REGIONAL #140:   No pennant winners in a group dominated by 21st century squads; the closest was an A’s team from the 70’s that had been a dynasty just a few seasons prior but I figured that they were in the process of getting dismantled by Charlie Finley.  However, there was the first 2021 team to be selected for the tournament, and they were matched against a team just over 100 years older than them.  I wasn’t feeling a lot of strong teams here, and I thought that the 2013 Tigers might still have their strong top of the rotation intact, so I picked them to break the hearts of the Mariners in the final.   The ELO ranks agreed with my pick of the Tigers, but identified the A’s as still being a threat, with an Arizona team forecast to make the finals from a weak bottom half of the bracket.

First round action

The 1976 A’s were more competitive than I gave them credit for, winning 87 games and coming in second after five straight divisional wins.   What I also didn’t remember about them was that they stole a record 341 bases as a team–this squad had four AA and two A stealers in the starting lineup!  With a strong Vida Blue (18-13, 2.35) on the mound, they were heavy favorites against the 94-loss 2016 Padres.  These Padres were a strange team, with gaping holes in the lineup left by traded players and only four starting pitchers with 100 innings–but one of them, 102 IP Drew Pomeranz (8-7, 2.47) had a killer card.   The A’s don’t need to do any running in the top of the 1st, with a Joe Rudi walk followed by a Gene Tenace HR giving them a quick lead.  However, the Padres retaliate in the 2nd in a big way, with a 2-run homer from Melvin (aka BJ) Upton and then a 3-run blast from Wil Myers, and they add another four runs in the 3rd and it’s 9 to 2, no more Blue, with Rollie Fingers trying his hand.  He asserts control and Rudi pokes a solo shot in the 6th as the A’s try to narrow the gap, and in the 7th Rudi comes back around with the bases loaded and clears them with a double, and now it’s 9-6.  However, in the bottom of the 7th Jon Jay and Derek Norris get to a tiring Fingers with RBI singles, and although the A’s give it a try in the 9th when Joe Rudi hits his 2nd homer and 6th RBI of the game, they can’t catch up and the Padres move on with the 11-8 upset.  The fleet A’s did manage to steal two bases but neither led to any runs.  

The 2013 Tigers were worthy bracket favorites, winners of 93 games and the AL Central and coming within two games of a pennant in the ALCS.   They boasted a strong top of the rotation, headed by AL Cy Young winner Max Scherzer (21-3, 2.90) and a lineup anchored by AL MVP Miggy Cabrera.   They faced a 96-loss 2001 Reds team that had a steroid-era starting rotation (i.e, bad) but lacked true steroid-era power in the lineup; their best pitching option was swingman Jim Brower (7-10, 3.97).  The Reds’ Adam Dunn crushes a solo shot in the top of the 1st to give Scherzer notice that anything can happen in this tournament, but the Tigers tie it in the 2nd on doubles from Prince Fielder and Austin Jackson.  A Cabrera RBI single in the 3rd gives the Tigers the lead, but Alex Avila misses a HR 1-17 split and gets stranded at second.  In the 6th, Ken Griffey Jr. does not miss his HR 1-17 split, and it’s good for a 3-run shot that gives the Reds a 4-2 lead and the Tigers are thinking that their ace just doesn’t have it today.  That is confirmed in the 8th when Scherzer walks the first two batters of the inning and then allows a double to Sean Casey, which scores one although Aaron Boone is cut down at the plate, and Scherzer yields to Joquin Benoit.  The Tigers threaten in the bottom of the inning but Fielder ends that threat with the Tigers’ 4th GIDP of the game, and fittingly the game ends when Omar Infante grounds into the Tigers’ fifth DP and the Reds double their fun with a 5-2 upset over the regional’s top seed.

The 2013 Diamondbacks were the definition of mediocrity, finishing 81-81 but to me they looked like a better team than that, with MVP runner-up Paul Goldschmidt their main weapon, very solid defense, and a reasonable rotation headed by Patrick Corbin (14-8, 3.41).   The 1990 Mariners were a bit under .500 at 77-85, and although they had some holes in their lineup they did boast perhaps the best father/son combination on a single team that I can remember seeing up to this point in the tournament–the Ken Griffeys, although with limited ABs dad wouldn’t be getting into the game until after the 5th inning.  The M’s also had a strong #1 starter in Erik Hanson (18-9, 3.24), but the omens don’t read well when Seattle’s second batter of the game, Edgar Martinez, gets injured and leaves the game.  Even so, Jay Buhner leads off the 2nd with a homer to give the Mariners an early edge.  Meanwhile, Hanson is looking strong, so when the Dbacks get men on 1st and 3rd in the 7th with one away, the Mariners stick with Hanson and he responds with two straight strikeouts to maintain the narrow lead.  In the top of the 9th, Arizona SS-2 Didi Gregorius makes a two-base error, his second error of the game, and PH Griffey Sr. knocks in the runner so the Mariners carry a 2-run margin into the bottom of the 9th for Hanson.  Hanson allows a leadoff single to Parra, then retires a pinch-hitter before dropping a Gregorius grounder to put the tying run on.  A fielder’s choice puts men on 1st and 3rd with two out and Goldschmidt up, who already has two doubles in the game.  Goldschmidt misses a DO 1-11/SI split, but a run scores and the tying run is now 90 feet away and Eric Chavez is at the plate.  Hanson delivers, Chavez grounds out and the Mariners survive and move on with the tight 2-1 win, despite committing four errors.

