REGIONAL #116:  The draw for this regional looked like a fun one, with some notorious teams that were each a season away from a pennant, such as the trashcan-banging Astros, the “Once Upon a Time in Queens” Mets, and the expansion-to-pennant Diamondbacks; add in a couple of Pirates and Braves teams in classic form sporting names like Clemente and Aaron, and there were plenty of interesting stories that could develop from this batch.  My prediction was that the finals would pair the only 21st century teams in the bracket, with the banging Astros over the upstart Dbacks, but I hoped that I was wrong.  The ELO rankings were in alignment with my picks, which hadn’t happened in four regionals and the last time those predictions agreed they were correct, so it seems like the cheating Astros are the team to beat unless karma catches up to them.

First round action

The first round game between the 79-75 1920 Pirates and the 86-76 1970 Angels paired two “okay” teams from fifty years apart, both of which had some serious holes but both of which had 20-game winners ready to roll--Clyde Wright for the Angels and Wilbur Cooper for Pittsburgh.  It starts out as a 70s show when Angel DH Billy Cowan nails a 3-run HR in the bottom of the 1st, but the Pirates score two in the 4th led by a Possum Whitted triple.  Wright is struck by a line drive in the 5th and has to leave the game, replaced by Mel Queen, who turns in two scoreless innings so the Angels then turn to Greg Garrett in the 8th to try to close out the win.  That proves disastrous as Garrett walks the bases loaded in the top of the 9th, and then #9 hitter Jolly Charlie Grimm smacks a single that scores two to give the Pirates their first lead of the game.  It’s then up to Cooper, and he does his job to give the Pirates the come-from-behind 4-3 win.

The matchup between the 51-101 last place 1948 White Sox and the 98-win, NL West winning 2002 Diamondbacks was the most lopsided pairing of the regional, with the Dbacks sporting a potent lineup and two killer starters in Johnson and Schilling--in fact, the Sox would have been happy to start most of the Arizona reserves instead of their own lackluster crew.   The pitching matchup was the battle of the Randys, Gumpert for the Sox and the Cy Young-winning Johnson for Arizona.  It doesn’t take long for things to get ugly for the Sox, as 2b-3 Don Kolloway drops the grounder from Dback leadoff hitter Junior Spivey, Greg Colbrunn doubles Spivey home, and Luis Gonzalez singles Colbrunn in for a 2-0 1st inning lead.  However, in the top of the 3rd the crowd at Bank One Ballpark is stunned into silence when Sox DH Pat Seery nails a 3-run homer off Johnson’s card to put Chicago on top, and they open the 4th with three straight hits that they convert into two runs for a 5-2 Sox lead.  The Diamondback get back one of those runs with a Gonzalez solo shot in the bottom of the inning, and in the 5th a Colbrunn FC scores another, although McCracken (1-14) is nailed at the plate trying to tie the game on a Steve Finley single.  However, the Sox lead off the 6th with two straight hits, and it is clear that Johnson just doesn’t have his stuff today, so he’s pulled after allowing 10 hits in 5 innings, with closer Byung-Hyun Kim summoned to try to keep the baserunners from scoring.  But Kim walks 41-year-old pinchhitter Luke Appling and then walks Aaron Robinson to give the Sox a 6-4 edge.  Arizona gets a clutch 2-out RBI single from Tony Womack in the bottom of the 6th to narrow it to 6-5, but from there the Dbacks largely spend their time in Gumpert’s vacant six-column, and he sets them down in order in the 9th to record the upset win, shocking the pundits who felt that “wasting” Johnson on a last-place team in the first round was a mistake.

