausen, but Doug Henry promptly loads the bases and Mickey Vernon drives the ball through a drawn-in infield and Farrell adds a sac fly and the Mets need another miracle staring at a six run deficit in the bottom of the 9th.  But Wynn isn’t having it, and the Mets go down as the Senators record a statement 9-3 win and become one of the most improbable teams to advance to the final field of 32.  

Interesting card of Super-Regional T:  At first, this may appear to be a partial rerun of this feature from Regional #155, which featured the card of the inestimable Gil Coan, but bear with me, because this is going to turn into a rant (warning: some math ahead).  Now, Mr. Coan once again helped lead his 1947 Senators to victory as a late inning sub, with 6 straight upsets putting them into the final 32 surviving teams in this tournament.  However, if you want to read my writeup on Mr. Coan, I'll refer you to my blog for his regional results, because here I want to take time to express my irritation with the game company for their latest assault on my White Sox.  To begin the math portion of our presentation, getting Mr. Coan to hit .500 is a difficult feat, because for the 50% of rolls where he is on the pitcher's card, he will only hit .256, the league average for the 1947 AL.  He makes up for that with a card on which 68.6% of at-bat results is a hit, which averages out to a projected batting average of .471--not quite .500, but I'll take it.  Now, consider the case of Eddie Murphy from the 1919 White (Black) Sox of the recently issued Deadball Diamond Gems.  Eddie's .486 average puts him in the same ballpark as Gil's--but his card doesn't, because only 37.9% of the AB results are hits.  Combine that with a .268 league average for the 1919 AL, and Eddie's card should be good for a .323 average: not .486, not Ted Williams, not even Pete Rose.  Now, perhaps for some reason Strat wanted to normalize Diamond Gems cards against each other--however, because of the quality of pitching on those teams, the "league average" would be even lower and Murphy would hit for even less.  But even that excuse can be ruled out based upon teammate Shoeless Joe's Diamond Gems card, where Jackson's .351 average presents as a card with 42.7% of ABs resulting in hits, combining for a .348 average against 1919 AL pitching--pretty close.  So why pick on Eddie Murphy--was it because of Beverly Hills Cop III?  Assuming not, I am left with two possible conclusions:  1) that Strat made a mistake and that we are owed an errata card for Murphy (for which I'm not holding my breath), or 2) that Strat suddenly decided (since Coan's 1947 card was only released a few years ago) to provide low AB wonders like Murphy (and Coan and the like) with "imagined" cards, based upon Strat's voodoo projections similar to the 2020 "imagined" or the Negro League DG teams.  If it's the latter, count me in the “opposed” category.  Just give me the card that is merited by the actual stats, and I'll decide how to use it, thank you.  I may be in the minority, but it is an empirical question:  just how well do you think those "2020 imagined" cards sold?

SUPER-REGIONAL S:  There were four pennant winners that began this group of 64, but three of them were in Regional #152 and the survivor of that bracket, the 2017 Dodgers, were the lone league champion in this group of eight.  The Dodgers were perhaps eager for revenge after getting trash-canned out of a Series win, but it looked like they would face some capable opposition in their quest to move on to the final set of 32 teams in the tournament.  These potential opponents included two Pirates teams on either side of their 1960 miracle squad, and entries from the Royals, Angels, and Twins that I seemed to remember having made strong runs in real life.  Still, the Dodgers seemed like the obvious choice as bracket favorites; I guessed that the steroid-era Twins would power past their opposition but that eventually their pitching would fall short in the finals.   The ELO rankings agreed, as they also had the Dodgers as prohibitive favorites, with the Twins really constituting the only real challenge they might face. 

Round four action

It’s the Beatlemania era for this round four matchup between the 1964 Indians and the 1963 Pirates, and being a pitching-rich era both teams had strong #4 starters for this game.  The Tribe had Jack Kralick (12-7, 3.20) while after three complete game wins in their regional the Pirates felt comfortable taking Al McBean (13-3, 2.58) out of the pen for a swing start in this game.  But Dick Howser begins the game by converting a split for a triple off McBean’s card, and he scores on a John Romano grounder, and later Tito Francona slides under the tag to score on a 2-out single by Leon Wagner for a 2-0 lead before the Bucs can bat.  The Pirates get another scare in the bottom of the inning when Roberto Clemente, who had already been knocked out for two games in the tournament regional, rolls an injury but he’s able to remain in the game.  In the 2nd slow-footed 1-9 Jerry Lynch tries to score for the Pirates on a single with two out, but he’s out by a mile, and it’s not until the 5th that Pittsburgh can get on the board with the faster Mazeroski able to score on a 2-out single by Smoky Burgess.  However, a Lynch single followed by a Donn Clendenon double to put two in scoring position with nobody out in the 6th, so Cleveland opts for Don McMahon and bring the infield in to try to keep the slim lead.  But young Willie Stargell rips a grounder ++ through the infield to score both runners and suddenly it’s a Pittsburgh lead.  And McBean’s rough start was quickly corrected, as he allows only one hit in the final six innings to complete a 5-hitter and the Pirates move on with the 3-2 comeback win.  

Both the 2004 Twins and the 1993 Angels had been pushed to extra innings in order to win their regional finals, meaning that both had some wear and tear on their bullpens with the bottom of their rotations coming up, with terrible Kyle Lohse (9-13, 5.34) for the Twins and the even worse John Farrell (3-12, 7.35) forced into service for the Angels because of a scarcity of innings in that strike year.  Surprisingly, nobody scores until Chad Curtis raps a 2-run double to give the Angels the lead in the bottom of the 3rd, and then the Twins’ primary power threat Justin Morneau immediately gets injured in the top of the 4th for the rest of the super-regional and beyond, making the picture even more bleak for Minnesota.  Even though Ferrell has a shutout going, the Angels go to their pen to begin the 6th, with Steve Frey, but in the 7th Cristian Guzman singles under the glove of 2B-3 Torey Lovullo to drive in a run that makes it a one-run game.  At that point the Twins summon reliever Juan Rincon to try to keep things close, and in the 9th Luis Rivas converts a SI 1-5 and then steals second to put the tying run in scoring position, but PH Shannon Stewart pops out on Frey’s card to send the underdog Angels on to round five with an unexpected 2-1 pitching duel, with California mustering only four hits in the win.   

The 69-85 1947 Cubs had relied upon fairly weak opposition, my White Sox jinx, and good work from their bullpen to win Regional #150, but they would now need #4 starter Hank Borowy (8-12, 4.38) to go late in the game against the 1955 Pirates.  However, in keeping with the fortunate draws of the Cubs, these Pirates were even worse on paper, going 60-94 but taking their regional despite ongoing injuries to Jerry Lynch and Johnny O’Brien, thanks to three strong complete game wins from the rotation.  However, the dropoff to Ron Kline (6-13, 4.15) was a big one and a 94-loss lineup missing two regulars was not a pretty sight.  The Pirates smallball their way to a run in the top of the 2nd on a double, a bunt and a sac fly from Dick Cole, while the Cubs load the bases in the 4th with a two-out rally but Don Johnson hits the Miami Vice hole in his best column and they get nothing to show for it.  In the 5th, weak hitting catcher Jack Shepard finds and converts Borowy’s HR split for a solo shot, and when Phil Cavaretta leads off the 6th with a base hit the Pirates pull Kline despite his shutout, and opt for Dick Hall who retires the side without incident.  In the top of the 7th RF-3 Bill Nicholson swishes on a Roberto Clemente flyball for a 2-base error, and Emil Kush is summoned from the pen with runners on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out.  Although he issues a walk to load the bases, the Cubs defense holds and it remains 2-0 Bucs going into the 7th inning stretch.   In the bottom of the inning, injury replacement 2B-4 Cole drops a Johnson grounder and Andy Pafko convert a 2-out SI* 1-12 split to drive in the Cubs’ first run; Cavaretta then further tests the terrible Pittsburgh defense and slaps a single past LF-4 Frank “the other” Thomas and the game is tied.  That holds to the bottom of the 9th, when Johnson leads off by driving a double past 3B-4 Gene Freese (who is apparently still a better fielder than his brother George).  Lennie Merullo singles off Hall’s card putting the winning run 90 feet away for the top of the order.  Hall gets Stan Hack to ground out, but then Pafko rips a liner into right, pinch runner Bobby Sturgeon trots home, and the reverse jinx for the Cubs continues to hold with a come-from-behind 3-2 win in which they hold the Pirates to only three hits.  

