REGIONAL #91:  This group features three pennant winners, a scenario that hasn't occurred since #65, and all three of those teams are ANGRY and ready to rumble. Why angry? Well, the 2012 Giants are seeking to avenge the 2010 team's loss in the finals of the previous regional; the 1985 Cardinals are still boiling about Don Denkinger's call in the World Series; and the 2001 Diamondbacks' Curt Schilling is pissed off about pretty much everything, but especially the Baseball Writers Association. I am fairly confident that the regional will go to one of those three squads, and I'll predict the Dbacks over the Giants in the finals with Arizona's two big starters getting them there and their peak steroid-era offense putting them over the top. The ELO rankings pick the Cards to win the regional, but their first round showdown with the Dbacks clearly looks to be the game of the bracket.  

First round action:

The 1977 Angels lost 88 games and were hardly a contender that year, but they had some talent that included Bobby Bonds, Don Baylor, and Nolan Ryan and they were the official Daniel Brown dark horse regional pick. They certainly compared favorably to the 1927 Phillies, a 51-103 last place team that the ELO rankings had among the 75 worst teams of all time. The Angels begin the scoring in the top of the 3rd when Bonds rips an RBI single through the infield, but a bases-loaded single by Dick Spalding in the bottom of the inning ties the game, with the go-ahead run being cut down at the plate for the third out. In the 5th, a two-out error (the Phils third error of the game) opens the door for a Don Baylor homer, and it's 3-1 Angels. A Terry Humphrey sac fly and a Joe Rudi double put the Angels on top 5-1, and Nolan Ryan is cruising, displaying remarkable control (for him). Ryan ends up with the complete game 5-1 win, allowing 7 hits and just 2 walks, and the Angels move easily to the semifinals.

The 2012 Giants won 94 games and the World Series, and like the 2010 team that lost in the final of the prior regional they had a solid combination of pitching, defense, and hitting, with their main weakness being the lack of a capable DH.  The most noteworthy thing about their opponents, the 62-win 1941 Braves, WAS their DH:  HOFer Paul Waner, who hit only .267 at age 38; the Braves had one decent starting pitcher in Jack Tobin and only one hitter in the lineup with a SLG% over .400, Max West.  Nonetheless, the Braves took an early 1-0 lead in the 1st on a Waner fielders choice, but on the next roll lost West to injury for the remainder of the tournament.  With little now behind him, it's up to Tobin to lock down this game, and he does so until the 5th, when Brandon Belt misses a HR split on Tobin's card but the resulting double drives in the tying run.  Buster Posey also misses the same split in the 6th, but also drives in a run with the double, and Hunter Pence adds an RBI single in the 8th to make it 3-1.  However, when Buddy Hassett leads off the bottom of the 9th with a HR off Cain's card, Cain is pulled for Mijares, who retires three in a row to preserve the 3-2 Giants win.

In the most highly anticipated matchup of the regional, the 101-win NL champ 1985 Cardinals with their speed, defense, and pitching depth faced off against the 92-win World Series champ 2001 Diamondbacks, with their offensive might and Big Two starting pitchers.  Not since Regional #65, where the '71 Orioles slaughtered the '76 Yanks 11-1, had two pennant winners played in the first round, and the pitching matchup was epic:  Cy Young winner Randy Johnson (21-6, 2.49 ERA) vs. Cy Young runner-up John Tudor (21-8, 1.93).  In the top of the 1st, doubles by Vince Coleman and Jack Clark put the Cards up 1-0, but in the bottom of the 1st, after Finley is cut down going home on a Luis Gonzalez double, Reggie Sanders blasts a HR to put the Dbacks up 2-1 and it's game on.  In the 3rd, AAA stealer Coleman singles, steals second, and scores on a Cedeno single to tie the game, but Arizona answers in the bottom of the inning when the Cards uncharacteristically make two errors, leading to Finley scoring on a Sanders fielders' choice, making it 3-2 Dbacks.  Tommy Herr ties it in the 6th singling in Van Slyke, who had doubled, and then both starters bear down and the game goes to extra innings deadlocked 3-3.  Both Johnson and Tudor hold down things in the 10th, and then by tournament rules things get turned over to the respective bullpens.  Byung-Hyun Kim retires the Cards in order in the top of the 11th.  In the bottom of the frame, Jeff Lahti comes in for the Cards and his first pitch is crushed by David Dellucci for the walk-off homer and the 4-3 Dback win; Tudor was last seen in the Cardinal dugout punching various inanimate objects.  The unlikely hero, Dellucci was only in the game because DH Durazo had been pulled for a pinch runner in the 9th.

