REGIONAL #126:  This grouping features the pennant-winning 2003 Yankees, who have the challenge of facing an Indians team in the first round that had won a pennant the prior season.   However, another entrant to keep an eye on was a Rays team that was bracketed on either side by versions that had done very well in this tournament, including winning the prior regional.  The teams in the bottom half of the bracket were more of a crap shoot, and other than what I suspected was a bad Senators team I thought any of the remaining three could end up in the finals.  I decided that the Indians would best the oldest team in the bracket, the 1938 Tigers, in the finals.  The ELO rankings agreed that my selected teams were pretty good, but chose the pennant-winning Yankees over a dark-horse Twins team for the regional crown.

First round action

I expected that setting the lineup for the 2018 Rays would feel very familiar after the 2017 team just won the previous regional, but I was mistaken–this was a remarkably different team, and I believe that C Wilson Ramos was the only player in the starting lineup for both teams.  They still won 90 games, and although their starting pitching depth was non-existent, their rotation was fronted by Blake Snell (21-5, 1.89), who won the AL Cy Young Award as well as the Regional #125 final.  They faced the 1995 Giants, who went 67-77 in that strike-shortened year; they were a team with some bruisers with the bat but not much in the rotation, with Mark Leiter (10-12, 3.82) getting the nod as their ace.  In the 2nd, Ramos drops a popup that would have been the third out, setting up an RBI single for Kirt Manwaring that gives the Giants the early lead.  From that point on, Snell is in command–but so is Leiter.  The Giants threaten in the 8th with runners on 1st and 2nd with one out, but Giants SS Royce Clayton turns a critical DP and the threat is ended.  In the 9th, Leiter retires the 2-3-4 hitters of the Rays in order, finishing up a 4-hit shutout and a 1-0 upset win for the Giants.  Snell only allows 5 hits himself, and no earned runs, but the Rays make 2 errors–twice as many as they did in the three games of the prior regional–and Tampa’s hopes for two regional titles in a row end quickly.

The 2003 Yankees won 101 games and the AL pennant, and the ELO ranks had them in the top 150 teams of all time, but the Yankees teams of the Jeter era just have not fared well in this tournament, and so I had predicted that they wouldn’t get past their first round opponent, the 1998 Indians.  However, after setting the lineups I wasn’t so sure anymore–the entire Yankee lineup was over .400 SLG%, they had the best starting rotation that money and PEDs could provide, and if they got a lead there was Mariano Rivera to ensure that they kept it.  Even so, the Indians had a pretty imposing heart of the order with four consecutive .500+ SLG% bruisers, although their starter Bartolo Colon (14-9, 3.71) had both a larger ERA and waistline than Mike Mussina (17-8, 3.40).  Jeter doesn’t take kindly to my slight, manufacturing a run by drawing a leadoff walk, taking the extra base on a Matsui single, and scoring on a Jason Giambi sac fly to give the Yanks a lead in the top of the 1st, and in the 2nd they add two more on a Raul Mondesi homer to go up 3-0.  A solo shot by Alphonso Soriano in the 3rd makes it 4-0, and when the Yanks begin the 4th with two walks and a Jeter RBI single, it is obviously time for a Colon-ectomy, and in desperation the Indians summon closer Mike Jackson who ends the inning without further damage.  Jackson finally holds the Yanks scoreless in the top of the 5th, courtesy of an acrobatic play by SS-1 Omar Vizquel, and in the bottom of the inning the Indians get on the board when Sandy Alomar Jr. convert’s Mussina’s HR split for a solo shot.  In the 6th, David Justice hits an RBI single and the Indians then load up the bases, so the Yanks yank Mussina and Jose Contreras comes in to induce a DP ball from Alomar that keeps the score at 5-2.  In the 8th, NY brings in Jeff Nelson to set up, but he allows a run on a Joey Cora fielder’s choice and the score narrows to 5-3, and it stays that way into the bottom of the 9th, when closer Rivera comes in to face the top of the Indians order.  They go down 1-2-3, and Rivera preserves the 5-3 win for the Yankees and a date with the Giants in the semifinals.   