The 2017 Dodgers won 104 games and the NL pennant before losing a controversial Series to a trashcan-banging group from Houston, and as befitting a league champion they had a solid #4 starter in Yu Darvish (10-12, 3.86).  The 1987 Royals were a much less impressive 83-79 team but they had outscored their Regional #151 opposition 23 to 9 despite having lost Bo Jackson for the entire regional, and he would still be out for this matchup so it would be important for Bud Black (8-6, 3.60) to keep things close.  The Royals waste no time demonstrating their credentials, with Danny Tartabull smacking a 3-run homer in the top of the 1st for a rapid and healthy lead.  Back to back doubles by Curtis Granderson and Joc Pederson give the Dodgers a run in the bottom of the 2nd, and Darvish escapes a bases-loaded jam in the top of the 3rd to keep the Dodgers in striking distance.  In the 5th, Logan Forsythe misses Black’s 6-5 HR 1-3/DO split, the 4th time the Royals have done so in 5 innings, but Corey Seager finally makes him pay by singling in front of RF-4 Tartabull to score Forsythe, and the Royals lead is down to one.  Beginning with the 6th, both starters are on very short leashes, and it’s Black who gets pulled first after allowing a single to Yasmani Grandal, so John Davis enters the game; however, with two out Pederson doubles and the slow 1-8+2 catcher Grandal slides under the tag and the game is tied.  In the 7th, Chris Taylor draws a leadoff walk, steals second easily on C-4 Jamie Quirk, and races home on a Seager single and the Dodgers lead for the first time.  Cody Bellinger then doubles past 3B-4 Kevin Seitzer and a Justin Turner sac fly extends the LA lead, although the 1-14 Bellinger is out trying to score on a Yasiel Puig base hit.  Darvish yields a hit to George Brett in the 8th and the Dodgers summon Brock Stewart from the pen, who whiffs Steve Balboni and Frank White in succession to end that threat.  But in the 9th PH Lonnie Smith leads off with a single that LF-2 Pederson misplays, putting the tying run at the plate with nobody out.  PH Bill Pecota then singles and Smith scores easily, bringing up the top of the order with the tying run aboard and nobody out.  LA then reluctantly is forced to bring in Brandon Morrow to try to preserve the lead, and after a whiff, a walk, and another whiff Tartabull steps into the batter’s box.  However, he lofts a lazy fly and Pederson gloves it to seal the 5-4 win for the Dodgers and a visit to round five.  

The survivors:  round five

The 1963 Pirates and the 1993 Angels only won 74 and 71 games, respectively, but over four rounds of this tournament they’ve proven to have what it takes to win, and now both squads are back to the top of their rotation for round five:   Bob Friend (17-16, 2.34), who had tossed a 10-inning shutout for the Bucs in round one, and Mark Langston (16-11,3.20), who had a 3-hit shutout of his own under his belt for the Halos.  The Angels waste no time in breaking Friend’s scoreless streak, beginning the bottom of the 1st with three straight hits including a Tim Salmon RBI single, but a caught stealing and a DP prevent the inning from being worse for Pittsburgh.  A 2-out single by Rene Gonzales puts up another run for the Angels in the 2nd, but in the 6th an error by Langston helps to load the bases for Roberto Clemente; he misses a grand slam HR split, but two score on the resulting double and Jerry Lynch picks up the third runner on a sac fly and the Bucs take the lead.  A walk and a single to begin the 7th and the Angels decide that Langston is too rattled, so Mike Butcher comes in from the pen and he quickly escapes the jam when Bill Mazeroski pops into a DP on an attempted sacrifice.  However, in the 9th young Willie Stargell rips an RBI triple and Maz atones with a 2-out single that scores Pops, and Friend wraps up a new scoreless streak of seven innings as the Pirates march on to the super-regional final with the 5-2 win, their third come-from-behind win in a row.

The 1947 Cubs would need their luck to hold up in this round five matchup against the pennant-winning 2017 Dodgers, with both teams returning to the top of their rotation, with LA’s Alex Wood (16-3, 2.72) having the league’s best winning percentage while the Cubs’ Johnny  Schmitz (13-18, 3.22) led the league in losses.   Bill Nicholson leads off the top of the 2nd for the Cubs with a double, and Eddie Waitkus shoots a single in front of LA CF-3 Joc Pederson for an early Chicago lead, but in the bottom of the inning Yasmani Grandal rips an RBI single under the glove of Cubs SS-3 Lennie Merullo, and Curtis Granderson adds a sac fly that puts the Dodgers up 2-1.  Wood then survives a number of jams, but as the Dodgers are also held in check they opt for supercloser Kenley Jansen to begin the 8th in the hopes of preserving the one run lead.  And he records six straight outs, four by strikeout, to earn the save in the narrow 2-1 win that propels the Dodgers to the super-regional final.

Super-regional final

The super-regional final features the bracket favorite, 104-win 2017 Dodgers and Cy Young runner-up Clayton Kershaw (18-4, 2.31) against the 74-88 1963 Pirates, who had relied on their three Hall of Famers to get this far, while Don Cardwell (13-15, 3.07) would seek to reprise his four-hit complete game that he tossed in the second round.   The Pirates provide a quick demonstration of their mettle as Dick Schofield leads off the top of the 1st by finding Kershaw’s Achilles heel–a solid 5-5 home run that stuns the few Dodgers fans who arrived on time for the game.  However, in the bottom of the inning Cody Bellinger crushes a 2-run shot for an emphatic Dodger response and it’s game on.  The Pirates defense then crumbles in the 2nd, with errors by P-5 Cardwell, SS-3 Schofield, and 1B-2 Clendenon lead to four unearned runs, and in the 3rd Curtis Granderson gets an RBI triple on a missed HR 1-17 split and although Cardwell fans two to strand him at third, it’s still a 7-1 LA lead after three.  Jerry Lynch gets a run-scoring triple of his own in the 4th, but Donn Clendenon is promptly lost for the tournament with an injury and Lynch also gets stranded 90 feet away.  Three hits against Cardwell in the bottom of the 4th, the last an RBI double by Bellinger, and the Pirates move to the pen for Bob Veale and his 1.04 ERA, but Yasiel Puig singles in both baserunners to put the Dodgers up 10-2.  The Dodgers score on a Bellinger DP in the 6th to add to the pile, and then in the 8th Roy Face comes in to be battered with a Cory Seager RBI single followed by another 2-run homer by Bellinger.  The Pirates load the bases in the 9th with three singles for a last ditch effort, but Kershaw notches his 11th and 12th strikeouts of the game to end the beating and the Dodgers win the super-regional with a 14-2 blowout and stake their claim as a team to beat in the final round of 32.

Interesting card of Super-Regional S:  Although the 1963 Pirates fell short in the final, they did knock off five consecutive wins to get that far, and one of the reasons was timely hitting by a rookie that at age 23 was not yet being called “Pops” by his teammates.  Although he had a few appearances the prior season, 1963 was Stargell’s rookie year, and although it was probably the worst full season of his career, it deserves recognition as his first Strat card, the original of which is also presented here.  Stargell began playing organized baseball relatively late, and he was only the third best player on his high school team (behind future major leaguers Tommy Harper and Curt Motton), so he was not a particularly heralded rookie, and his early difficulties against LHP and the spacious dimensions of Forbes Field made for a slow start to his career.  He celebrated his first full season playing in Three Rivers Stadium by leading the majors with 48 homers, although he was famous for hitting tape-measure shots that would be a round-tripper anywhere–only four balls have been hit completely out of Dodger Stadium, and Stargell hit two of them.  In this tournament, the rookie Stargell had to step up after an injury to Pirates star Roberto Clemente, and he was good for one walk-off homer and five RBI in the five games leading up to the super-regional final–a pretty good showing for an unspectacular card.

SUPER-REGIONAL R:  This bracket included two of the six pennant winners that began this group of 64.  One of them was the 2004 Cardinals, who were also accompanied by a 1949 version of the team that had been in a bit of a decline since winning a championship three seasons earlier.  The bracket was also noteworthy in including a number of franchises that had seen little overall success in the tournament, such as the Expos, Brewers, Nationals, Mariners, and the hapless Browns, but there was also another pennant winner, the 1974 Dodgers, a representative of one of the most successful brands in the project.  I figured that a 21st century pennant winner would have the power, depth, and bullpen to handle these older squads, and that they would best the other more modern entry, the Nationals, in the finals.  The ELO rankings picked the same winner, but they predicted an all-Cardinals faceoff in the sixth round.