The 86-win 1989 Cardinals had something to prove after their 1985 champs were eliminated in the prior game, but the '89 version had few of the same parts aside from Ozzie Smith and Vince Coleman.  However, they appeared to have way more useful parts than the 2013 White Sox, a last place team that lost 99 games, had an all-"4" outfield and only had one fielder with a "2" or better rating.  However, the Sox did have Chris Sale on the mound, and he held the Cards in check while the Sox went up 1-0 in the 4th on a De Aza grounder.  After the top of the 9th, the Sox put in all their available defensive replacements to try to hold on to the 1-0 lead, but back-to-back doubles by PH Denny Walling and Willie McGee to lead off the bottom of the 9th tied things up. Sale then struck out the side and the game heads to extra innings.  Both Joe Magrane and Sale make it through the 10th, and then the Cards have a horrifying flashback of the previous game where both teams have to turn the ball over to their respective bullpens in the 11th.  Both Ken Dayley for the Cards and Jesse Crain for the Sox do their jobs for their maximum allotment of innings, and in the 15th inning it becomes Dan Quisenberry against Addison Reed. Finally, in the 16th, Willie McGee mishandles a Keppinger single, and Quiz falls to pieces, allowing three more hits to give the Sox a 3-1 lead.  Reed retires the Cards in order, and the Sox win the 16 inning marathon, with snakebit St. Louis losing their second straight extra-inning game of the regional.

The survivors:

The semifinal pairing the 2012 Giants and the 1977 Angels featured two good #2 starters, Ryan Vogelsong and Frank Tanana, and both were in good form for this game.  A leadoff HR by Bobby Bonds put the Angels up in the top of the 4th, but it was matched by a solo shot from Buster Posey in the bottom of the inning.  Neither team could then muster any offense until the top of the 9th, when the Angels loaded the bases with one out against Vogelsong on a squib single and two walks, but Sergio Romo came in and kept any runs from scoring.  Tanana retires three straight in the bottom of the 9th, and for the third consecutive game in this regional we head to extra innings.  Romo is in fine form, while Tanana is finally pulled after 10 innings having allowed only three hits, handing the ball to Mike Barlow.  Romo hits his inning limit in the 13th, and Mijares (who earned the save in the first round game) comes in and walks the first batter, allows a single to Bonds, and then Pablo Sandoval drops a Don Baylor grounder to put the Angels up 2-1.  So in the bottom of the 13th, the game is up to Barlow and his 4.58 ERA to try to hold off the NL pennant winners, and he retires the side in order to send the Angels to the regional final.  Barlow and Tanana combine for a 4-hitter in the 13-inning marathon, but the Angels face a big challenge as they have little left on the pitching staff for the finals.

No HOF for you!

After a tough 1st round battle against a fellow pennant winner, the 2001 Diamondbacks could be forgiven for taking their semifinal opponent, the punchless 2013 White Sox, lightly; in fact, the Dbacks considered saving big #2 starter Schilling for the finals, but decided that such a move could haunt them if they survived until round 6.  Arizona scored two in the top of the 3rd on RBI singles from Grace and Gonzalez; the Sox responded with a solo HR off Schilling's card from C Tyler Flowers.  In the 4th, Tony Womack pushed a run across with a double, but Sox starter Jose Quintana struck out Grace with the bases loaded to prevent further damage.  In the 5th, the Sox tied the game with a 2-run HR from De Aza, again off Schilling's card, and when Schilling put runners on 1st and 3rd with 1 out, the Dbacks had 1st round winner Kim up in the pen but stuck with Schilling, holding the runner on first in hopes of the DP.  However, Gordon Beckham rolls a gbB and the go-ahead run scores on the fielder's choice.  Kim is then summoned, but in the 8th he allows a solo blast to Conor Gillaspie, and Quintana by this time has Arizona in handcuffs.  Final score:  White Sox 5, Dbacks 3, Quintana with the 6-hit CG, and Schilling with the loss, allowing 11 hits in 6.2 innings, with most of the damage coming off Schilling's own card.

