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.