REGIONAL #118:  This allotment looked like an undistinguished one, with some teams that I knew were bad, and others where I only strongly suspected that they would be bad, and nobody with a binocular-assisted view of a pennant-winning season.   That certainly narrowed down my choices for regional favorites, restricted to those teams about whom I remembered very little.  One of the teams that I knew was bad was also a huge sentimental favorite for me, so there was no way I was going to jinx them by predicting a win for them, although I could always hope.  Ultimately I decided that the finals would be between the 2016 Rockies and the 1992 Angels, both of whom I suspected must have had a couple of good players in their lineup, with a guess that the Rockies would prevail for only their second regional win.   The ELO ranks suggested that this was the weakest regional since I started tracking those rankings, with no teams included within the top 1000 of all time.   Still, somebody has to win, and the ELO favorite was the oldest team in the group, the 1930 Indians, who probably look like a gem amidst this competition.

First round action

The 81-73 1930 Indians certainly looked like they deserved their designation as ELO favorites in this weak regional, with each of the first five hitters in their lineup hitting over .325, some power from Earl Averill and Eddie Morgan, and 25-game winner Wes Ferrell as the staff ace.  In contrast, the 90-loss 1992 Angels looked far worse than I initially thought once I got a good look at the team, as they had terrible defense (e.g., an all-”4” outfield), remarkably little power (Gary Gaetti leading with 12 HR), although they had a decent starting rotation that deserved more support.  It’s the Angels who get off to a quick start in the bottom of the 1st, with Luis Polonia drawing a walk, stealing second, and scoring on a Rene Gonzales single--although Gonzales is subsequently cut down at the plate on a Luis Sojo double to end the inning.  In the 3rd a two-base error by Angels 1B Lee Stevens sets up a Bibb Falk RBI single to tie things up, but the Angels immediately reclaim the lead in the bottom of the inning when Chad Curtis leads off with a homer.  Angels CF Junior Felix then gives a run back in the 5th with a two base error that scores Averill, and then Angels starter Mark Langston allows a double to Charlie Jamieson that gives the Indians their first lead, 3-2.  However, the Angels have been hitting Ferrell steadily all game, and in the 7th they finally put together four hits, including a 2-RBI single from Lee Stevens to atone for his fielding miscues, and the Angels retake the lead 5-3 heading into the 8th.   Langston bears down, but with two out in the 9th Morgan smacks a homer to pull the Indians to within a run; Hodapp then singles and the Indians let Langston pitch to Falk, who gets a SI 1-14 with a split roll of 15 to end the game and give the Angels a 5-4 upset win, in which they racked up 14 hits but also committed three costly errors.

After the previous game, the 2006 Padres had the dubious honor of being the team with the best remaining ELO rank in the regional, and after looking at them I thought they were underrated, winning 88 games and the NL West, sporting a lineup with three .500+ SLG%s and a killer bullpen fronted by Trevor Hoffman’s 46 saves, good enough to push him to second place for the Cy Young award.   I will say that their opponents, the 100-loss 1985 Giants, didn’t look quite as terrible as might be expected but with only two hitters in the lineup with a batting average over .245, it didn’t seem like runs would come easy to them.  It was SF’s Mike Krukow against SD’s Chris Young, and Young’s defense lets him down in the 2nd when Brian Giles misplays a Manny Trillo single that allows Bob Brenly to score.  In the 5th, Dan Gladden converts a TR 1-3/flyB on Young’s card and scores on a Chili Davis sac fly, and Young ends the inning by getting injured on a Rob Deer grounder, so the Padres turn it over to Cla Meredith and his 1.07 ERA.  The Giants continue their trend of picking up cheap splits, leading to a run on a Trillo sac fly in the 6th and another on a Rob Deer sac fly in the 7th.  In desperation, the Padres try Hoffman in the 8th but he gets lit up for two runs to push the score to 6-0, and Krukow is giving no quarter.  The Giants finally get a rally going in the 9th and Mike Cameron knocks an RBI single with two out, but that was all the Padres could muster as Krukow tosses a CG 7-hitter and with the 6-1 win the Giants are the second bad underdog team in the regional to advance to the semis.