In a regional with three pennant winners, the final pairing of two decidedly mediocre teams, the 1977 Angels and the 2013 White Sox, was rather uninspiring and the matchup of the two #3 starters, California's Paul Hartzell and Chicago's Hector Santiago, didn't exactly promise an epic duel.   Nonetheless, as has been the case for both of these teams in the regional, the pitching was surprisingly solid.  The Angels rattled off three straight hits in the 3rd to score two runs, and a Bonds sac fly in the 5th put the Angels lead at 3-0, while Hartzell was dominating the Sox lineup.  Finally, in the bottom of the 9th, the Sox bats come alive, as they lead off the inning with three straight singles to load the bases.  The Angels survey their pen but decide to stick with Hartzell a little longer; Gillaspie drives in one with a sac fly, Alexei Ramirez pops out, and 37-year old longtime Sox hero Paul Konerko comes off the bench to pinch hit representing the winning run.  But no storybook endings here; Hartzell retires Paulie on a lazy fly ball, and the Angels secure the 3-1 win and only the second regional title (joining 1989) for the Halos.  The regional MVP has to be shared by the Angels pitching staff, who only allowed three runs--one in each game--in the regional.

Interesting card of Regional #91: In the last installment of this feature, I presented a Randy Johnson card where he led the league in both strikeouts and walks, and I pointed out that Nolan Ryan had done this a remarkable SIX times.  Lo and behold, the next regional is won by Ryan's 1977 Angels, and he led the league in both categories by a huge amount--341 K's and 204 walks!  I had to check to see if that walk total was a record in the modern era (since 1901), but it was only the second highest total:  Bob Feller allowed 208 walks in 1938, but he had more than 100 fewer strikeouts than Ryan, meaning that Ryan's combined 545 BB+K in 1977 has to be the highest since 1901.  I can't even imagine trying to bat against him; I wouldn't have left the dugout, but I guess I might not be safe even there!

REGIONAL #90:  This regional featured a World Series champion, the 2010 Giants, and a host of other competitive teams that promised to make it an interesting bracket. The 1975 Orioles were in between pennant wins at the beginning and the end of the 70s and looking for a second straight regional win for this franchise; the 1966 Tigers would capture the flag two years later after a near miss in 1967; and two Pirates teams 40 years apart feature some weapons that make them interesting dark horses. The 1958 Cardinals will try to avenge the 1957 squad that was eliminated in the 2nd round in the last regional, while the 1992 Mariners seek the first regional title for any Seattle team, although the ELO ranks indicate that they were the worst team in the majors that year. I picked the pennant winning Giants over the Tigers in this one; the ELO rankings (in parentheses below) portray a very different outcome, predicting the Orioles will best the 1991 Pirates in the finals. I was surprised when I looked up the ELO ranks to discover that those rankings had the WS champion 2010 Giants as only the 5th best team in baseball that year, while the 1991 Pirates were pegged as the top MLB team that year despite being eliminated by the Braves in the NLCS.

First round action

As I expected, the 90-win 1975 Orioles had a strong starting rotation and excellent defense (Brooks Robinson, Belanger, Grich, Blair all "1"s), but aside from Don Baylor their offense was unexpectedly weak:  for example, Mark Belanger, as usual, hit .226, but that was still better than Blair and Robinson!  Their opponents, the 1958 Cardinals, only managed 72 wins but had more offensive weapons--including Stan Musial-- than the Orioles, albeit nowhere near the pitching and defense of the O's.  However, the Cards started off quickly against 23-game winner Jim Palmer, rapping 3 singles in the top of the 1st but scoring only one run as Belanger turns a great double play.  Belanger somehow makes back-to-back errors in the 2nd, but the Cards can't convert, and the game remains 1-0 until the bottom of the 4th, when a hit and a couple of walks by the Cards' Vinegar Bend Mizell loads the bases for the bottom of the O's lineup.  Blair converts a SI 1-8 off Mizell's card to tie the game, and with the bases still loaded Robinson misses Mizell's HR 1-9 split, but the resulting double scores the fleet Blair and the O's lead 4-1.  Palmer seems to have settled down, but in the 7th he loads the bases for the heart of the Cards order, and singles by Musial and Boyer tie things up.  Baltimore responds immediately, with Jim Northrup missing Mizell's HR split to put runners on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out, and St. Louis summons Morrie Martin from the pen, with no complete hits on his card, but quite a few walk results.  And the O's hit those walk results enthusiastically; Martin issues a walk to load the bases, and then two more walks drive in two more.  Obviously, at that point Martin is gone, and Phil Paine comes in and adds to the pain with an error and another walk, and the score is 8-4 after an eventful 7th inning.  The events continue in the 8th, with the Cards getting a 2-out walk and single before rookie Curt Flood converts a HR 1-7 split off Palmer's card to narrow the gap to 8-7, but two more walks from Paine and a Lee May single pushes the Baltimore lead to 9-7 after 8.  With Palmer getting battered, the O's eye their bullpen for the 9th, but how do you pull a HOF pitcher in one of his best years with a lead?  Sure enough, Palmer allows 2 hits in the 9th, but gets PH Wally Moon to groundout to Brooksie, and the Orioles move on with a hard-fought 9-7 win.

