REGIONAL #112:  In looking at the teams pulled for this regional, only one really jumped out at me:  the 1953 Indians, one year removed from the epic ‘54 team that won Regional #30.   There was another Indians team, a couple of Blue Jays entries, and the Mariners would have another opportunity to win their first regional, but I was sticking with the ‘53 Indians as my choice, which would give that franchise their 12th regional if it happened.  Not remembering a whole lot about most of the teams in the bottom of the bracket, I guessed the 2002 A’s would be their opponents in the finals.  Although I recalled that there were some good Oakland teams in those years that kept losing to the Yankees in the playoffs, I was surprised to discover that the ELO rankings put those A’s among the best teams of all time, and the rankings also suggested that my selected Indians would have a battle on their hands in the first round against the ‘87 Jays.

First round action:

The 76-86 2015 Mariners were not a great team, but they had a strong bullpen, some big boppers in the lineup, and 18-game winner Felix Hernandez anchoring the rotation.  They looked great next to the 102-loss 1985 Indians, who had one of the worst starting rotations I had run across: it seemed that Vern Ruhle and his 2-10 record was probably their best option.  However, it’s the Indians who jump to the lead in the bottom of the 1st when a 2-out Austin Jackson error opens the door for Joe Carter, who deposits a Hernandez pitch into the deep recesses of the Mistake by the Lake and it is 2-0 Cleveland.  The Indians add three more runs in the 2nd on RBI doubles from Jerry Willard and Brett Butler, but Hernandez finally starts throwing some outs and Nelson Cruz finds Ruhle's solid 5-5 HR result in the 5th to cut the Cleveland lead to 5-2.  When Kyle Seager leads off the 6th with another 5-5 roll, the Indians look frantically through their bullpen but decide that the alternatives are even worse than Ruhle, so they stick with him, but in the 7th the Mariners batter Ruhle for three more runs (two on a Cruz RBI single) and take a 6-5 lead.  When Hernandez allows only his 4th hit of the game in the 8th, the Mariners aren’t taking any chances and turn to Carson Smith out of the pen, who quickly induces a DP ball from Carter to end the inning.   Smith shuts down the Indians in order in the 9th and earns the save in the 6-5 Seattle victory that was closer than it should have been, courtesy of three key Mariner errors.

The Big Bear mauls the Jays

Setting the lineup for the 96-win 1987 Blue Jays convinced me that they were a very good team with solid pitching, hitting, and defense; despite only being runner-up in the AL East; when you have to choose between Willie Upshaw, Cecil Fielder, and Fred McGriff at 1b, you’ve obviously got a team with some good options.  However, the ELO ranks had them almost perfectly matched with the 92-win 1953 Indians, another runner-up in the AL.  The Indians didn’t have quite the long-ball power of the Jays, but their legendary starting rotation suggested that this team could go far in the tournament, as did their 1948 and 1954 brethren.  The pitching matchup of 17-game winner Jimmy Key against 18-game winner Mike Garcia was one of the best in recent regionals, so this promised to be a hard-fought battle.  It was the Indians with the first display of power, as Al Rosen crushed a solo shot in the bottom of the 1st to give the Tribe an early lead.  Both pitchers are in control until the 6th, but when Key allows two baserunners to start the inning (one on a Nelson Liriano error, who had been brought in for his defense replacing Garth Iorg) and Rosen at the plate, the Jays go immediately to their closer Tom Henke to try to stay in the game, who does his job and the score remains 1-0 Cleveland after 6.  The Jays get runners on 1st and 3rd with one out in the 7th on a walk and a Rosen error, but Garcia induces the DP ball from PH Rance Mulliniks to end the inning, and in the bottom of the frame Hegan slaps an RBI single past Liriano and the Indians up their lead to 3-0.  Larry Doby provides another insurance run in the 8th on an RBI single off new Jays reliever Mark Eichhorn, which is more than Garcia needs as he quiets the heart of the Jays order in the 9th to wrap up a CG 3-hitter, a 4-0 victory, and a date with Seattle in the semis.