After setting their lineup, I felt pretty good about my pick of the 2016 Rockies for regional winner even though they only won 75 games, as they had power up and down the order with five .500+ SLG% hitters, and a pitching staff that by Colorado standards didn’t look so bad.  In contrast, the 95-loss 2011 Mariners had one batter with a SLG% over .400, nobody with an OBP over .325, and limited starting pitching fronted by a decent if unsupported Felix Hernandez, but given that both previous games in the regional were won by 90+ loss underdogs, I wasn’t placing any bets.  Sure enough, things start badly for the Rockies in the top of the 1st when their second batter, 1B Mark Reynolds, is injured for 8 games with little on the bench to replace him.  A squib single by David Dahl off Hernandez’s scores Trevor Story and the Rockies move out to a 1-0 lead in the 2nd, but Dahl gives the run right back when he misplays a Chone Figgins (batting average: .188) single that scores one, followed by an Ichiro single that scores another although Figgins manages to end the inning getting cut down at the plate, even though he’s 1-19 with two out.  Miguel Olivo drives in another in the 3rd, although once again the rally is cut short with a runner cut down at the plate, this time Casper Wells, and the Mariners post an ad for a new third base coach.   A solo moonshot by Charlie Blackmon in the 4th narrows the Seattle lead to 3-2, and Nolan Arenado leads off the 6th with another long blast that ties the game.  Rockies starter Tyler Chatwood tosses his first 1-2-3 inning of the game in the bottom of the frame, and the momentum seems to have shifted to Colorado, but when Adam Kennedy hits a double off Chatwood’s 6-9 result (which is the 4th time in the game it’s been rolled), the Rockies have seen enough and bring in Boone Logan who squelches the rally and sends the game into the 9th still knotted at three apiece.  Trevor Story breaks the tie immediately in the top of the 9th, leading off with another tape measure homer, and the M’s must try to claw back against Logan, but he puts the top of the Seattle order down in order and the Rockies survive a 4-3 comeback win.

The 1970 White Sox are a substantial sentimental favorite for me, as I had the dubious good fortune to attend many of their games in person.  See, at the time the Cubs were good, the Sox were terrible, and the South-siders couldn’t sell many tickets, so they had a ton of free ticket giveaways.  For me, an enterprising youngster who had only begun playing Strat a year or two before, this was an opportunity that I couldn’t resist, so I managed to procure those tickets nearly every time they came available and dragged my dad (who was not a baseball fan) to the games in the decaying old Comiskey Park.  Yes, they went 56-106, and the ELO ranks put them as the 2nd worst White Sox team of all time, but I remember their lineup to this day and I always had the feeling that they were better than that record.  Now it was time for me to confront reality in this tournament, but fortunately, their first draw was the 54-100 1953 Browns, who were so bad they had to leave St. Louis for Baltimore the following season, so it appeared to be a “balanced” matchup between two of the worst 150 teams of all time.   A couple of starters having mediocre seasons during decent careers faced off in STL’s Harry Brecheen against the Sox and Tommy John, but both pitch like it’s their prime and the game remains scoreless after seven innings.  In the 8th, errors by Aparicio and Carlos May give the Browns an unearned 1-0 lead, but in the bottom of the inning PH Gail Hopkins gets a hit and Ken Berry drives him in with a clutch 2-out single to tie it back up heading into the 9th.   John retires the side in the top of the 9th, and when the Sox lead off the bottom with two straight singles by May and Bill Melton, Brecheen is replaced by Hal White, and the Sox can’t touch him so the game heads to extra innings.   After 10 innings, John is toast and the Sox turn to Wilbur Wood to start the 11th, but the knuckler isn’t knuckling and Dick Kokos goes yard with a 2-run homer to give the Browns a 3-1 lead--although Vic Wertz is hurt to end the inning, which will be a major loss if the Browns can advance.  In the bottom of the 11th, Bill Melton finds White’s HR result with one out to narrow the deficit to 3-2, but White retires the next two in order and the Browns move to the semifinals.  And, unfortunately my White Sox head back into storage, confirming that they were indeed as bad as their record suggested.

The survivors

A semifinal between the 90-loss 1992 Angels and the 100-loss 1985 Giants proves that every dog gets their day in this tournament, although despite their records the pitching matchup between the Giants Atlee Hammaker and Jim Abbott for the Angels wasn’t a bad one.  In the bottom of the 2nd, the Giants load the bases on some sloppy fielding plays by the Angels, but leadoff hitter Dan Gladden makes the 3rd out and gets injured in the process, and the game remains scoreless.   The Angels finally break the ice in the 5th when Mike Fitzgerald finds and converts Hammaker’s HR split for a solo shot, and then the normally surehanded Manny Trillo boots a Luis Polonia grounder, Polonia steals second and scores on a Chad Curtis single and it is 2-0 for the Halos.  When Luis Sojo launches a solo HR in the 8th to make it 3-0, Garrelts comes in to relieve Hammaker and does his job, but it doesn’t matter as Abbott finishes out the shutout, scattering 8 hits in a 3-0 that puts the Angels in the finals in pursuit of their 4th regional win.  As remarkable as Abbott's pitching was given his disability, I find it even more amazing that he was a "1" fielder in 1992.