The 64-win 1951 Pirates were largely a two-man show; in the starting rotation, Murray Dickson won 20 games and nobody else won more than 9, while on offense Ralph Kiner's 1.079 OPS dwarfed the rest of the team by a wide margin.  In contrast, the 88-win '66 Tigers had multiple weapons in both areas, with Earl Wilson tapped for the start over formidable alternatives like Denny McLain and Mickey Lolich.  The Pirates found some weaknesses on Wilson's card quickly, loading the bases in the top of the 1st and scoring a run on a Joe Garagiola sac fly.  That lead didn't last long, as homers by Al Kaline and Willie Horton in the bottom of the 1st made it 3-1, and a 2-run single by Norm Cash in the 3rd extended the Tigers' lead to 5-1.  A 2-base error by Horton leads to a Pirate run in the 5th, and in the 6th Wilson falls apart after allowing a 3-run pinch hit homer to Erv Dusak off Wilson's card; when the flames subside Fred Gladding is on the mound and the Pirates lead 7-5.  The Tigers counterpunch with a Don Wert solo HR in the bottom of the 6th, and then in the 7th a 2-base error by Pirates SS Strickland is followed by consecutive doubles from McAuliffe and Kaline.  At that point, the Pirates pull Dickson for their best reliever, Ted Wilks, and Norm Cash greets Wilks with a prodigious blast into the far reaches of Tiger Stadium.  Wilks allows three more hits in a row, and by the end of the inning the score is now Tigers 12, Pirates 7.  With a solid lead, the Tigers dig deeper into their pen to preserve Gladding for later rounds, and Orlando Pena tosses two perfect innings to close things out, sending the Tigers into the 2nd round with the comeback win.

Setting the lineup for the 92-win 2010 Giants pennant winners helped me understand why the ELO rankings for the team weren't better despite their World Series title; they were pretty good in most categories, but not really great in any.  Their much lower ranked opponent, the 1992 Mariners, lost 98 games but in Griffey Jr. had a bigger offensive weapon than anyone on the Giants, and the M's were better defensively than the Giants, although their starting rotation was cringeworthy, featuring a young Randy Johnson who had lots of velocity but no aim.  Johnson and his counterpart, Tim Lincecum, keep things scoreless until the top of the 5th, when the Giants score five runs on only two hits, aided by 2 Mariners errors and 3 walks (2 with the bases loaded).  However, in the 7th Seattle gets to Lincecum, with Henry Cotto, in the game for his glove, hits a 2 run HR and Edgar Martinez adds an RBI double and it's now 5-3, with Casilla summoned from the bullpen to close out the inning.  The Giants add an insurance run in the 8th on a Posey RBI single, and in the bottom of the 9th they turn it over to Beach Boy closer Brian Wilson, who strikes out the side to seal the 6-3 win with an exclamation point.

