REGIONAL #123:   For the second regional in a row, this one had a trio of teams from the same franchise, and these three Tigers were hoping they would fare better than the three Reds teams that were all eliminated in the first round in the prior bracket.   It seemed to me that all of the Detroit squads would likely be decent, but the teams that caught my eye were a Brewers team that would win the AL the following year, and versions of the Giants and Red Sox that were both two years away from a pennant.   I picked a 2011 Red Sox vs. 1960 Giants final, putting my money on the more modern team which has been the trend in five of the six most recent regionals.    The ELO ranks agreed that the Red Sox were the favorites, but tapped the 2011 version of the Tigers as the runners-up, which would be some consolation as both other Detroit teams had terrible rankings.  

First round action

The first and by far the best of the three Tigers representatives in the regional, the 2011 Tigers won 97 games, the AL Central, and came within two games in the ALCS of the pennant.  Known for their Big 2 of Verlander and Scherzer, with Miguel Cabrera having a big year, their biggest weakness was a porous defense.  They faced the 2017 Marlins, who only won 77 games and were known for one thing only–RF Giancarlo Stanton, the NL MVP who bashed 59 homers.  The pitching matchup looked a bit lopsided, with Verlander (24-5, 2.40), who won both the Cy Young Award and the AL MVP, against Jose Urena (14-7, 3.82) who was by far the Marlins best starter.  Stanton wins the first confrontation between the MVPs, converting a DO 1-3/flyB off Verlander’s card in the bottom of the 1st to give the Marlins a 1-0 lead.  In the top of the 3rd, Austin Jackson gets the first hit off Urena, and it’s Urena’s solid 6-5 HR result to tie the game.  Verlander whiffs Stanton in their second meeting, and in their third Stanton reaches on an error by Jhonny Peralta, but gets stranded and the score remains deadlocked at 1-1.  Stanton singles in his 4th AB in the 8th, but goes nowhere and the game enters the 9th still tied, with both starting pitchers going strong.  Urena retires the side in the top of the 9th successfully, so it’s up to Verlander, who strikes out Justin Bour to begin the inning.  Catcher JT Realmuto then steps up, converts a HR 1-11 on his own card, and Miami gets the walk-off homer to prevail against the MVP with an upset 2-1 victory.

The 1960 Giants had many of the key pieces in place that would make them a dominant team throughout the 60s, such as Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, although after those three the lineup dropped off considerably and the team was barely over .500 at 79-75.  They still compared favorably to the 60-94 1953 Tigers, whose combination of bad defense and pitching spelled trouble.  The Tigers figured that swingman Ralph Branca (4-7, 4.15) was their best option although he was still not over 1951;  the Giants had much better choices and went with Mike McCormick (15-12, 2.70).   Neither team can get a hit until the 4th, with the Giants managing a run on the Tigers second 2-base error of the game followed by a Felipe Alou single.  The Tigers 4th error of the game, in the 7th, sets up a Cepeda RBI single, and McCormick is cruising.  However, when the Tigers get two straight singles with one out in the top of the 9th, the Giants decide to replace McCormick with young phenom Juan Marichal.  Marichal promptly walks Bob Nieman to load the bases, and then faces CF Jim Delsing with the infield back hoping for the game-ending DP.  Instead, Delsing converts a HR 1-10 on his card for a grand slam that puts a further chill on the Candlestick Park crowd.  Branca is thus armed with a 4-2 lead heading into the bottom of the 9th, but he allows two straight singles and he now faces the meat of the Giants order–their Big 3.  However, with a truly frightening bullpen (such as Dick Weik and his 13.97 ERA), the Tigers stick with Branca, and Cepeda doubles to score both runners and the game is tied with nobody out.  Next up, Willie Mays–another double, Cepeda scores, and the Giants record the second straight walk-off win in the regional by a 5-4 margin.  Marichal gets credit for the win despite a 26.87 ERA in his brief appearance.  