Sign-stealers or not, the 103-win 2018 Astros were AL West winners and perhaps could live up to an ELO rating that puts them as the 35th best team of all time:  a strong rotation capped by Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander, great defense, and a solid offensive lineup.    However, the 80-82 1964 Pirates had a lineup that might have been just as good, with Clemente, Stargell and Clendenon leading the way, and with 18-game winner Bob Veale on the mound the Pirates were not to be taken lightly, particularly after the upset in the previous game.   Sure enough, the Pirates take the lead in the top of the 2nd with a 2-out, 2-run double from Bill Virdon, although in his next at-bat Virdon has to leave the game with an injury.  That seems to energize Clemente, who puts a solo shot into the Crawford Boxes, but Carlos Correa matches that feat in the bottom of the inning to make it Pirates 3-1 after five.   In the 7th Correa walks and #9 hitter Martin Maldonado doubles him home, but Veale strands Maldonado and the Pirates still cling to a 3-2 lead going into the 8th.   When Clemente leads off the 8th with a hit off Verlander’s card, I think about going to the pen but let him pitch to Stargell.  Big mistake--5-5 roll, solid HR result, two-run HR for Pops and the Astro bring in Roberto Asuna, perhaps one batter too late.  It doesn’t seem to matter, as the trash cans are silent as Veale continues to mow down the Astros order, and he wraps up a complete game 6-hitter and a 5-2 win, marking a second consecutive upset in which a highly favored team pitching a Cy Young winner gets bounced in the 1st round.

With both of the top ELO-ranked teams eliminated already in the first round, it looked like the winner of this matchup between the 1985 Mets and the 1962 Braves would have a clear path towards the regional crown.  The infamous Mets won 98 games with essentially the same team that would win the Series the following year, and Cy Young winner Doc Gooden was a force to reckon with on the mound.  However, the 86-win Braves still had their core from their great teams of the late 50s with Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, and Joe Adcock bringing the lumber, and Hall of Famer Warren Spahn starting, so it promised to be a good one.  The Mets jump to a 2-0 lead when Darryl Strawberry nails a bases-loaded double, although Gary Carter is cut down at the plate trying to add another run.  A two-out Rafael Santana double scores Mookie Wilson in the 4th to push the lead to 3-0, a padding that Gooden looks like he might not need, and when the Mets begin the 6th with four straight hits to make it 6-0, Shea Stadium is rocking to the sounds of ‘80s hair metal.  Another Santana double, off Spahn’s card as was his previous one, scores Wilson again in the 8th, but by this point it’s academic as Gooden finishes out a masterful 3-hit shutout and the boys from Queens notch a 7-0 win and a trip to the semis as the new regional favorite.

The survivors

The 1920 Pirates were pleasantly surprised to be facing the 1948 White Sox in the semifinals, which gave Pittsburgh a large advantage offensively as well as on the mound with 17-game winner Babe Adams going against 4-game winner Howie Judson for the Sox.  Judson loads the bases up in the top of the 2nd with nobody out, but pitches masterfully out of the jam to keep the game scoreless.  The luck of the Sox makes an appearance in the bottom of the 4th, when Don Kolloway manages to convert a DO 1/flyB 2-20 on Adams’ card, and is then driven home by a Taffy Wright single--followed by an error by Bucs SS-4 Howdy Catton and an RBI single by Tony Lupien that makes it 2-0 Sox.  A Pat Seery triple, also off a split on Adams card, drives in another in the 5th and its 3-0 Sox after five, although the Sox luck well appears to have run dry when Wright is nailed at the plate in the 6th.  With two out in the 7th, the Pirates appear to gain momentum when Max Carey singles, steals second, then Sox defensive replacement Luke Appling makes an error followed by a Fred Nicholson 2-run double, and it’s a one-run game.   However, the Pirates give a run back in the bottom of the inning when 3B-3 Clyde Barnhardt, in for an injured Charlie Grimm, drops a Wright grounder that allows a run to score, making it 4-2 heading into the 8th.  Judson then walks the bases full in the top of the 8th, but again escapes the inning without allowing a run.  The Pirates finally come up in the 9th, which is when they had won their first round game, and begin the inning with a walk and a Nicholson single that puts runners on 1st and 3rd with no out.   A Billy Southworth sac fly makes it 4-3, with the tying run held on 1st.  Possum Whitted raps a sharp grounder to 2B-3 Don Kolloway, who fields it cleanly, flips to Appling and on to Lupien at first--game ending DP, Sox win 4-3 and advance to the finals with a chance to be one of the worst teams ever to capture a regional.  