The 1991 Pirates won 98 games and the NL East, and were a well-balanced team with good pitching in the rotation as well as some in the pen, a defense that had 6 of 8 positions either a "1" or a "2", and a lineup featuring Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla when they were good but not yet infamous. In contrast, the 89-loss 2012 Blue Jays had little to brag about aside from Edwin Encarnacion's 42 homers. That didn't prevent Jose Bautista from putting a 2-run homer into the cheap seats in the top of the 1st against the Pirates' 20-game winner John Smiley, but an RBI double from Bonilla in the 1st and a timely single from Mike Lavalliere in the 2nd quickly tied the game at 2-2. The Jays push back ahead in the 4th with solo shots from Encarnacion and catcher J.P. Arencibia, while Toronto starter Brandon Morrow is settling in and the Pirates can't convert hits to runs. Smiley yields to Roger Mason in the 7th, who prevents further damage for Pittsburgh, but the Pirates don't muster a real threat until the bottom of the 9th, when a Buechele walk and a PH single from Lloyd McClendon puts the winning run at the plate, but #9 hitter Jose Lind pops out to give the Jays the upset 4-2 victory over the ELO regional favorites. Unfortunately for Toronto, Morrow was by far their best starter as a swingman, and they lost both LF Rajai Davis and DH David Cooper to injury, meaning they'll have to play the semifinal game undermanned and undertalented against a pennant winner.

The survivors

A semifinal matchup between the 1966 Tigers and the 1975 Orioles was accurately predicted by the ELO rankings, but although those ranking favor the Orioles here, after setting the lineups in round 1 I was sticking with my pick of the Tigers in this pairing, as I believe they have more offensive weapons and a starting rotation arguably as good as Baltimore's.  Not many 2nd round games feature two 20-game winners squaring off, but that was the case with Mike Torrez vs. Denny McLain.  The game was scoreless until the 4th, when a couple of hits and a Torrez 2-base error led to 3 Tiger runs, but the Orioles knotted the game in the 7th when McLain loaded the bases with nobody out; Baylor fanned but Lee May drove in 2 with a single and Grich added another to tie things up.  Grich provides more heroics in the top of the 9th, driving in Baylor to put the O's ahead.  Torrez then tries to close things out; he walks Freehan but gets two quick outs, and faces PH extraordinare Gates Brown as the potential winning run.  But Brown grounds out, Torrez completes a 6-hit complete game, and the Orioles move to the regional finals with the 4-3 comeback win.  Worthy of note:  Jim Northrup was in the starting lineup for both teams at ages 26 and 35, the latter being his final year.

When facing a World Series champ in this tournament, I've discovered that it's much better to do so in the 1st round than in later rounds, because by then the pennant winner almost always has a much better starting pitcher available.  That was the case with the champion 2010 Giants' Matt Cain against the 2012 Blue Jays and Carlos Villanueva, and the Giants drove home the point with two 1st inning homers from Freddy Sanchez and Aubrey Huff, and a Pablo Sandoval double in the second that made it 5-0 Giants before the Jays could even get anyone on base.  Jose Bautista gets the Jays on the board with a 2-run HR in the 4th, but Pat Burrell's solo shot in the 5th makes it 6-2.  When Villanueva allows a double (off a missed HR split on his own card) to lead off the 6th, he's pulled for Darren Oliver, but another double for Sandoval makes it 8-2 Giants, and that's how it ends.  Cain gets the 6-hit complete game victory, and the Giants head to the finals aiming to capture an impressive 8th regional win for this franchise.

This regional final thus matched the ELO favorite 1975 Orioles against my pick, the pennant winning 2010 Giants, and it looked to be the strong defense of the Orioles against the superior offense of the Giants.  The two starters, Mike Cuellar and Jonathan Sanchez, were both top-flight #3 options and the game remained scoreless until the top of the 5th, when a key Aubrey Huff error followed by a gbA+ single set the plate for a 2-run Ken Singleton double.  The Giants had never been behind in this tournament before, and they got further behind when Belanger singled home a run in the 6th when his SS counterpart Uribe couldn't get to the ball.  The Giants made it 3-2 in the 7th when Cody Ross hit a 2-run homer off Cuellar's card, and when Don Baylor led off the 8th with a double the Giants went to closer Brian Wilson to try to keep them in the game--with Wilson retiring the side without incident.  Similarly, Cuellar exits in the bottom of the 8th after allowing a leadoff double and the O's turn it over to Dyar Miller to try to convert the save--and like Wilson, Miller retires the side quietly.  In the top of the 9th, Giants LF-4 Pat Burrell allows a leadoff single, and Paul Blair follows with a triple on a 1-4 split off Wilson's card to provide an insurance run, and the Giants can do nothing against Miller in the bottom of the 9th, giving the Orioles the 4-2 win and the second regional title in a row for the franchise--meaning that the 1975 Orioles will face their 2013 counterparts in Round 4 of the tournament.