With one Toronto team already eliminated from the regional, it was up to the 2003 Blue Jays to carry the fortunes of the franchise, and they were solid ELO favorites over a bad 64-89 1948 Reds team.  Still, the pitching matchup was a good one, with Cy Young Award winner Roy Halladay (RIP) against 17-game winner Johnny Vander Meer, who got MVP votes for his strong performance on a bad team 10 years after his double-no-hit outings pushed him into baseball history.   The Jays assert themselves early, loading the bases in the bottom of the 1st but are only able to convert one run on a Greg Myers sac fly.  Vander Meer then walks three straight to begin the 2nd inning, and the Jays turn that into two runs to lead 3-0, which seems like it should be adequate the way Halladay is pitching.  Another couple of walks and a Chris Woodward RBI single make it 4-0 in the 3rd, but Halladay seems to catch the wildness bug from Vander Meer and walks the bases loaded in the 5th--escaping unscathed with some timely strikeouts.  The Jays go early to defensive replacements in the 6th, nervous about their porous defense, but the Reds can’t do anything against Halladay until the 8th, when Ray Lamanno finds Halladay’ HR result to make it 4-1, which is how it ends as Halladay finishes out the 3-hitter.   Vander Meer only allows 4 hits himself, but he sunk his chances by issuing 8 walks, seven in the first three innings.  

The 2002 A’s won 103 games and the AL West, and although I thought their ELO ranking as the 57th best team of all time was a bit generous after seeing some of their defensive holes, they were starting Cy Young Award winner Barry Zito supported by a potent offense.  This made them big favorites over the 1959 Cubs, who won 74 games thanks largely to an MVP Award-winning season from Ernie Banks, although 16-game winner Glen Hobbie was a respectable #1 starter to send against Zito.  John Mabry puts the A’s up in the top of the 1st with an RBI single off Hobbie; in the 3rd Miguel Tejada doubles and then the Cubs Walt Moryn turns a Jermaine Dye flyball into a triple, and by the end of the inning it’s 5-0 A’s.  However, in the bottom of the 4th Zito loads up the bases and then delivers a gopher ball to Lee Walls, and suddenly after the slam it’s 5-4; when Al Dark scores Banks on a sac fly in the 5th it’s a whole new ballgame.  From there, both starters assert themselves; the A’s don’t get another hit until the top of the 9th, when they load the bases up for Miguel Tejada, but CF-3 George Altman pulls in Tejada’s flyball to end the threat.  That leaves it to Zito, who also pitches out of a jam to send the game into extra innings.  The 10th passes uneventfully, and now both teams are forced to go to their bullpens, where the A’s have a distinct advantage.  The Cubs turn to Don Elston who gets through the 11 successfully, while the A’s Billy Koch has a scare in the bottom of the inning when Tony Taylor triples, but Koch strands him to continue the game.  Elston is great through his maximum 4 innings, and so Koch is looking at the last of his innings in the bottom of the 14th.  He walks Tony Taylor, and Irv Noren shoots a GBA++ single past the holding 1st baseman, bringing up Ernie Banks, who has 3 hits already, with the winning run on 3rd.  However, the A’s bring the infield in and nail Taylor trying to score on the Banks grounder, and it’s now 2 out and Sammy Taylor at the plate.  Koch delivers, and Taylor knocks it into the Wrigley bleachers for the walk-off victory--Cubs win, 8-5, as the A’s moneyball machine goes bankrupt with only 6 hits in 14 innings. 

The survivors 

The 1953 Indians could trot out good starter after good starter with their rotation, and in this semifinal game it was 21-game winner Bob Lemon’s turn.  The 2015 Mariners, on the other hand, had a more suspect rotation and hoped that Hisashi Iwakuma could handle the Indians, the top-rated team remaining alive in the regional.  Both starters make a successful first pass through the opposing lineups, but in the 4th Luke Easter finds Iwakuma’s solid HR result for a 2-run blast to put the Indians up.  The Mariners try to respond in the 5th but meet with split dice disaster, as Seth Smith misses a HR 1-11 split and 1-15 Austin Jackson is cut down trying to score on the resulting double; when Bobby Avila (1-17) is cut down trying to take an extra base on a Rosen single, the crowd is howling for a new split die.  They don’t get one, but in the 6th Nelson Cruz converts a DO 1-6 and Franklin Gutierrez singles him home to narrow the score to 2-1.   Wally Westlake responds in the bottom of the inning, leading off by finding that solid 5-9 HR on Iwakuma, and when the latter loads up the bases the Mariners bring on first round game-saver Carson Smith, who fans Avila to keep the score at 3-1.   Smith and later Charlie Furbush keep the Indians at bay, but it’s all for naught as Lemon isn’t giving any quarter, wrapping up the 5-hit 3-1 victory to send the Indians to the finals in pursuit of their unprecedented 12th regional win.