In my initial scan of the regional entries, I seemed to have underestimated the 2010 Twins and overestimated the 2003 Brewers.  The Twins won 94 games and the AL Central, and had a pretty solid balance of hitting, pitching, and defense; the Brewers lost 94 games and had to hope that Richie Sexson could hit enough homers to compensate for a bad steroid-era pitching staff.  Minnesota’s Francisco Liriano (14-10, 3.62) and Ben Sheets (11-13, 4.45) for the Brewers provided the pitching matchup, and the Brewers draw first blood when Scott Podsednik singles, steals second, and scores on a Sexson single in the 1st.  The Brewers threaten again in the 4th, loading the bases but Twins C Joe Mauer hangs onto a Podsednik two-strike foul tip for the third out.  When Wes Helms doubles in the 6th, the Twins decide that with their offense struggling they can’t afford to let the game get away from them, and bring in closer Brian Fuentes, and he records two straight strikeouts to end the threat.  Then it’s the Brewers turn in the 7th to summon their closer, Dan Kolb, when the Twins get runners on 1st and 3rd with two out, even though Sheets is still tossing a shutout.  That move doesn’t work as well for the Brewers, as Michael Cuddyer raps a hard single off Kolb’s card (a roll that was an out on Sheets, by the way) and the game is tied.  The Twins do nothing in the 8th except lose CF Denard Span to a tournament-ending injury, but the Brewers are similarly stymied and the score remains knotted 1-1 after 9 innings.  Kolb retires the Twins in order in the top of the 10th, and Minnesota has to dig deeper in their pen in the bottom of the inning, turning to Jesse Crain to face Richie Sexson.  Sexson puts it into the beer garden at Miller Park for a walk-off 2-1 win that keeps the Brewers’ hopes alive for their first regional win–although closer Kolb is now toast for the rest of the regional with some really bad starting pitching on deck.

The 1938 Tigers had a great top of the order, led by Hank Greenberg’s 58 HR season, but the back end and the starting rotation were less impressive, resulting in an 84-70 record good for 4th place in the AL.  They were comfortable favorites over the 1954 Senators, who nonetheless were not as bad as I expected from a team with “last in the American League” as part of their motto; they went 66-88 to finish 6th, not last, and as might be expected given that they played in cavernous Griffith Stadium, they had limited power but an excellent starting rotation, with Johnny Schmitz (11-8, 2.92) drawing the first round start against Detroit’s Tommy Bridges (13-9, 4.59).   The Senators strike first in the 3rd when Jim Busby scores on a Mickey Vernon sac fly, and the Tigers’ effort to retaliate in the bottom of the inning is cut short when Chet Morgan (1-14) is cut down trying to score on a Dixie Walker double.  In the 6th, Roy Sievers, who had gotten on courtesy of a Mark Christman (3B-2) error, scores on a Pete Runnels grounder and it’s now 2-0.  A walk and a single to start the 7th finishes Bridges’ day, with Al Benton coming in to retire the side without incident.  However, Detroit never can solve Schmitz, who finishes up the game with a 2-0 shutout–with Jim Busby’s 4 hits equaling the entire output of the Tigers. 

The survivors

Pfizer player of the game

The regional favorite 2003 Yankees selected Roger Clemens (17-9, 3.91), now that he was back from picking up his wife’s prescriptions, to start their semifinal matchup against the 1996 Giants and William Vanlandingham (6-3, 3.67), whose name was longer than his career.  The juices were running high in the top of the 1st inning when Barry Bonds crushed a Clemens offering for a two-run blast, but the Giants get a dose of their own medicine in the bottom of the 1st when Jason Giambi nails a 3-run homer to put the Yankees up 3-2, and it’s looking like I’m going to run out of steroids puns before this game is over.  In the 5th, Royce Clayton misses Clemens’ HR 1-15/DO split, but next batter Kirt Manwaring raps a hard single also off Clemens card, and Matt Williams drives Manwaring in to put the Giants back on top 4-3.  Once again, Giambi makes short work of that lead with a 2-run homer in the bottom of the inning and the Yanks move back in front.  However, when Glenallen Hill leads off the 6th with a double, NY decides to pull Clemens and turn the game over to their bullpen, and Contreras retires the Giants without damage.  The Yanks bring in Jeff Nelson in the 8th to set up, but once again that doesn’t go well as Matt Williams slams his first pitch into the leftfield stands–although the Giants botch a chance to take the lead back when Hill (1-14) is nailed trying to score on a Deion Sanders single.  Hill then doubles down on his goat-hood by misplaying an Alfonso Soriano single that puts Soriano in position to score on Nick Johnson single, and the Yanks reclaim the lead going into the 9th and out comes Mariano Rivera for the save opportunity.  He puts the Giants down in order, and the Yankees head to the finals with a 6-5 win that involved five lead changes.