Round four action

For the Zoom game of the week, it would be up to our resident Canadian Eaglesfly to keep the hopes alive of one of the few Montreal teams to show anything in this tournament, the 1992 Expos.  He would have the task of facing the pennant-winning 2004 Cardinals, helmed by brother Chuck, and it would be a battle of the Larry Walkers as each team had the right fielder batting second in their lineup.  It was also a matchup of #4 starters, and the two managers each selected a starter that I would have skipped, Matt Morris (15-10, 4.72) for the Cards and Mark Gardner (12-10, 4.36) for Montreal, and with land mines scattered across both cards it seemed like a high scoring affair was in order.  And sure enough, in the top of the 1st after a leadoff walk and a single by the junior Walker, Moises Alou finds Morris’s solid HR result for a three run blast before an out is recorded.  A few batters later, Spike Owen then helpfully locates Morris’s HR split and converts that for a two-run shot and the Expos lead 5-0 before the Cards can swing a bat.  Deciding that Morris doesn’t have nine lives, Chuck opts for the much-better-carded Steve Kline to begin the second inning, and he shuts down the Expos, who only manage to get 3B Tim Wallach injured for three games.  Meanwhile, the Cards begin chipping away at the lead, with an RBI single for Albert Pujols in the 3rd and another by the senior Walker in the 4th narrowing the lead to 5-2, but Gardner whiffs Jim Edmonds to ward off a potential three run homer that could have tied the game.  The Expos respond with a Walker of their own, whose solo shot in the 5th makes it 6-2, and as the Cards move through their pen the Expos keep up the pressure, with Alou getting a solo shot in the 7th for his second homer of the game and Delino Deshields adding an RBI single in the 8th.  And Gardner proves remarkable efficient in pitching from the stretch, as he records a complete game to give the Montreal pen some much-needed rest as the Expos advance with the impressive 8-2 upset.

The next Zoom game of the week would involve Seattle area denizen Stratfan managing the local 1990 Mariners against brother Chuck, who would try to avoid further injuries to a 1987 Brewers team that was already down Robin Yount and Ernest Riles, although Paul Molitor had recovered from his injury suffered in the opening game of the tournament.  Also spelling trouble for the Brewers was the fact that it was time for the #4 starters, and while swingman Bill Swift 6-4, 2.39) looked like a strong option for the M’s, Chuck was faced with a decision between bad and badder, ultimately going with Chris Bosio (11-8, 5.24) and a seriously taxed bullpen would likely provide little help.  But it initially looks like he might not need that much help, because the Brewers swiftly pound Swift in the top of the 1st with a 2-run homer from DH Bill Schroeder and an RBI double from BJ Surhoff providing a quick 3-0 lead before the M’s can swing a bat.  However, once they get a chance, those bats don’t miss a hit on Bosio, loading up the bases for a 2-run single from Jay Buhner that closes the gap to one run.  The Brewers retaliate as Schroeder knocks in another two runs in the top of the second, but in the bottom of the inning Seattle continues to rock Bosio, with Jeff Leonard, Edgar Martinez and Ken Griffey Jr. all driving in runs to chase Bosio, and Chuck tries the other guy who could have started, Juan Nieves, who finally ends the inning but Seattle now holds a 6-5 lead after two innings.  But the Brewers are undaunted, and they continue to blast Swift with a two-run double from Molilor and two more RBI for Schroeder put Milwaukee up 9-6.  Rob Deer gets a sac fly in the 6th to make it 10-6, but Buhner drives in two in the bottom of the inning with a double and it’s 10-8.  But Schroeder continues to terrorize Seattle pitching, ending with seven RBI for the game, while pushing two more runs across in the 7th.  When Nieves runs out of eligibility after the 6th, it’s too early to go for their already fatigued closer Mark Clear, so Chuck hopes to get one decent inning out of aging veteran Len Barker, who has already declared his retirement after the tournament.  But not only do the Brewers get one inning out of Barker, they get three scoreless frames as he looks like the guy who had led the AL in strikeouts a decade earlier, and the Brew Crew move on to round five with the 12-8 victory.

The 2014 Nationals won 96 games and the NL East, and captured Regional #141 with strong starting pitching and pop in the lineup with Bryce Harper homering in all three regional games.  Unlike most super-regional teams in round four, they had multiple good options for a #4 starter with Doug Fister (16-6, 2.41) stronger than the top of most teams’ rotations.  They now faced the 1924 Browns, and although their 74-78 record was unimpressive their penchant for getting on base pushed them through their regional, although SS Wally Gerber was still nursing an injury and starter Dave Danforth (15-12, 4.51) had a tendency to yield extra-base hits.  Danforth runs into trouble quickly as the P-5 commits a two-base error in the top of the 2nd that sets up a 2-run single for Ryan Zimmerman, and then after a Harper single it’s Wilson Ramos with a 3-run homer and a big Washington lead.  The Browns try to begin the long road back with a 2-out 2-run double from Baby Doll Jacobson in the 3rd, but Jayson Werth adds an RBI single in the 4th and the Browns bullpen offers no potential for assistance.  A Ken Williams solo shot in the bottom of the 5th makes it 6-2, but an error from injury replacement SS-4 Norm McMillan gives the Nats another run in the 8th.  From there Fister is clenched, limiting the Browns to five hits for a complete game 7-3 victory and a trip to round five.  

Two of the best teams in the super-regional face off in this round four game between the pennant-winning 1974 Dodgers and the 96-win 1949 Cardinals, who finished in second place one game out.  For the Dodgers, Doug Rau (13-11, 3.73) was not bad for a #4 starter but certainly not of the quality of the rest of the rotation, while the Cards had a few solid options and went with Red Munger (15-8, 3.87) on the hill.  Things start off a little auspiciously for the Dodgers in the top of the 1st as NL MVP and 1B-1 Steve Garvey drops the first batted ball for an error, but Rau escapes the inning unscathed.  They then show how it’s done in the bottom of the 1st, as Davey Lopes leads off with a single, steals second, and slides under the tag at home on a Jimmy Wynn single.  Garvey then atones with a long 2-run homer; Chuck Diering tries to respond by rolling Rau’s HR 1-13 split, but a 14 roll just gets him stranded at second.  However, the Cards come alive in the top of the 3rd, as a Stan Musial RBI sac fly precedes a 2-run homer from Enos Slaughter that ties the game, while in the bottom of the inning Lopes and Wynn both miss HR splits and the Dodgers come away empty.  However, in the 4th an error by Cards 1B-4 Nippy Jones and two walks load things up for Steve Yeager, who raps an RBI single and Bill Russell follows with another hit that scores two more, spelling the end for Munger as Fred Martin comes in and manages to stop the bleeding, but it’s 6-3 LA.   Yeager adds a 2-out RBI single in the 5th, but Musial matches that with one of his own in the 6th.  Wynn then converts the same split he missed earlier in the game for a solo homer in the bottom of the 6th, and the Dodgers are hoping to ride out a shaky Rau and preserve the pen.  Unfortunately for them, they can’t preserve Yeager, who’s injured and out until round six, and forcing the Dodgers to use Manny Mota as an emergency backstop, and he actually makes a play in the 8th to end the inning.  Rau then retires the Cards in order in the 9th and the Dodgers march on to round five with a comfortable 8-4 win.  

The survivors:  round five

Two prior round four Zoom games set up a grudge match between Chuck’s 1987 Brewers, who had crushed out nine runs in the first three innings against the Mariners, and Eaglesfly’s 1992 Expos, who had bested Chuck in round four with five first-inning runs.  This time it might go differently as the teams returned to the top of their rotations, with Dennis Martinez (16-11, 2.47) for Les Expos and Teddy Higuera (18-10, 3.85) on the mound for Milwaukee.  Based upon previous games, getting off to a quick start could be critical, and Chuck wastes no time with  Mike Felder rolling his solid 1-9 triple to lead off the bottom of the 1st.  Paul Molitor doubles to score Felder, and after a few outs it’s Rob Deer with a 2-out single for a quick 2-0 Brewers lead.  But that’s just a warm-up for inning number two, as Bill Schroeder adds to his super-regional RBI total with a run-scoring single, and he scores on a Greg Brock hit; another Molitor RBI single and then it’s Deer time as Rob crushes a two-run homer.  After a mound chat Eaglesfly decides to stick with his ace Martinez, and he responds by holding the Brewers to two hits and no runs the rest of the way.  However, by then it’s far too late because Higuera is in control, assisted when Delino Deshields joins Tim Wallach on the DL, and although injury replacement Sean Berry records an RBI single in the 5th the Expos manage only four other hits against Higuera as the Brewers cruise to the super-regional finals with a 7-1 victory.