Interesting card of Regional #90:  This card shows what it's like when your pitcher leads the league in both strikeouts and walks allowed.  I put Johnson in with the likes of Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax as big strikeout guys who took a while to learn the control necessary to become great pitchers.  Although Koufax never led his league in both walks and strikeouts, Ryan did it a record-setting SIX times. In researching this, I was surprised to discover that 19 other pitchers have done it since 1901, including a number of Hall of Famers.  Can you think of some?

 REGIONAL #89:   This regional included no pennant winners, although the 1969 Tigers had a great Series champion team the prior year and I figured that the 1934 A's probably still had many of the assets from their 1929-1931 dynasty.  In addition to those teams, the regional should include other great names such as Ted Williams and Stan Musial.  Although I didn't expect much threat from the steroid era teams, they tend to overperform, but nonetheless I picked the Tigers over the A's in the final.  The ELO rankings agreed with me on the Tigers being the favorite, but suggested that I was underestimating the 2003 Cubs.

First round action

In setting the lineup for the 1934 A's, I discovered that this team had undergone serious dismantling since its dynasty of only a few years earlier.  Gone were Cochrane, Grove, Simmons, Earnshaw, Bishop and the like; only Jimmie Foxx remained as a significant factor, and he had a great season.  However, with a dreadful starting rotation and few weapons other than Foxx, the team only won 68 games.  The A's faced a modern era team famous for frequent dismantlings, the 2010 Marlins, who won 80 games with several weapons and a starting pitcher, Josh Johnson, who looked like Cy Young compared to anyone on the A's staff.  Nonetheless, a 1st inning 2-run HR by Bob Johnson quickly put the A's up 2-0, but a solo shot by Marlins RF "Mike" Stanton to lead off the 2nd narrows the lead to 2-1--although Stanton is injured and leaves the game in his next plate appearance.  Doc Cramer's RBI single makes it 3-1 A's in the 4th, but Josh Johnson settles down and in the 7th the Marlins finally locate the numerous weaknesses on A's starter Bill Dietrich's card, as he loads the bases with nobody out.  With one run already in, the A's summon George Caster, who induces a double-play grounder, but then grooves one to super pinch-hitter Donnie Murphy who puts it into the stands for a 4-3 Marlins lead.  The Marlins pull Johnson in favor of Clay Hensley after he allows a leadoff single in the 9th, and Hensley retires three in a row to earn the save for the 4-3 Marlins win.  Worthy of note:  After setting the Marlins lineup, as usual I do a quick check of Baseball Reference to see if I'm missing anything, and I discover that rookie Giancarlo Stanton was in RF for the Marlins in 2010.  Shuffling through the team, I find that he's not there, and I panic about a missing card.  Then I look in the lineup that I've already set and notice that this Mike Stanton guy out in RF has the same stats as Giancarlo.....duh.

Not a single single

The 88-win 2003 Cubs won the NL Central and came within one game of a pennant--an NLCS game altered by fan Steve Bartman that added to the persecution complex of Cubs fans everywhere, at least until 2016.  The 2003 squad featured a steroid-era lineup that included poster-boy Sammy Sosa, but also a starting rotation that was remarkably strong for the era, with dominating Kerry Wood getting the start.  They faced another Cubs team of a different vintage, the 1949 Cubs, who only won 61 games but had many of the same players as the Cubs squads who had played over their heads to reach the finals in Regionals #86 and #87, including tabbed starter Bob Rush who had gone 2-0 in those regionals.  The 49ers got off to a quick start when DH Hank Edwards drove in a run with a triple in the bottom of the 1st, but in the top of the 2nd the '03s evened it up when Sosa led off with a solo blast onto Waveland Avenue.  In the 5th, the 03's moved on top when SS Alex Gonzalez hit his first of 2 doubles to drive in Simon and make it 2-1, and Wood was cruising until the 8th.  However, in the bottom of the 8th, Gonzalez turned a leadoff grounder into a 2-base error, and Wood followed that with two walks to load the bases with none out.  Wood fans Roy Smalley, and then it's another tough grounder to SS Gonzalez--and he turns the double play to atone for his earlier error.  Then, in the bottom of the 9th, Gonzales commits another error on a leadoff grounder, Frankie Gustine doubles the runner home, and pinch hitter Phil Cavaretta hits a squib single to make it 1st and 3rd with nobody out.  The 03s bring the infield in to prevent the winning run from scoring, and Emil Verban rolls the gbA+ through the infield to score Gustine, giving the '49 Cubs the 3-2 walk-off win and Bob Rush his third victory of the tournament for the Cubs of this era.