Born to DH, 10 years too early

The 1964 Pirates became the agents of karma that put away the cheating Astros in the first round, and now they had their chance to do the same to the cokeheads on the 1985 Mets.  However, doing so would require them to cope with a good card from Mets starter Sid Fernandez, one that looked much more formidable than that of Pirate Vern Law.  Law issues a couple of walks in the 2nd and then Mookie Wilson rips an RBI single past Pirate 3B-4 Bob Bailey, and the Mets have an early lead.  Things remain quiet until the 7th, when Pittsburgh DH Jerry Lynch converts a TR 1/DO to lead off the inning; Fernandez then records a strikeout, defensive rep Lenny Dystra makes a great play in CF and the runner has to hold, and then Bailey pops out and the Mets still cling to their 1-0 lead.  When the Mets garner two straight hits in the bottom of the 8th, the Pirates bring in closer Al McBean, who induces an inning-ending DP from Strawberry and the teams head into the 9th separated by one run.  Fernandez just has to get through the meat of the Pirates order to record the win, but after retiring Stargell on a HR 1/flyB 2-20 split for the first out, Lynch finds Fernandez’s HR split to tie the game, and then a walk, a hit, and a Mazeroski RBI single puts the Pirates on top for the first time in the game.  With Fernandez collapsing, the Mets try Jesse Orosco and he promptly is torched for a 2-run triple by Dick Schofield, and the Pirates lead 4-1 with the Mets coming up for their last chance in the 9th.  McBean sets them down in order to record the win, and the Pirates head to the finals seeking to become only the 4th Pittsburgh team in franchise history--none after 1960-- to win a regional.

This was hardly the regional final that the ELO rankings would have predicted, with the lowest ranked team from the top of the bracket, the 1948 White Sox, facing the lowest ranked squad from the bottom of the bracket, the 1964 Pirates.  In fairness, the Pirates were an okay team that upset their way through a group of good teams; in contrast, the Sox were a terrible team that had the chance to be the lowest ELO-ranked regional winner in tournament history, a distinction held by the 1957 Kansas City A’s at ELO rank 2246.  The pitching matchup was an interesting one for a final--two beleaguered workhorses, 20-game loser Bill Wight for the Sox and 18-game loser Bob Friend for the Bucs.   Things begin ominously for Pittsburgh when 2b-1 Bill Mazeroski boots the first ball of the game, but Friend strands the runner at second and the game remains scoreless.  Disaster strikes for the Pirates in the 4th when Clemente is injured for 6 games, but two batters later an irate Jerry Lynch parks a solo shot to put them up 1-0, and a Mazeroski sac fly in the 5th makes it 2-0.  In the 6th, defensive replacement Luke Appling (ss-3) makes a two-base error that sets up a two-RBI single by Bob Bailey; meanwhile in the 7th the Sox leave the bases loaded for the second inning in a row and their frustration is beginning to show.  They manage to scratch out two split singles in the 9th, but Friend fans Sox leadoff hitter Dave Philley to put the 8-hit shutout in the books, with the 4-0 victory giving the Pirates their 4th regional win, joining 1941, 1956, and 1960 in the winners circle.  

Interesting Card of Regional #116:  His team got bounced from the tournament in the 2nd round, but it wasn’t the fault of this Cy Young winner, who tossed a three-hit shutout to get them past round one.  This was Doc’s second year in the majors, and what a year it was:  he led the league in wins, innings, ERA, complete games, and strikeouts, and also finished 4th in the MVP voting.  In addition to being a great performance card, I just think it’s a great _looking_ card:  die cut with no perforations, a classic pitcher’s pattern with a killer six column, and a nice legible font for aging eyes.  Unfortunately, this was the next-to-last year for these classic old-school Strat cards; afterwards they, like Dwight Gooden, were never quite as good again.