A high profile round five Zoom matchup between the pennant-winning 1974 Dodgers, helmed by StratFan Rick, and the NL-East winning 2014 Nationals led by brother Chuck had both teams going with their top starters: Andy Messersmith (20-6, 2.59) for the Dodgers and Tanner Roark (15-10, 2.85) on the mound for the Nats.  LA gets on the board quickly in the bottom of the 1st with a Davey Lopes walk and stolen base followed by a Willie Crawford RBI single, but Washington #9 hitter Danny Espinosa rolls three ones for a solo homer in the top of the 3rd that ties the game.  The Dodgers respond immediately with a 2-run double from Crawford in the bottom of the inning, but an Ian Desmond RBI single narrows the gap to 3-2 in the top of the 5th.  In the bottom of the 5th Roark feels a twinge in his arm and he has to leave the game, so closer Drew Storen comes in and he holds off LA while RBI singles from Ryan Zimmerman and Wilson Ramos in the 6th chase Messersmith and give the Nationals a 4-3 lead.  Storen tosses two hitless innings, but 1B-3 Adam LaRoche commits an error to keep the Dodgers alive in the 7th, and seeking to preserve Storen for later rounds Chuck motions for Tyler Clippard from the pen.  That does not go well, and ultimately Clippard has men on 2nd and 3rd with two out and the red hot Crawford at the plate; once again, he delivers a single, the speedy Lopes races home easily and the Dodgers get the runs they need for the lead.  In comes 200+ inning megareliever Mike Marshall to wrap up the 5-4 victory for the Dodgers, one that saw five lead changes in the game.

Super-Regional final:  round six

The super-regional final between the pennant-winning 1974 Dodgers and the persistent 1987 Brewers was the featured Zoom game of the week, with brother Chuck seeking to complete his trifecta in leading the injury-plagued Brewers against EaglesFly and the Dodgers.  LA’s Tommy John (13-3, 2.59) was the possessor of an imposing card, while swingman Chuck Crim (6-8, 3.67) was taken out of the pen as the best starting option for the Brewers.  Oft-maligned Bill Buckner begins a big night for him with a solo homer in the bottom of the 2nd, but the Dodgers then leave the bases loaded as a rattled Crim regains his form in the nick of time to prevent further damage.  Meanwhile, presurgical Tommy John is in control, as the Brewers, still without their Hall of Fame centerfielder Robin Yount due to injury, cannot muster a serious threat.  The game thus enters the top of the 9th with the Dodgers leading 1-0, but then an unthinkable error by C-1 Steve Yeager sets up a 2-out single by the immortal Rob Deer, and the game is tied heading into the bottom of the 9th.  The game then falls to Dan Plesac to try to stave off the walkoff from the heart of the Dodger order, and he is masterful and sends the game into extra innings.  John holds out for 10 innings but then has to be pulled for uber-reliever Mike Marshall in the 11th, while Plesac finishes a great 4-inning stint that leaves him burnt for the foreseeable future.  The game moves to the 12th, and Dale Sveum takes Marshall’s first pitch of the inning deep into the pavilions at Dodger Stadium, and the upstart Brewers now lead heading into the bottom of the 12th but needing to go deeper into a very shallow bullpen.  Mark Clear gets the assignment, and although he yields a hit, he hangs on for the save and with a 2-1 win the Brewers will move on as one of the final 32 survivors in the project.  If they can hold on for two more wins and reach the Elite Eight, they’ll even get Yount back in the lineup!

Interesting card of Super-Regional R:  The 1974 Dodgers fell short, losing the super-regional final in extra innings, but they managed to reach the sixth round of this tournament courtesy of strong pitching and this guy, the 1974 NL MVP.  Prior to this season, the 25 year old Garvey was nothing remarkable, a decent average hitter who never broke double digits in homers, and in 1974 he wasn’t even listed on the All-Star ballot for first base.  However, his strong start to the season attracted the attention of the fans and he became only the second player in the history of All-Star fan voting to win the starting position as a write-in candidate (trivia question:  who was the first?).  Although I love the die cut card and the old school card pattern, I have to say that compared to more modern MVP winners, this is a somewhat underwhelming offensive performance; his .811 OPS is solid but many recent MVPs bested this by more than 200 points.  Of course, 1974 was a different era, and his selection was somewhat controversial at the time, as Lou Brock broke the single season stolen base record that year but lost the ballot to Garvey.  Garvey remained a controversial figure for much of his career, establishing a reputation as a clean-cut, conservative icon who was not particularly popular with teammates, and this reputation was later tarnished by paternity suits.  A 10-time All-Star who was named on MVP ballots in nine different seasons, he nonetheless attracted little support for the Hall of Fame, attracting a high of 43% of the vote in the 15 years he was listed on the ballot.  Perhaps if he had a better performance in the super-regional final (1 for 5, unlike the much maligned Bill Buckner who went 4 for 4) and the Dodgers had moved on in this project, I’d be more inclined to argue his case.

SUPER-REGIONAL Q:   This collection of eight regional winners is dominated by Yankees teams, with three of the eight coming from the Bronx, and two of those were the only surviving pennant winners of the four that began this group of 64 teams.   There were also two Braves squads from different successful eras for that franchise, and the group was rounded out by entries from the Phillies, Red Sox, and Angels that I think had survived more on grit than on talent.   My hunch was that there would be multiple Yankees/Braves showdowns that would be the key games of the bracket, and I predicted that one such matchup would be in the finals, where I guessed that the 2003 version of the Braves would handle the 1958 version of the Yanks. The ELO rankings predicted an all-pinstripes final, with the ‘47 Yanks over the ‘58 Yanks in a matchup of two World Series winners.

Round four action

The 1968 Yankees were the least impressive of the three Bronx entrants in this super-regional, but they were over .500 at 83-79 and boasted a solid rotation typical of the Year of the Pitcher, with Steve Barber (6-5, 3.23) representing their #4 starter.  The 1967 Braves were a 77-85 team but they had persisted through Regional #130 despite some injuries, and Felipe Alou would still be out for this game and both his bat and glove would be sorely missed; however, like the Yanks the Braves had a solid option at the bottom of the rotation in Pat Jarvis (15-10, 3.66).  New York gets a run in the top of the 2nd when Joe Pepitone scores as Bobby Cox hits into a double play, although Pepitone returns the favor by misplaying a Rico Carty single in the bottom of the inning, setting up an RBI hit from Felix Millan–although Woody Woodward ends a promising rally by lining into a triple play.  Hank Aaron crushes a 2-out solo homer in the 3rd to put the Braves ahead, and in the 6th Tito Francona follows an error by 1B-3 Mickey Mantle with a 2-run homer to provide additional padding for the lead.  Steve Hamilton is then summoned from the pen, but he loads the bases for Aaron, whose fielder’s choice scores another and when Torre follows with an RBI single, it’s 6-1 Atlanta after six.  And that is how it ends as Jarvis holds on, as does 1B-4 Francona for the final out of the game to send the Braves on, buoyed by the news that Alou will be rejoining the lineup for round five.  

Having the Series champion 1958 Yankees reach the super-regionals was not much of a surprise, but their opponents were:  the 1938 Phillies, a 45-105 team that according to the ELO ratings were one of the 30 worst teams of all time, yet managed to win their regional as a #8 seed.   And it gets even worse, as these Phils suffered three costly injuries in that regional, and although Heinie Mueller would be back for this game, Chuck Klein and Hersh Martin were still out, and their number #4 starter was the aptly named Max Butcher (9-12, 4.47).  The Yanks had injury issues of their own, with HOFer Yogi Berra still out for several games, but they had a number of decent starter options and went with Art Ditmar (9-8, 3.42) on the hill.  They start off with a bang as Norm Siebern leads off the top of the 1st with a homer, but the pesky Phils tie it in the bottom of the frame on a fielder’s choice from Phil Weintraub.   In the 2nd, Hank Bauer misses his HR 1-12 split and gets stranded at second, and the Yanks load the bases in the 3rd but come up empty again.  In the 4th, Bauer now rolls Butcher’s HR 1-14 split, and this time he gets it with a 14 roll; Gil McDougald has a chance to go back to back with his own HR 1-14 split but it comes up a 20 for a double.  No problems, as Tony Kubek roll’s Butchers HR split again for the third HR 1-14 chance in a row, and he converts it–followed by Sieburn rolling HIS HR split once again, converting it to go back to back and Butcher is being slaughtered, and with Enos Slaughter in fact coming up to the plate the Phillies want to try someone with a more peaceful name, so Syl Johnson comes in to end the inning but the Yanks lead 5-1.  Philly responds in the bottom of the 4th with a 2-out RBI single by Earl Browne, but Gibby Brack leads off the 6th by getting injured and the Phils are fresh out of outfielders and begin scanning the bleachers for likely looking replacements.   Still, Johnson holds the Yanks at bay while the Bronx fielding falls apart in the 7th, with errors by SS-3 Kubek and P-5 Ditmar scoring one and setting up a 2-out 2-run double by Weintraub that ties the game.  With Ditmar unable to get the third out, the Yanks summon wild man Ryne Duren who blows three pitches by injury replacement Cap Clark, but we head to the 8th knotted at 5 each.  Unfortunately for Philadelphia, Johnson is toast and Elmer Burkart comes in with the game on the line, but Siebern doubles past RF-3 Morrie Arnovich and then he races home on a Slaughter 2-out single to put the Yankees back in front.  After earning the save in the regional final, Duren is burnt in the 9th but Bobby Shantz comes in to retire the Phils without incident, putting an end to their Cinderella run with the 6-5 Yankee win.    