The first round matchup of the 90-win 1969 Tigers and the 87-win 1957 Cardinals involved two 2nd-place teams that were two of the regional's best, according to the ELO rankings. Both squads had numerous weapons throughout the lineup, although the Tigers boasted a much better rotation than the Cards, and the faceoff of 24-game winner Denny McLain vs. Lindy McDaniel clearly favored the Tigers. The Tigers jumped to a quick 2-0 lead in the 1st on a Willie Horton double, and then a bases-loaded single in the 3rd scored another 2 when Cards RF Del Ennis couldn't get to a Don Wert single. However, when Tigers SS Tom Tresh (what was he doing playing short in 1969?) booted a 2-base error to lead of the top of the 4th, McLain came unglued, allowing 4 runs (2 on a Ken Boyer homer--what was he doing playing CF in 1957?) and the game was tied 4-4. A Kaline solo shot in the bottom of the inning put the Tigers back on top 5-4, but McLain can't recover his form, getting mauled in the 6th for 5 runs (including a 3-run blast by Stan Musial) and McLain is yanked with a line of 5.2 IP, 12 HA, 9 RA. Buoyed by the 9-5 lead, McDaniel gets down to business and the Tigers are held scoreless until the bottom of the 9th, when Dick McAuliffe leads off the inning with a solo HR. The Cards eye their solid bullpen, but decide to give McDaniel the chance to close out the game, and he does, with defensive replacement CF Bobby Gene Smith hauling in a deep Horton fly to complete the 9-6 Cardinal win.

This pairing of two 3rd-place teams, the 79-win 1958 Red Sox and the 85-win 2013 Orioles, matched squads with some serious offensive might (e.g., Ted Williams vs. 53-HR hitting Chris Davis) but both had poor starting rotations that probably kept them from reaching the post-season.  Orioles starter Scott Feldman started terribly, allowing a leadoff single in the 1st followed by three consecutive walks, and he was fortunate to escape the inning only down 2-0.  Baltimore C Matt Wieters nailed a solo shot in the 3rd to narrow the gap to 2-1 Boston, but after that both starting pitchers were surprisingly effective.  When Feldman walked the first 2 batters in the top of the 9th, the O's pulled him for Darren O'Day, but a single by Don Budden provided an insurance run so the game goes into the bottom of the 9th with Boston ahead 3-1.  Red Sox starter Frank Sullivan allows a leadoff double to Nick Markakis, and there is activity in the Boston bullpen; with Chris Davis up, the Sox leave Sullivan in pitch to him rather than walking him to put the tying run aboard.  Of course, BOOM, Davis bounces it off the RF warehouse at Camden Yards and the game is tied; Leo Kiely comes in for the Sox and we head to extra innings.  O'Day retires Boston in the top of the 10th; Kiely begins the bottom of the 10th by allowing consecutive doubles to Wieters and replacement 2b Ryan Flaherty, and the Orioles score the walk-off 4-3 win.  Key stat:  Ted Williams records 3 walks and a double that resulted from missing a HR 1-14 split, but the Sox were never able to drive him home.