Although the ELO rankings favored the 2003 Blue Jays over the 1959 Cubs in this semifinal, the Jays looked a whole lot worse without Roy Halladay on the mound, with #2 starter Kelvim Escobar (who got the snot knocked out of his 2004 self in Regional #109) representing a huge dropoff.  The Cubs actually had an okay starting rotation for a Wrigley-based team, with Darrell Hillman sporting an ERA nearly a full run better than Escobar’s.  Cubs fans get an early thrill when Banks puts one into the bleachers in the bottom of the 1st to make it 1-0.  The Jays try to respond immediately but Frank Catalanatto misses a HR split in the top of the 2nd and bounces it off the top of the ivy, and the Jays strand him at second.   However, in the 3rd Vernon Wells converts a HR 1-19 split (with a 19) for a solo shot and the game is tied.   The Cubs respond in the 5th by loading the bases, and then Tony Taylor rips a double that makes it 3-1 Cubs; when Banks leads off the 6th with a single the Jays move quickly to the bullpen in the form of Aquilino Lopez, who is greeted by a Dale Long triple, and then Sammy Taylor laces a ball through a drawn-in infield and it’s now 5-1 Cubs.  The Cubs add another when Tony Taylor nails his second double past the (bad) glove of Jays 3B Erik Hinske, and Banks singles Taylor home to make it 6-1.  From there on out, it’s all Hillman as he scatters 8 hits in his complete game victory that sends the Cubs to the final in pursuit of their 5th regional win.

Although it was an all-50s final, the two regional finalists were very different teams.  To underscore the differences, the 1959 Cubs scored twice as many runs as the 1953 Indians on their way to the finals, but they allowed six times as many runs.  For the Indians, it was clearly all about their great starting rotation and they still had two Hall of Fame starters to choose from for the final game, deciding to go with Early Wynn over Bob Feller.   The Cubs countered with 12-game winner Bob Anderson, who probably didn’t receive many HOF votes.  However, it’s Wynn who shows some cracks in the 2nd, allowing two sharp singles off his card with the Cubs then converting a run on an Al Dark sac fly.  They add to their lead in the 3rd when Ernie Banks rips a 2-run triple and then scores on Dale Long flyball to make it 4-0 Cubs.  In the 6th, Cubs C Sammy Taylor makes his second error of the game which narrows the lead to 4-1, but Walt Moryn blasts a 2-run HR in the 7th to further stretch the Cubs lead.  However, in the 8th the Indians finally begin to solve Anderson, as Wally Westlake singles in Dale Mitchell, and Larry Doby follows with a 2-run shot to make the score 6-4, although George Altman provides a solo shot in the bottom of the inning and it is 7-4 with the Indians coming up in the 9th for their last chance.  Jim Hegan manages a 2-out double, but Anderson gets Bobby Avila to pop out and the underdog Cubs win the regional with three straight upset victories against top tier teams.  They join the 1969, 1974, 1990, and 2017 squads as the fifth Cubs regional victors.  

Interesting card of Regional #112:  Not a lot of players have won MVP awards while playing for a losing team, but in 1959 Mr. Cub was an exception.  Turns out 1959 was a memorable year for baseball in Chicago, with the Sox taking their first pennant in 40 years since the Dead Sox scandal, and the Cubs….well, they won this Regional with Banks leading the way, and in real life Banks was the NL MVP for the second year in a row.    As a Sox fan growing up, I had a certain antipathy for the Cubs but Ernie Banks proved exempt from that, as he just seemed like such a good guy it was impossible to root against him.   Looking back on his career now, it is an interesting one--when he switched from SS to 1B at the age of 31, he actually declined considerably at the plate, as his SEVEN best offensive seasons came while he was playing the more demanding defensive position.   Because those early years were before I was capable of paying attention, I only got to watch him on WGN (with Jack Brickhouse announcing) as a pretty good hitting first baseman, but this card captures what he was in his twenties--one of the best players in baseball, laboring in obscurity on a consistently bad team.