The round four matchup between the 1983 Angels and the 1947 Yankees included such iconic names as Rod Carew, Reggie Jackson, Joe Dimaggio and Yogi Berra, with both teams at full strength behind starters Tommy John (11-13, 4.33) for the Angels and Bill Beven (7-13, 3.82) for New York.  A 92-loss team, the Angels were decided underdogs against these pennant-winning Yanks, but they draw first blood in the top of the 4th when Doug DeCinces finds and converts Bevens’ HR split for a solo shot and a 1-0 lead, but the Yanks immediately tie it when an error by C-1 Bob Boone sets up a 2-out RBI triple from Tommy Heinrich.  The Yanks then move ahead in the 5th on a 2-out double by Scooter Rizzuto that scores Billy Johnson, but DeCinces again converts that HR split in the 6th to tie the game once again.  Fred Lynn then goes back-to-back and the Californians regain the lead, and John is put on notice that his leash will be quite short to begin the 6th.  It turns out that Bevens is the first to exit after allowing a single in the 7th, and Joe Page is brought into to retire the side, recording the third putout himself despite being a P-4.  In the 7th, Yankee PH Allie Clark rips a 2-out double but 1-10+2 George McQuinn is cut down at the plate and the air goes out of Yankee Stadium.   And John never even requires a tug on the leash as he finishes out the 3-2 victory to upset the World Champs and send the 92-loss Angels on to round five.

The 1927 Red Sox were an unlikely entrant in a super-regional, having won their regional from the #8 seed and their 51-103 record was good for last in the AL; however, they were dogged in pulling off three upsets and swingman Jack Russell (4-9, 4.10) had showed his bite earning a save in their round one extra inning game.  They were underdogs once again against the 2003 Braves, who won 101 games and the NL East and had scored 17 runs in their regional final–although they had allowed 12 and they were hoping that Horacio Ramirez (12-4, 4.00) would be able to give a stretched bullpen a bit of a break.  The Braves offense picks up where it left off, as in the bottom of the 1st they get one run on an error from Boston C-3 Grover Hartley, and that’s followed by a 3-run blast from Gary Sheffield and it’s 4-0 after an inning.  The Red Sox hadn’t scored more than four runs in any of their three regional games, but they start trying to crawl back into the game with an RBI single from Ira Flagstead in the top of the 3rd.  The Braves add to their lead as a run scores on a Chipper Jones fielder’s choice in the 5th, and the Red Sox load the bases in the 6th but come away empty after Wally Shaner hits into a double play.  From there, both starters close out 5-hit complete games, but the Braves are more efficient with their hits and they march on with a 5-1 victory and keeps the possibility of an all-Braves super-regional final alive.

The survivors:  round five

This round five game features one of the two Atlanta squads to win in round four of this super-regional, the 1967 Braves, and the only surviving one of the two pennant-winning Yankee teams to begin this bracket, the 1958 Yankees.  With both teams coming around to the top of the rotation, it would be two Hall of Famers facing off with Whitey Ford (14-7, 2.01) and the Yanks battling  Phil Niekro (11-9,1.87) going for the Braves.   The injury scales were tilted in favor of the Braves, who would get Felipe Alou back while Yogi Berra was still out for the Yanks.   But something isn’t knuckling for Niekro in the bottom of the 1st, as after allow two leadoff singles Mickey Mantle sends one 500 feet to put the Yanks up 3-0.  In the 4th Hank Bauer triples and then scores on a 2-out Tony Kubek single that adds another run, but in the 6th Clete Boyer, playing for the Braves and not New York, swats a 2-out 2-run double to cut the lead in half.  However, that is the last hit of the game, as the Yanks hold on for the 4-2 win with Ford allowing only two hits, and while he committed two errors himself he allowed neither of those mistakes to lead to a run.  

On paper, this is a rather lopsided round five matchup between the 101-win 2003 Braves and the 92-loss 1983 Angels; both teams would return to the top of their rotation, although both Russ Ortiz (21-7, 3.81) for the Braves and Ken Forsch (11-12, 4.06) for the Angels had been knocked out of their round one starts with relievers earning the wins.  The Braves strike in the bottom of the 2nd with a solo homer from Gary Sheffield, but in the 4th Braves LF-4 Chipper Jones manages to make a 3-base error on a Reggie Jackson fly ball that ties the game, and then LF-4 Sheffield turns a Bob Boone flyball into a double and Ortiz loses his cool, walking the bases loaded and then walking Brian Downing and the Angels now lead 3-1.  In the bottom of the inning, a 2-out Vinny Castilla RBI single makes it a one run game, and in the 6th the Braves tie it when Sheffield doubles and scores on a single by Andruw Jones.  When Castilla singles, the 1-17 Jones takes off for 3rd but is thrown out, although Castilla ultimately scores on a sharp hit from Julio Franco, and when Forsch issues a walk he’s pulled for reliever Luis Sanchez, who promptly yields an RBI double to Rafael Furcal off his card and the Braves now lead 5-3 after six.  However, when Fred Lynn walks to lead off the 8th and Doug Decinces doubles to put the tying run in scoring position, the Braves head to the pen themselves for ace closer John Smoltz.  Smoltz gets two straight and it looks like he’s going to escape unscathed, but Boone delivers a clutch single to score both runners and tie the game.  It’s then up to the relievers for the 9th inning; Smoltz is flawless in the top of the inning, and Javy Lopez leads off the bottom of the 9th with a HR 1-14 split….the roll is a 14 and it’s a walk-off homer that seemingly dings off the foul pole to give the Braves the hard fought 6-5 win over an Angels team that punched above their weight in the entire tournament.  

Super-regional finals

This was the super-regional final that I had predicted, with the world champion 1958 Yankees against the division-winning, 101-win 2003 Braves.  The pitching matchup was suitably strong, with Greg Maddux (16-11, 3.98) going against Cy Young winner Bob Turley (21-7, 2.97), and although Yogi Berra was not quite recovered from the injury he suffered in the regional finals, that just meant more playing time for an excellent replacement in Elston Howard, who actually received more AL MVP votes than Berra did.  The Yanks waste no time, with Norm Siebern leading off the top of the 1st with a double and Enos Slaughter brings him home with a sharp single, and then Mickey Mantle and Andy Carey begin the 4th going back to back homers off Maddux’s card and the Bombers lead 3-0.  In the bottom of the inning, a walk and Turley’s first hit allowed, a double by Javy Lopez, puts two runners in scoring position with nobody out but Turley racks up two consecutive strikeouts and 2B-2 Gil McDougald makes a highlight play for the third out of the inning and the Braves come up empty.  In the 5th, it’s Tony Kubek’s turn to convert Maddux’s pesky 6-5 homer split, and when Howard singles off Maddux’s card in the 6th the Braves pull the Hall of Famer for Ray King, who ends the inning without incident.  However, in the 7th Mantle takes him deep for a 2-out, 2-run shot, and the Yanks take a big lead into the 9th.  However, Enos Slaughter gets injured for 15 games in making the Yanks final out in the top of the 9th, and that dampens the celebration of Turley’s 3-hit shutout that propels the Yanks to the 6-0 win and the super-regional crown.  Although Slaughter will be lost for the remainder of the tournament, the good news is that Berra will be back in the lineup as the Yanks advance to the final field of 32.  

Interesting card of Super-Regional Q:  I first started paying attention to baseball in the mid-1960s, and if you had asked me to name the greatest baseball player in existence, I would have said it was this guy.  In retrospect, it’s interesting that this White Sox fan would have had that view, since in those “game of the week” days I rarely if ever saw Mantle play; I suspect my view was shaped by a public relations aura that came with playing for a team in the media capital of the world, which tended to focus on a white superstar in an era when most of the other greats (e.g., Mays, Aaron, Clemente) were not.  However, when I got my first Strat set in the form of the 1967 AL season, I think I remember being pretty disappointed by the Mick’s card.  What I didn’t know at the time was that it would be his penultimate season, with his last hurrah represented by this card, presented in its original and advanced reissue forms.  The Yankees made three appearances in this bracket and Mantle figured prominently in two of them 10 years apart; his excellent 1958 card was already featured in my Regional #139 writeup, and that card seemed deserving of an MVP award to me.  Not so much this one, but it was the final Mantle entry in the Strat universe.

SUPER-REGIONAL P:   There was only one pennant winner that had begun this bracket of 64, and it had been eliminated in the regional final and did not reach the super-regional level.  However, there were two Canadian teams and two Giants teams represented in this group of regional winners, as well as some rare regional wins by franchises like the Rays, Brewers, and an unlikely White Sox team.   Both of the Giants squads were very close to some classic championship teams, and I guessed that the Polo Grounds would host the finals because both of those teams would be in it.  The ELO ranking agreed, suggesting that they were the only two deserving squads with the rest of the group getting through their regionals with smoke and mirrors.