With the Tigers zero for two in the prior regional games, the last Detroit entry in the bracket, the 1989 Tigers, didn’t look likely to get very far either, as with bad pitching and limited offensive punch it was hard to believe that this 103-loss outfit had been a great team earlier that decade.  The 1981 Brewers were largely the same team that would storm to the AL pennant the next season, finishing 62-47 in that strike year for the best record in the AL East and a brief postseason appearance.  However, they had yet to hire manager Harvey Kuenn, who they apparently scouted when he batted leadoff for the ‘53 Tigers that had lost the previous game.  It was Pete Vuckovich (14-4, 3.54) for the Brewers against Frank Tanana (10-14, 3.58), and Vuckocich suddenly lost control in the 3rd, walking the bases loaded and then giving up his first hit of the game to Lou Whitaker, which makes it 2-0 Tigers.  Vuckovich’s woes continue in the 4th, when he makes an error that sets up a three-run homer from Tigers #9 hitter Rick Schu, although the Brewers get on the board in the bottom of the 5th with a Gorman Thomas RBI single to make it 5-1.   Vuckovich then settles down, but the Brewers just can’t sustain a rally against Tanana, and the game ends at that 5-1 score as the Tigers finally get a win despite only managing 5 hits against Vuckovich.  

With all of the first round games being ELO-rank mismatches (but with upsets in 2 of 3 so far), the matchup between the 2011 Red Sox and the 1968 Senators was the most lopsided.  The Red Sox were the ELO regional favorite, winning 90 games and having a killer lineup, headed by DH David Ortiz, in which all nine had a SLG% over .400.   That was not going to be happening for a 1968 team, and certainly not for the last-place Senators, who lost 96 games and had exactly one position player with a SLG% over .400.  That one player was Frank Howard, who made Ortiz look like Little Papi by slugging 44 homers in the Year of the Pitcher.  It was the Nats’ Camilo Pascual (13-12, 2.69) against Josh Beckett (13-7, 2.89), and the Bosox put up a run in the top of the 1st when Ortiz hits into a DP, which kills the rally but scores Pedroia from third.  They add another when Kevin Youkilis leads off the 2nd with a homer, and two more in the 3rd on an Adrian Gonzalez RBI single and a Mike Epstein error make it 4-0.  Boston is starting to feel pretty cocky, but a 3-run homer by Ken McMullen in the bottom of the 3rd makes it a ballgame.  Pascual then holds the Sox scoreless in the top of the 4th, and in the bottom of the inning Epstein atones for his error, missing a HR 1-15 split on Beckett’s card but driving in two on the resulting double and the Senators lead 5-4.  Boston ties it in the 6th when Howard manages to turn a Carl Crawford flyball into a 3-base error, and Pedroia drives in Crawford with a single; however, Pedroia (1-16) is later cut down trying to score with a 17 roll.  The Red Sox lose RF Josh Reddick to injury in the 8th, and with things not going their way they bring in closer Jonathan Papelbon when Beckett walks the leadoff batter in the bottom of the inning.  He burns through the bottom of the Washington order, and when Pascual starts the 9th with a single to Crawford, the Nats have no comparable bullpen ace and stick with Camilo.  That works, courtesy of another Ortiz GIDP, and Papelbon again goes 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 9th and we head to extra innings.   Pascual gets in trouble immediately in the 10th with a single and a walk; injury replacement JD Drew then singles but Gonzalez is cut down at the plate trying to put the Sox ahead.  Papelbon again sets the Senators down in order, and we head to the 11th with Washington forced to bring in Denny Higgins out of the pen to relieve the burnt Pascual.  He allows 2 hits but the Sox can’t convert, so it’s Daniel Bard out of the bullpen to begin the bottom of the 11th.  Bard records two straight outs off his card on a HR 1-4/flyB split and a TR 1-8/flyB split, bringing up Del Unser, hitting .230 with 1 HR.  It’s that HR 1-4/flyB split again, split roll…1.  Game over, the third walk-off game in this regional, and the Senators get the big upset win in 11 innings, 6–5.  

The survivors

Gem interrupted

As the only favorite to win in round one of this regional, the 1960 Giants now donned the mantle of top gun in the semifinals, facing the 2017 Marlins and Giancarlo Stanton’s MVP bat.  However, the Marlins had a dreadfully shallow starting rotation and Dan Straily (10-9, 4.26) was the last non-terrible option they could muster against the Giants’ solid Sam Jones (18-14, 3.19).  The Giants take a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first on a two-out McCovey RBI single, and C Bob Schmidt adds a solo HR in the 2nd to extend the lead to 2-0.  In the 4th, the Marlins, who still haven’t had a baserunner, lose 2B leadoff hitter Dee Gordon to injury, and the Giants make it 5-0 in the 5th courtesy of RBI singles from Cepeda and Mays.  When Schmidt doubles in the 6th, the Marlins try out their bullpen, which heavily favors quantity over quality, with Kyle Barraclough managing to get out of the inning when Schmidt is cut down trying to score on a Jim Davenport single.  However, pitching to the last batter in the 7th, Jones is injured in the midst of tossing a 2-hitter, and the Giants have to turn to Stu Miller to try to finish things out.  He does so, contributing two hitless innings and the Giants move to the finals with a 5-0 shutout, although it appears that Jones would miss his start in the super-regionals if San Francisco were to get that far.