The second semifinal featured a pair of upset winners from the first round, with the 1954 Senators finding themselves in the unlikely position of being favored over the 2003 Brewers.  Certainly, the pitching matchup favored Washington, with the Nats’ Dean Stone (12-10, 3.22) a far better option than Milwaukee’s Matt Kinney (10-13, 5.19), but it’s the Brewers who score first in the top of the 1st with a Geoff Jenkins double driving in Podsednik.  However, in the 5th Kinney allows three straight squib singles to start the inning, and then Brewer 2B-3 Keith Ginter boots a grounder from the late Wayne Terwilliger to tie the game; with the bases still loaded, Tom Umphlett hits into a DP but a run scores and the Senators move to a 2-1 lead.  That lead is short lived, as Richie Sexson belts a solo shot in the top of the 6th to tie things up.  The Brewers get men on 2nd and 3rd with one out in the 7th, but Stone pitches out of the jam, and in the bottom of the inning Terwilliger converts Stone’s HR 1-2 split and puts the Senators up 3-2, with Milwaukee having few options in the pen with their best reliever burnt.  Again, that lead doesn’t last long when Jenkins hits a solo shot in the 8th and later Brady Clark follows with a 2-run double that makes it 5-3, and things just get worse for the Senators in the bottom of the inning when their best run producer, Mickey Vernon, leaves the game with a serious injury.  From there, it’s just Kinney hanging on and the Brewers head to the finals with the 5-3 win despite managing only 5 hits off Stone.   

The regional final featured two teams from the same season for the first time since Regional #60, and the first that I could remember since I began tracking ELO ratings to match the #1 regional seed with the #8 seed in the finals.  That #1 seed was the 2003 Yankees, the first pennant winner to appear in a regional final since the 1951 version of the Yankees lost to a #6 seed in Regional #117.  They faced the 94-loss 2003 Brewers, who sent Doug Davis (7-8, 4.03) to face Andy Pettitte (21-8, 4.02); Pettitte finished sixth in the Cy Young balloting but it is some indication of the strength of the Yankees rotation that he was their #3 starter in this tournament.  The underdog Brewers eke out a lead in the bottom of the 3rd when Eddie Perez misses Pettite’s HR 1-10/DO split, but scores on a Scott Podsednik single that makes it 1-0 Milwaukee.  The Yanks tie it in the 5th when Geoff Jenkins misplays a Raul Mondesi single, setting up an RBI single from Bernie Williams, but the Brewers push back out in front in the bottom of the inning when Perez scores again, this time on a Royce Clayton single.  In the 6th, it’s Jason Giambi’s turn to miss a HR 1-10/DO split, but he scores by converting a running 1-10 split on an Alfonso Soriano single that ties the game again, but in the bottom of the inning Brewer PH Brooks Kieschnick slams a 2-run homer and the Brewers now lead 4-2.  In the 8th, Davis walks the bases loaded with one out, but Nick Johnson hits into an inning-ending DP and the Brewers still cling to their lead, although with their closer Kolb unavailable after his lengthy first-round stint.  However, Kolb isn’t needed as Davis closes out the Yanks, assisted by Aaron Boone hitting into NY’s third DP of the game in the 9th, and the Brewers clinch the first regional win for that franchise with a 4-2 upset victory.  

Interesting card of Regional #126:  This regional had some great candidates for this feature. There was Hank Greenberg’s monster 1938 card, with more HR chances than the Babe, but the Tigers were shut out in the first round and I had already featured a Greenberg card in Regional #94.  Matt Williams had a monster card for the 1995 Giants, with 23 homers in only 283 ABs courtesy of a strike-shortened season.  However, I decided to go with the card(s) of someone considerably lower profile than those two:  Brooks Kieschnick.  There are a few things that make him interesting.  First, with all the (well-deserved) attention paid to Shohei Ohtani this year for his exploits as both a position player and a pitcher, Brooks would like us to remember that this wasn’t the first time since the Babe that occurred.  Second, Kieschnick’s cards.  His pitching card is hardly great–that 6-7 solid double is kind of eye-catching–but in that terrible Brewer bullpen, he was probably in the top half of their options.  However, that hitting card is pretty unique.  How many Basic Strat cards can you think of that had five COMPLETE home run results in one column–no splits here, just solid dingers.  I’m betting Ohtani’s 2021 MVP card won’t.  In the season represented by this card, Kieschnick became the first player in major league history to hit home runs as a pitcher, designated hitter, and pinch hitter in the same season.  Ultimately he didn’t have much of a career, totalling only 306 ABs and 96 IP over six seasons in the majors, but he still managed to deliver the pinch-hit blast that gave the Brewers their first regional win in the tournament.