Round four action

For one of the Zoom games of the week, it was Canadian choice with Canada’s own Eaglesfly having to select between the 1976 Expos and the 2005 Blue Jays.  Apparently having a thing for the underdog, he selected the 107-loss Expos, who had somehow managed to win Regional #121 as a bottom seed, but now were stuck with the bottom of the rotation in the form of Don Carrithers (6-12, 4.44).   That left ColavitoFan to helm the 80-82 Jays, with the equally unimpressive Dave Bush (5-11, 4.49) due for his turn on the mound.  And Bush is looking shrubbery in the early going, allowing a solo homer to Ellis Valentine in the top of the 1st with a Barry Foote sac fly and a 2-run single for Bombo Rivera making it 4-0 Expos after two innings. When Larry Parrish adds a solo homer in the top of the 3rd, the good news for Toronto is that Bush can be removed, with Jason Frasor coming in to prevent further damage.  Perhaps buoyed by the pitching upgrade, the Jays offense comes alive in the bottom of the inning, reeling off 7 hits and 5 runs against Carrithers with the biggest blow being a 2-run double from Vernon Wells; the game is now tied and it’s in the hands and arms of the respective bullpens.  The Expos show the mettle that led to their unlikely run and retake the lead on an RBI single by DH Jose Morales, but Montreal reliever Joe Kerrigan gets into trouble in the 6th, loading the bases and #9 hitter Gregg Zaun pokes a 2-run hit that pushes the Jays into the lead for the first time in the game.  From there, it’s a showcase for Toronto reliever Scott Schoeneweis, who tosses two and a third hitless innings to end the Cinderella run for the Expos and propel the Jays deeper into the project with the come-from-behind 7-6 win.

Although the 1960 Giants only managed a 79-75 record, the pieces were in place for what would be a dominating pennant winner two seasons later, and StratFan Rick was ready to send some of his favorites out against my 70-83 1927 White Sox, who had survived my Sox jinx mainly due to weak opposition in their regional.  The round four matchup meant we were at the bottom of the rotation, and while Billy O’Dell (8-13, 3.19) looked solid to me as the Giants #4 starter, Hall of Famer Red Faber (4-7, 4.54) was 38 years old and had the worst season of his career.  Orlando Cepeda finds one of the numerous singles on Faber’s card for an RBI in the top of the 3rd, but Faber manages to get out of later jams and eventually the Sox offense figures out O’Dell as a Bibb Falk solo homer and a Harry McCurdy RBI single in the bottom of the 6th give the pesky Sox a 2-1 lead.  Thus the Comiskey Park crowd gets a brief thrill before the Giants erupt in top of the 7th with Cedepa, Felipe Alou, and Willie Mays battering Faber for four runs and a 5-2 lead.  In the 8th, a two-run homer by Jim Davenport hammers the final nail in the Sox coffin to seal the 7-2 Giants win; the 1927 Sox fans trudge home, consoling themselves with the knowledge that none of them will live long enough to bear witness to the futility of the 2024 team.

The 2017 Rays had a middling 80-82 record and after defeating the top seed in Regional #125, they had a relatively easy path to the super-regional; Jake Odorizzi (10-8, 4.14) was not a bad #4 starter if he could keep the ball in the park.  On the other side, the 94-loss 2003 Brewers won their regional as a #8 seed, downing two very good teams in the process; Wayne Franklin (10-13, 5.50) would try to keep that streak alive, with a card that shared the gopher ball problems of his counterpart.  It takes two batters before Logan Morrison finds one of Franklin’s HR results for a solo shot in the top of the 1st, and then Franklin loads up the bases in the 4th for a double by Evan Longoria, although C Wilson Ramos is out at the plate trying for a third run.  They get that and more when Franklin walks the bases loaded again only to yield a 2-run single to Kevin Kiermaier, and that’s it for Franklin as closer Dan Kolb is summoned in desperation, just in time to deliver a three-run homer to Morrison.  Now down 8-0, the Milwaukee fans focus their attention on the beer vendors, perhaps missing the Brewers first hit of the in the 6th inning by Royce Clayton, but it amounts to nothing.  They do push across a run in the 8th on a Brady Clark single, but the Rays get that back in the 9th on a Colby Rasmus RBI double.  Odorizzi then retires the Brewers in order in the 9th to finish up a 4-hitter and the Rays march on with an easy 9-1 win.

This round four game looked like a fairly balanced matchup between two decent teams.   The 1953 Giants were one season away from a historic season, but with Willie Mays in the military the team only assembled a 70-84 record that was nine games worse than their Pythagorean project.   The 1930 Pirates went 80-74 but their projection was six games worse and they had a somewhat worse ELO rating than the Giants, so it was hard to pick a favorite between these two.  One tiebreaker was that the #4 pitcher in a 1930 rotation had to be pretty bad, and Glenn Spencer (8-9, 5.40) was no exception, while Larry Jansen (11-16, 4.14) was not a terrible option for the Giants although his gopher ball was a worry.   The game starts quickly for the Bucs as two Waners get on base for a Pie Trayner 3-run homer in the top of the 1st, but Giant 2B Davey Williams leads off the bottom of the inning by converting Spencer’s HR split, Bobby Hofman adds an RBI single, Monte Irvin contributes a run-scoring sac fly, and then Bobby Thomson fires a shot heard round the Polo Grounds for a 2-run blast and the Giants lead is 5-2 after just one inning.  Little Poison Lloyd Waner provides an RBI single in the 2nd but is deprived of a second tally when 1-14 Denny Sothern is cut down trying to take the extra base, and it’s a one run game after two.  Traynor then leads off the 3rd with a triple and he scores on a George Grantham single that ties it up, and when Gus Suhr follows with a single the Giants give up on Jansen and try Marv Grissom from the pen, but Dick Bartell’’s sac fly provides Pittsburgh with the go-ahead run.  A Whitey Lockman single and a Wes Westrum double from missing Spencer’s HR split puts two runners in scoring position with nobody out, and the Pirates look at their pen and recoil in horror, instead bringing the infield in and hoping for the best.  A walk loads the bases but Spencer induces consecutive grounders that nail the runner at the plate and he escapes with the lead still intact.  Traynor singles to lead off the 5th, leaving him a double short of a cycle, but he ends up stranded at 3rd; in the bottom of the inning Hofman gets knocked out of the game with an injury, and 1-16 Thomson is nailed trying to score so the Pirates cling to the lead after five.  Back to back doubles by Sothern and Rollie Helmsley provide an insurance run for the Pirates in the 6th, but when Don Mueller cracks a double past LF-3 Adam Comorosky in the bottom of the inning, Pittsburgh brings in their only non-dreadful reliever, Steve Swetonic, and he escapes the inning when 1-11+2 Mueller is out at home trying to score on a Dusty Rhodes single.  Traynor flies out to lead off the 7th, making his cycle unlikely, and in the 8th Hank Thompson rips an RBI single to make it a one-run game entering the 9th.  Paul Waner gets hurt in the top of the 9th to the chagrin of the Pirates fans; it’s a minor injury but he has to leave the game which downgrades RF from a 1 to a 4.  In response, Grantham converts a TR 1-2 on Hoyt Wilhelm’s card to provide a little padding for Swetonic entering the bottom of the 9th.  He gets Dark and Thomson for two quick outs but then walks Lockman to bring up Westrum as the tying run, but Swetonic whiffs him to send the Pirates to round five with the hard-fought 8-6 win.  

The survivors:  round five

The Zoom game of the week was an international grudge match with Canadian manager Eaglesfly and the 2005 Blue Jays against StratFan’s 1960 Giants that he had previously led to victory over my White Sox in round four.  Being a round five game, it was back to the top of the rotation and a strong matchup between the Jays’ Hall of Famer Roy Halladay (12-4, 2.41) and SF’s Mike McCormick (15-12, 2.70), the NL ERA leader; however, the Giant were having to make do after losing RF Willie Kirkland to injury for the tournament in the previous round.  Regardless, they came out swinging against Halladay, repeatedly rolling on one of the few extra base outcomes on his card to rack up six hits and three runs in the first two innings of play, and the Jays start making calls to Philadelphia to see if they’d be interested in a trade.  Felipe Alou adds a double in the bottom of the 4th for his second RBI of the game to make it 4-0 Giants, and McCormick is reaping the Jays lineup until the 6th when Shea Hillenbrand raps a 2-run single to cut the lead in half.  Toronto continues to fight back with an RBI double from Aaron Hill in the 7th and it’s a one-run game. A mound conference with McCormick convinces the Giants to stick with him, and he proves his mettle by shutting down the Jays the rest of the way as the Giants hang on for a 4-3 win and a trip to the super-regional final.  