The second semifinal matched a 103-loss 1989 Tigers team against the 96-loss 1968 Senators, an improbable if not balanced pairing.  The Tigers were hoping that the Senators might confuse Paul Gibson (4-8, 4.64) with Bob, while Washington’s Joe Coleman (12-16, 3.27) enjoyed the benefits of the Year of the Pitcher.  The Senators take a 1-0 lead in the 2nd on a Bernie Allen sac fly, but that lead proves very short-lived when in the top of the 3rd a Pat Sheridan RBI single is followed by a 3-run homer from Fred Lynn.  The Nats immediately counterpunch in the bottom of the inning, with Ed Stroud converting a 2-run blast off Gibson’s card, and in the 5th Mike Epstein ties it with a clutch two-out RBI single.   However, in the 8th Coleman begins the inning by dropping a grounder, then issues two walks, but the Washington pen is bad and they let him pitch to Chet Lemon.  Lemon nails a bases-clearing double off Coleman’s card, and then Coleman walks another and, determined to get the ball over the plate, promptly grooves one to Mike Heath for a 3-run HR that makes it 10-4 Tigers.  The Senators yank Coleman at that point out of mercy, but by then it doesn’t matter as Gibson closes out the 10-4 win to send the Tigers into the finals as a considerable underdog.

With respect to the regional ELO seedings, the final between the 1960 Giants and the 1989 Tigers looked fairly balanced, pitting the #4 seed against #6, but this masked a large gulf between the actual rankings that had the Giants as a “good” team (one of the top 1000 ever) and the Tigers as “bad” one (not in the top 2000).  The Giants had a deep rotation, and with three decent options tapped Jack Sanford (12-14, 3.82); the Tigers had only two choices and had to go with a bad Doyle Alexander (6-18, 4.44) over an even worse Jack Morris.  And the Giants give Alexander a strong case of the Willies in the top of the 1st, with a Willie Mays triple followed by a Willie McCovey homer that makes it 3-0 Giants before Sanford has thrown a pitch.  However, these Tigers didn’t get this far for nothing, and their leadoff hitter Gary Pettis converts a SI 1-3, steals second, and then scores on a Chet Lemon single to signal that they don’t intend to go down without a fight.  However, at that point both starters get in a groove, until in the 8th Alexander allows a single and a walk and the Tigers call in Frank Williams from the pen to try to keep the game within reach.  Although Williams allows nobody on base, the Giants do get a run on a sac fly from yet another Willie, Kirkland, and the score is now 4-1.  Sanford is on cruise control until the bottom of the 9th, when he gets two quick outs but then walks Dave Bergman.  Pat Sheridan then hits a lazy flyball that CF-1 Willie Mays inexplicably drops, and the tying run is now at the plate in the form of Fred Lynn.  Sanford bears down, strikes Lynn out, and the Giants capture their 9th regional title with the 6-hitter from Sanford.  The Big 3 of Cepeda, Mays, and McCovey share regional MVP honors, as they collectively drove in 11 of the 14 runs scored by the Giants in the bracket.  

Interesting card(s) of Regional #123:  This edition is a Tale of Two Sluggers, both of whom were the big offensive weapon on losing teams, both of whom failed to get their teams past the regional semifinals, but who came from dramatically different eras of baseball.  Stanton (who made an appearance as “Mike” Stanton in Regional #89) hit 59 homers, a Ruthian accomplishment that places his card among the 10 best HR seasons of all time.  In contrast, Hondo’s seemingly lowly 44 places him in a tie for 152nd place among HR seasons.  However, I just want to point out that Howard hit his 44 in 1968: the Year of the Pitcher, so bear with me while I throw out some comparison numbers.   In 2017, the MLB-wide rate of HR/AB was.03687, meaning that Stanton’s rate of .09883 was 2.68 times the average.  Howard’s HR rate of .07359 is not as gaudy as Stanton’s, but he did it in a season where the average rate was .01837–meaning that Hondo’s longball probability was 4.01 times the average.  Just for fun, if we put that ratio to league average into 2017 numbers, that would give Howard a total of 88 homers in his 598 at bats.  The concept of what Hondo might have done with today’s “nutritional supplements” is positively frightening.