The 1953 Browns may have lost 100 games, but here they were in the semifinals with a chance to be the first Browns team to ever win a regional--and to give them their best shot they decided to start a guy who would have a memorable game three years later for a much better team--Don Larsen.  The 2016 Rockies, although they still finished under .500, were better than the Browns in pretty much every way, and starter Jon Gray had a much better WHIP than Larsen and didn’t seem to suffer from the gopher ball issues that beset most Colorado pitchers.  Both teams were missing key players due to injuries, Vic Wertz for the Browns and Mark Reynolds for the Rockies, but the Browns had fewer alternative sources of power with Wertz out of the lineup.  To prove the point, the Browns load the bases in the bottom of the 1st on two walks and a Nick Hundley error, but Wertz’s replacement, Jim Dyck, whiffs to end the potential rally.  A couple of bad Larsen fielding plays sets up a 2-run double for Daniel Descarlo to put Colorado ahead in the 3rd, and things stay that way as both pitchers settle in.  The Browns put two men in scoring position in the 8th on a Clint Courtney double with one out, but the Rockies play the infield back and avoid the gbA++ that is subsequently rolled, and the score remains 2-0 heading into the 9th.  However, an error by Dyck and yet another bad fielding play by Larsen lead to two insurance runs for the Rockies in the top of the inning.  The Browns then proceed to load the bases on a single and a couple of walks off Gray, with Dyck coming to the plate with two out.  The Rockies eye their bullpen, but don’t want to burn Boone Logan and don’t like their other options, so Gray remains in to pitch to PH Les Moss.  Moss singles to put the Browns on the board, but then DJ Lemahieu makes a highlight-reel play on a Courtney grounder to seal the 4-1 win for the Rockies and earn a trip to the finals.

No Logan's Run here

The regional final matching the 2016 Rockies against the 1992 Angels was one where I predicted both teams blindly but accurately, while the ELO ranks predicted neither--the first time that has occurred as far as I can recall.  In general, the teams in this weak regional had been having difficulty scoring runs, but with rather lackluster starting pitchers facing off--Julio Valera for the Angels, Tyler Anderson for the Rockies--this game could provide more fireworks.  Not so--both pitchers start out sharp and the game remains scoreless through 5 innings.  In the top of the 6th, however, Anderson, a “1” fielder, drops a Junior Felix grounder, and then Lee Stevens finds the rattled pitcher’s HR 1-11/DO result.  The split is missed, but the speedy Felix scores on the resulting double, and then Anderson loads up the bases, so the Rockies have to go to game 1 savior Boone Logan in the hopes of preventing further damage--which he does, but the Angels lead 1-0.  Meanwhile, Valera is in control, but after recording one out in the bottom of the 9th, Valera allows a single to Trevor Story and a double to Charlie Blackmon to put the tying and winning runs in scoring position, and the Angels have to turn to Bryan Harvey, a reliever who doesn’t allow many hits, but when he does they go a long way.  With the infield in, Harvey delivers to Carlos Gonzalez, and it’s a 1-9:  HR 1-3/DO, and the resulting double scores both runners and gives the Rockies the walk-off 2-1 win and the regional title.  This is only the second regional win for a Rockies team, joining the 2003 team, and the regional MVP goes to Boone Logan, the Rockies’ only decent reliever, who wins 2 of the 3 games by tossing five scoreless innings.   

Interesting card of Regional #118:   His team didn’t get past the semifinals, and he didn’t really do much of anything in the regional other than strike out, but I had to pick Rob Deer of the ‘85 Giants as a trendsetter, a 3-result guy (whiff, walk, homer) who seemingly was the forerunner of the cards of roughly half of current major league players.  Admittedly, there were some earlier versions of Mr. Deer (Dave Kingman and Swish Nicholson come to mind), but none of them seemed to combine his propensity to whiff with his inability to clear a .200 batting average.  I have to admit that Deer was always a favorite of mine and I’d invariably draft him (admittedly in the late rounds) in Strat leagues I played in back then.  After all, he was a record-setter; when he retired, he held the MLB record for the lowest qualifying season batting average in history at .179 (which he managed in 1991, 6 years after this card), a milestone of futility since broken in 2018 by Chris Davis’s .168.  However, Davis and many other modern players should owe royalties to Rob Deer, who blazed the trail for hapless sluggers everywhere.