Although middling teams on paper, the 2017 Rays and the 1930 Pirates had each survived an entire pass through their rotation and it was now back to the top, but neither Chris Archer (10-12, 4.07) for the Rays or Larry French (17-18, 4.36) were dominating starters, and both bullpens were seriously stretched.  The Rays strike in the top of the 3rd as Logan Morrison converts a 2-run triple off French’s card and Colby Rasmus drives him in with a pitcher-card single; Corey Dickerson then rolls on his own card for a long 2-run homer, and although it appears that French is fried there is nobody in the pen that is remotely as good and so he’s staying put despite the 5-0 deficit.  The Bucs make a game of it in the 4th as Adam Comorosky converts a HR split off Archer’s card for a 3-run shot, but Morrison leads off the 5th with his third homer in two games and Steven Souza adds another solo shot later in the inning to restore a comfortable lead.  Pie Traynor cuts the margin to three with a sac fly in the bottom of the 5th, but Rays PH Lucas Duda crushes a 2-run shot in the 6th as Tampa refuses to allow the Pirates to gain any ground.  Pittsburgh refuses to go quietly and Gus Suhr adds a 2-out RBI single in the 8th, but their hopes wane as the two Waners contribute a DP ball and a strikeout to end the bottom of the 9th and the Rays move on with a 9-5 win and an appearance in the super-regional final.

Super-regional final

The super-regional finals would be taking place over Zoom as a Friday Night Strat featured game, and Tall Tactician elected to manage the 2017 Rays, whose powerful lineup had averaged 8.8 runs a game in their previous five outings; Alex Cobb (12-10, 3.66) was hoping for similar levels of run support in this appearance.  Meanwhile, StratFan would be directing the 1960 Giants for the third time in this bracket, but not only had he lost RF Willie Kirkland to injury for the tournament, he was also faced with a lingering injury to his #2 starter Sam Jones that had occurred back in Regional #123.  Fortunately, under tournament rules there are no usage restrictions when an injury replacement must be made, meaning that 22 year old rookie Juan Marichal (6-2, 2.66) would be pressed into service.  Both pitchers start off in fine form, but in the bottom of the 4th Colby Rasmus and Corey Dickerson manage back to back doubles that are good for a 1-0 Tampa lead.  The Giants can only manage one hit against Cobb for the first six innings, but in the 7th it’s Willie Mays and Bob Schmidt with solo homers that provide SF with a 2-1 edge that lasts for one inning until Wilson Ramos’s own solo shot ties it up entering the 9th inning.   Now, in orchestrating the Zoom game, I keep asking TT if he’s interested in the status of the Rays bullpen, but he’s convinced that Alex is the best Cobb since Ty…at least until one away in the top of the 9th, when Orlando Cepeda finds and converts Cobb’s HR split for a solo shot that’s good for a one-run lead entering the bottom of the 9th.  Meanwhile, StratFan has the ultimate confidence in his promising young starter, and Marichal responds with a perfect bottom of the 9th to give StratFan his third straight victory with the Giants in this super-regional, a 3-2 win that is good for the bracket crown and a berth in the final field of 32 in the tournament. 

Interesting card of Super-Regional P:  Under tournament rules, starting pitchers must have at least 100 IP to take a spot in the rotation, unless there are not four such pitchers carded for the team (in which case the SP with the most innings must pitch).  However, another tournament rule is that any usage restrictions do not apply when an injured player must be replaced.  Thus, as a result, this 22 year old rookie wouldn’t get a shot until the #2 starter in the Giants rotation, Sam Jones, went down for seven games in his round two start.  Marichal’s limited innings were no fault of his own; he wasn’t called up for his major league debut until July 19th of 1960, when he was called upon for a start against the Phillies–he did pretty well, throwing a complete game shutout while allowing only one hit (a pinch-hit single to Clay Dalrymple in the eighth inning) while walking one and striking out 12.   Four days later he four-hit the eventual World Series champion Pirates for a 3-1 win, and in his third starting he outpitched Warren Spahn for 10 innings to earn a 3-2 victory.  Not a bad beginning to a Hall of Fame career, although it was a career that never saw him win a Cy Young award despite arguably being the best right handed pitcher of the 1960s.   Perhaps he hurt his case in 1965 when he was not on the mound, but in the batter’s box; after two consecutive brushback pitches from Sandy Koufax, when Dodger catcher John Roseboro buzzed a throwback past Marichal’s head, Juan turned around and began beating Roseboro with the bat, opening a gash on the catcher’s skull that resulted in Marichal’s ejection and the largest fine in NL history up to that point.  Fortunately for all involved, this tournament is an all-DH project and so in his start in the super-regional final, Marichal never was allowed to wield any lumber, allowing him to keep his cool and lead his team to the final round of 32 with a 5-hit complete game.  

SUPER-REGIONAL O:   Only one pennant winner began this group of 64, and it didn’t survive into the super-regional, although there were two Reds teams from consecutive seasons that seemed to constitute a mini-dynasty.  Given that those two squads faced one of the few White Sox teams to survive the jinx as well the final surviving Rockies team that would probably disappoint brother Chuck, the Reds teams might face off to see who makes the bracket final here.  Regardless, I thought the stronger part of the group was in the top teams, with all four teams representing franchises within a couple of seasons of a pennant.  I had no idea which of those four would prevail, nor did I have a clue about which Reds team would win their perhaps inevitable faceoff, so I guessed that the most modern team in the bunch, the Phillies, would prevail against the 2010 version of the Reds.   The ELO ratings aligned perfectly with that prediction, also noting that the two halves of the super-regional were very imbalanced, with the 2011 Phils a top 100 team of all time while the 2010 Reds barely made the top 1000.

Round four action

The 2011 Phillies won 102 games for the top record in baseball and were ranked as a top 80 team of all time by the ELO ratings, so for the Zoom game of the week I felt it was important to turn over the managerial duties to partisan Philadelphian Tall Tactician to try to sustain the tournament success of this era of the franchise. By comparison, the 79-75 1950 Cardinals were less impressive but Stan Musial was a force to be reckoned with, so Eagfesfly Roy felt pretty good about their chances, particularly with Philly 2B Chase Utley out as usual with an injury.  Both teams were down to their #4 starter, Gerry Staley (13-13, 4.99) for the Cards and Vance Worley (11-3, 3.01) for the Phils, and Staley looks like the bottom of the rotation as he doesn’t survive the 2nd inning, with a bases loaded single by injury replacement Wilson Valdez driving in two and Hunter Pence, Shane Victorino, and Ryan Howard all contributing ribbies in a five run inning.  Al Brazle manages to get the third out of the 2nd, but only can record one more in the 3rd before Philly DH John Mayberry Jr. sends a homer into the recesses of Sportsmans Park and it’s 7-0 Phils after three–and the Cards haven’t yet seen a baserunner in a home uniform.  They finally get a walk, a hit, and a run on a sac fly by Del Rice in the 5th, but that was only after Pence and Victorino had added three more Philly runs in the top of the inning.  Raul Ibanez responds to my remarkably robust Philly dice-rolling with a solo homer in the 8th, and the beating doesn’t stop as the 4th and 5th St. Louis pitchers get rocked for seven more runs in the top of the 9th.  Musial doubles in the bottom of the 9th and scores on a Bill Howerton single, but the rally falls sixteen runs short as the Phils march on in dominating fashion with the 18-2 win.  

The 1970 A's won 89 games at the beginning of a memorable dynasty, and they had bashed their way through Regional #115 with three consecutive two-homer games from three different sluggers: Reggie Jackson, Rick Monday and Don Mincher.  The 80-82 1964 Pirates reached this level in a different fashion, only allowing a total of three runs in their three regional games, but in the regional final they suffered a prolonged injury to their best player in Roberto Clemente, meaning that Joe Gibbon (10-7, 3.67) would need to continue the string of strong pitching against the A’s and Chuck Dobson (16-15, 3.74).   The A’s start off in good form in the top of the 1st with Joe Rudi driving in Monday on a sac fly, but the Bucs respond immediately with back to back doubles from Willie Stargell and Jerry Lynch to tie it in the bottom of the inning.  Lynch doubles again in the 4th, but the 1-9+2 slugger is thrown out trying to score for the last out of the inning.  However, the third base coach doesn’t give up that easily, and in the 6th he gives the green light to 1-10+2 Stargell to try to score on a two-out Jim Pagliaroni double; this time it works and the Pirates take the lead, and Dobson is out for Jim Roland who gets the third out.  When Monday doubles in the 7th, Pittsburgh takes no chances and summons closer Al McBean to preserve the lead, and he retires the side although Rudi puts a scare into the Forbes Field crowd by missing McBean’s HR 1-2/flyB split.  Faced with a tough decision to burn McBean or preserve some use for the next game, the Pirates stick with their closer for the 9th, figuring that the top of the rotation is coming around for round five.   He rewards them with a 1-2-3 inning and the Pirates pitching prevails again for a 2-1 win as they survive and advance.