The survivors

The semifinal between the 2010 Marlins and the 1949 Cubs was a dogfight between two flawed but plucky teams.  Dan Uggla took Cubs starter Monk Dubiel deep for a 2-run homer to put the Marlins up in the top of the 1st, and they added another run when Logan Morrison hit a solo shot (this one off Dubiel's card) in the 2nd.  However, a 2-base error by Marlins CF-2 Cameron Maybin in the bottom of the inning opened the floodgate for a 3-run rally against Marlins' starter Anibal Sanchez, and the game was tied after two.  In the 3rd, Hanley Ramirez finds Dubiel's homer result again to put the Marlins up 4-3, but in the 4th an Emil Verban single with runners on 2nd and 3rd ties it--with the go-ahead run cut down at the plate.  In the 7th, the Cubs examine their bullpen but there is no help there, and sure enough Marlins LF Chris Coghlan finds Dubiel's HR reading for the 3rd time this game, and it's 5-4 Florida.  In the bottom of the 8th, Sanchez walks the first two Cubs and the Marlins summon Clay Hensley for the second game in a row--Hensley then tosses two perfect innings to record his second straight save and the Marlins head to the finals.   The good news for the Marlins is that Stanton will return from injury for the finals; the bad news is that Hensley is burnt and there is nothing but trouble remaining in the Marlins' starting rotation.

The 2013 Orioles had a last second come-from-behind win in the first round, so in battling the 1957 Cardinals they decided to take a different approach, jumping to a quick 2-0 lead in the 2nd on back-to-back solo HRs by Nick Markakis and Chris Davis, and another solo shot by Matt Wieters in the 3rd made it 3-0.  Meanwhile, O's starter Chris Tillman was looking good until the top of the 7th, when Stan Musial and Wally Moon added back-to-back solo shots of their own, and it was 3-2 Orioles with every run scored on a solo homer.  Given the balls flying out of Camden Yard, both teams went to their best relievers in the 8th; Darren O'Day makes his second appearance of the bracket and retires the Cards in order in the top of the 8th, but Billy Muffett gets raked over the coals by the bottom of the Baltimore lineup, and after RBI singles from Hardy, Machado, and Roberts it was now 6-2 O's.  O'Day sets the Cards down quietly in the 9th to earn his second save, and the Orioles move to the finals to face the Marlins, with both franchises each only having one prior regional win.

Defense and offense

The finals for the regional matched two battle-tested teams, the 2010 Marlins and the 2013 Orioles, that both had survived tough games in the first two rounds.   The 2nd inning matched solo HRs from Florida's Jorge Cantu and Baltimore's Danny Valencia, and things remained knotted until the 5th when a Cameron Maybin sac fly made it 2-1 Marlins.  A 2-run shot from Gaby Sanchez in the 6th stretched the lead to 4-1, and Marlins starter Chris Volstad was in control, aided by unexpectedly good defense from the likes of Cantu (3b-5) and Uggla (2b-4).  In the bottom of the 8th, Volstad had to face monster Chris Davis as the tying run with two men aboard, but got Davis to fly out to end the inning.  After going scoreless in the top of the 9th, the Marlins put in whatever defensive replacements they could find to bolster Volstad for the bottom of the 9th, but Volstad led off with a walk and two consecutive singles, and the Marlins had to summon their best remaining reliever, Brian Sanches, to close things out with nobody out and the tying run on 1st.  Sanches fans Manny Machado, and then faces Matt Wieters, the Orioles outstanding defensive catcher who had homered in both previous games.  Here's the pitch: a 6-5 roll, HR 1-17 on Sanches' card--inning, game, regional over.  Wieters 3-run blast gives the Orioles the 5-4 win, a second regional title for the Orioles, and their second walk-off win in three games.  Wieters is the obvious choice for regional MVP, but honorable mention should go to the Orioles collective defense, more than half of whom were "1" fielders and who did not make a single error in the regional to help shore up a shaky starting rotation.

Interesting card of Regional #89:  This was a tough selection, as I was sorely tempted to put up 2003's Kerry Wood, who didn't have a single SINGLE reading on his formidable card (see above), or 2010 Marlins' Donnie Murphy, whose 2010 card boasted a .705 SLG% in 44 ABs and every result was pretty much either an extra-base hit or a strikeout.  However, it was the 2013 Orioles who won the regional in dramatic style, and so I felt compelled to honor their big bat, Chris Davis.  Because I am an old-school Strat player who greatly prefers the old Basic card patterns, Davis's card is a nearly perfect thing of beauty to me, marred only by that ghastly 2-9 result that is the type of gaping wound found on so many modern hitting cards.  Even so, I still wouldn't mind putting this guy at first on my team.