With two of our favorites on the line, brother Chuck and I did a Zoom doubleheader, with the first game of the matchup involving Chuck’s 2016 Rockies, the last surviving representation of their kind in the tournament, while I rolled for the 2009 Reds.  Neither one of these squads had been world-beaters in real life, with the Rockies going 75-87 and the Reds slightly better at 78-84, and the pitching matchup of Colorado’s Chad Bettis (14-8, 4.79) and Cincinnati’s Aaron Harang (6-14, 4.21) suggested that this might be a typical high-scoring afternoon at Coors.  But these pitchers rolled better than they looked; the Reds took a 1-0 lead in the top of the 3rd on a Johnny Gomes RBI single but the Rockies pulled even in the 4th with David Dahl singling home a run.  Colorado then moves out in front in the 6th with a pinch hit double from Ryan Raburn, but the Reds counter that with a pinch hit solo homer from Drew Stubbs in the 7th that ties the game heading into the 9th, with both managers looking nervously at depleted bullpens if extra innings are needed.  In the top of the 9th, Bettis gets two out, but then the wheels come off the bus with a double and a Scott Rolen single that puts the Reds ahead.  Chuck calls upon Chris Rusin as the only non-terrible option available in the Rockies pen, but it’s Rusin roulette gone wrong as Stubbs, remaining in the game in CF, crushes his second solo homer of the game into the pine trees at Coors.  When Gomes later adds an RBI double, the fat lady is singing and Harang hangs in for the 9th to seal the 5-2 victory for the Reds, and the final chance for the Rockies head to the card catalogs while Cincinnati heads to round five.

The second game of the double-header was my probably jinxed 2011 White Sox against a 2010 Reds team that sported most of the same players as the prior year team that had just dispatched the Rockies, giving Chuck a chance to return the favor.  This Reds team would use Homer Bailey (4-3, 4.46) as their #4 starter while the Sox tapped Jake Peavy (7-7, 4.92), and the Reds picked up where they left off with an RBI double in the bottom of the 1st from Jay Bruce giving them a 1-0 lead.  And that was Peavy’s most successful inning, as in the 2nd the Reds got an RBI single from Drew Stubbs, who had apparently earned the starting CF job given his performance in the previous game, but that just sets up a 2-out 3-run homer by Joey Votto and it’s 5-0 Cincinnati.  The good news for the Sox is that they can now pull Peavy for a decent bullpen, and a young Chris Sale comes in and performs decently, allowing only one hit in four innings.  Unfortunately, that one hit followed two walks in the 4th, and it was Votto’s second tape measure shot of the game for another 3-run homer and it’s 8-0 Reds.  The Sox manage an unearned run in the 7th on the second of three errors, but that’s all they can manage as the Reds mini-dynasty plows on with an 8-1 win, setting up an all-Reds round 5 in which Chuck and I both hope that they both lose.

The survivors:  round five

After scoring 18 runs under the direction of Tall Tactician in round four, it seemed appropriate that I set up an emergency Zoom night so that he could attempt to extend the run of the 2011 Phillies in the tournament; I recruited brother Chuck to provide the loyal opposition in the form of the 1964 Pirates.   Both of these squads had lost key members of the lineup to injury:  the Bucs were without Roberto Clemente, while the Phils would be without Chase Utley for the entire project.  With both teams sending out their top starters, Bob Veale (18-12, 2.73) for the Pirates and Cole Hamels (14-9, 2.79) for the Phils, it didn’t look like anyone would be scoring 18 runs in this game, but the Phils did score a run in the top of the 2nd on a Carlos Ruiz sac fly for a 1-0 lead.  With Bill Mazeroski leading off the bottom of the 3rd, we explained to Chuck the history of Maz’s famous walk-off homer in the World Series, and Chuck absorbs the information by finding and converting Maz’s HR 1-6/flyB split and the game is tied.  However, in the 4th Shane Victorino singles a run home and the following inning Raul Ibanez adds a solo homer; another solo shot from Hunter Pence in the 6th provides additional insurance.  It turned out no further insurance needed to be purchased, as Hamels finishes out a 5 hitter and the Phils march on with a 4-1 win.

A battle of dopplegangers, the round five matchup of the 2009 Reds and the 2010 Reds required many of the players to violate the conventions of time travel and face versions of themselves separated by 12 months.  The alternative versions had the opportunity to return to their #1 starters to determine which would move on to represent the franchise, with Bronson Arroyo (15-13, 3.84) going for the 2009’s and Johnny Cueto (12-7, 3.64) for the 2010s.   In the bottom of the 1st, the 2010 Drew Stubbs wastes no time finding the weaknesses on Arroyo’s card, rolling the solid 5-9 homer as the leadoff batter, and two outs later Jim Edmonds rolls his own solid homer and the 2010s lead 2-0.  The 2009s respond immediately in the top of the 2nd with back to back doubles from Jay Bruce and Laynce Nix, but the 2010 Stubbs finds his own homer in the 3rd for his second solo shot in two AB and it’s 2010 with a 3-1 lead.  A two out rally in the 7th puts runners on 2nd and 3rd for the 2010s and Arroyo is yanked for Arthur Rhodes, who retires defensive replacement Paul Janish to prevent further damage.  The 09s then get a single and a Scott Rolen double in the 8th to put the tying runs in scoring position with nobody out, and the 2010s summon their own version of Rhodes, but after recording two outs he yields a 2-run single to Jay Bruce and the game is tied.  Neither team can do anything in the 9th, although 2010’s Edmonds does manage to get injured, and the game hits the Rhodes to extra innings.  In the top of the 10th, 2009’s Johnny Gomes crushes a solo homer to put the younger team ahead, and in the bottom of the inning they try to preserve their version of Rhodes for a later date after three hitless innings, and they trust the game to their closer Francisco Cordero who whiffs Stubbs for the final out and the 2009s come from behind to take the 4-3 win that propels them into the super-regional final.  Arthur Rhodes earns the unusual distinction of being both the winning and the losing pitcher in the same game.  

Super-regional finals

As the second game of the emergency Zoom doubleheader, the 2011 Phillies would attempt to continue their domination under the direction of Tall Tactician, while brother Chuck played the “if you can’t beat em, join em” game by manning the 2009 Reds that had knocked out his Rockies in round four.   For the Phils, it would be Cy Young runner-up Roy Halladay (19-6, 2.35) while Johnny Cueto (11-11, 4.41) had a decent card for the Reds, albeit with some gopher ball issues.  The Reds jump out to a quick 2-0 lead against an uncharacteristically sloppy Halladay with a sac fly by Laynce Nix and an RBI single from Jay Bruce.  However, Halladay quickly settles down, while in the 4th Ryan Howard converts a HR 1-3/flyB split for a two-run blast to tie the game, while John Mayberry Jr. and Howard drive in two more in the 5th and the Phils move into the lead.    Cueto lasts six innings but the Reds can’t afford to fall behind any further, so Chuck moves to reliever Nick Massett to begin the 7th.  He does his job, but it’s too late, as Halladay doesn’t allow a hit after the second inning and finishes with a 3-hitter as the Phillies win 4-2, capturing the super-regional and joining their 2008 brethren in the final group of 32 teams.

Interesting card of Super-Regional O:  Joey Votto held the rare distinction in this tournament of leading not one, but two Reds teams to their regional championship that ended up in the same super-regional.  Furthermore, both posted round four wins in this bracket, setting up a round five matchup between dueling Vottos that were the best hitters in each lineup.  Although both were impressive cards, this 2010 version was particularly strong as Joey won the NL MVP award by leading the league in OBP, SLG%, and of course OPS, while finishing 2nd in batting average and 3rd in RBI for a near miss at a Triple Crown.  He stayed with the Reds for what is likely to be his entire major league career, but they did not resign him after the 2023 season; being one of the greatest Canadian ballplayers in the history of the game, the Blue Jays took a flyer on him and signed him to a minor league contract, but he hit only .165 and felt he did not deserve an “honorary” promotion to the majors.   This signalled the end of a great career in which he averaged .294 with 356 homers, a .409 career OBP and a .511 lifetime SLG%.  Are those Hall of Fame numbers?   Well, according to the Jaffe WAR Score (JAWS) Hall of Fame rating system, he would place 13th of the 25 first basemen currently in the HOF, with numbers that are pretty much dead average for that group, suggesting that he’s an entirely reasonable candidate for enshrinement.  One factoid that underscores just how good a hitter he was is that on April 17, 2019, he popped out to first base in a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers–and it was the first time he had popped out to the infield in 1,592 career games!