The final first round game matched two bad teams from a century apart.  The 2021 Rangers were the first team from that season to enter the tournament, and it would have been hard to pick a worse representative as they went 60-102.  You have to wonder if Rangers’ management needed to schedule a screening of “Moneyball” as they had five players in the starting lineup with an OBP less than .300, and after a good spot starter in Kyle Gibson (6-3, 2.87) their starting rotation would get ugly really quickly.  Their opponents, the 1920 Phillies, finished last in the NL with a 62-91 record, but they had a core of pretty good players like Cy Williams, Casey Stengel, and Irish Meusal, and Lee Meadows (16-14, 2.84) was a plenty capable #1 starter.  However, the Phils weren’t helped by the game company’s decision to not make a card for HOFer Dave Bancroft, who had 171 ABs and batting .298 playing SS, while making a card for 1B Pete Luderus, who had 32 ABs and hit .156.  The Rangers strike in the top of the first with three singles, with Willie Calhoun getting an RBI on the third one, and Charlie Culberson adds a sac fly to make it 2-0.  In the 3rd, Adolis Garcia extends the Texas lead with a solo homer, but Meadows then beans the next batter, DJ Peters, knocking him out for seven games and initiating a bench-clearing brawl; fortunately, nobody was injured as both teams were too inept to connect on any of their swings.   The Phils start to battle back in the 4th with an RBI single from Johnny Rawlings and a sac fly from #9 hitter Ralph Miller makes it 3-2, but in the 5th a Rawlings error opens the door to a 2-out rally and Calhoun gets his second RBI single of the game to extend the Texas lead to two.  However, when Cy Williams leads off the 8th with a double on a missed HR split and Meusal follows with a squib single, the Rangers bring in nearly unhittable reliever Joe Barlow to try to quell the rally.  But Art Fletcher shoots a single past 3B-2 Culberson and it’s a one-run game entering the 9th.  Rangers C Jose Trevino opens the top of the 9th with a 15-game injury, and this time Texas takes it out on Meadows, with Leody Taveras drawing a walk, stealing second, and scoring on an Isiah Kiner-Falefa single.  The Phillies are powerless against Barlow in the bottom of the frame and the Rangers move on with a 5-3 win and two tournament-ending injuries.

The survivors

The semifinals begin with the top three seeds in the regional eliminated, with the first semi between the squads that upset the top two.  Neither teams had many options for starting pitching, with the 2016 Padres’ Colin Lea (5-5, 4.82) perhaps marginally better than the 2001 Reds and Chris Reitsma (7-15, 5.29), and perhaps the most frightening thing was that one of these teams would need their #3 starter next game.  Nonetheless, both starters look good on their first pass though the orders, but in the 4th Reds RF-4 Adam Dunn manages to turn Ryan Schimpf’s flyball into a triple, and the next batter hits a grounder to 3B-3 Aaron Boone, who commits a two-base error which is followed by a Yangervis Solarte double and the Padres lead 2-0.  Adam Rosales adds a 2-run homer off Reitsma’s card in the 6th and Jon Jay adds an RBI single, but Solarte gets injured for 7 games to put a damper on the Padres celebration.  Meanwhile, Rea takes a no-hitter into the 6th, but loses it when his bad fielding (P-5) allows a single to Dunn.  It gets worse when Ken Griffey Jr, hoping for an all-Griffey final, hits a 3-run homer following a walk, but in the 7th injury replacement Luis Sardinas contributes an RBI single to extend the Padres lead to 6-3.  The Reds fight back in the bottom of the inning when a run scores after CF-2 Travis Jankowski misplays a Sean Casey single, so the Padres bring in Ryan Buchter to replace Rea, and he picks up two strikeouts to prevent further damage.  The Reds bring in John Riedling to pitch the top of the 9th, but that goes awry and Melvin (aka BJ) Upton swats a 2-run shot to provide additional padding for the Padres’ lead.  SD then summons Brad Hand to pitch the bottom of the 9th and preserve Buchter for the final, and Hand strikes out the side to send the Padres to the finals with the 8-4 win.  

In addition to two good Griffeys, the 1990 Mariners had a pretty good starting rotation and would call upon a young and wild Randy Johnson (14-11, 3.65) to try to get them to the finals, although Edgar Martinez would not be available for this game.  For their part, the 2021 Rangers were short two players to injury, although the Rangers’ lineup was such that the replacements weren’t much different from the starters; their bigger issue was frightening starting pitching, with Dane Dunning (5-10, 4.51) as good an option as they had.   Surprisingly, things start out as a pitching duel and the game is scoreless after five.  In the top of the 6th, Brian Giles leads off with a walk and Griffey Jr. singles him to third; the Rangers bring the infield in and Griffey responds by stealing second and then Alvin Davis singles both runners in and Dunning is pulled for Spencer Patton.  That doesn’t help, and after a Henry Cotto RBI single and a 2-run double from Dave Valle that got past Rangers CF-2 Leody Taveras, the M’s have a 5-0 lead.  Seattle threatens again in the top of the 9th, but Joe Barlow is brought in and he prevents any damage, so the Rangers come up against Johnson in the bottom of the 9th with only one hit to their name.  And they don’t get any more, and the Nick Solak single in the 4th is the only hit against Johnson who nails down the 5-0 shutout and send the Mariners to the finals in search of their first regional title.

The finals feature the #4 seed 1990 Mariners, now at full strength with Edgar Martinez back from injury, against the #6 seeded 2016 Padres, the worst-ranked team from their half of the bracket.  The difference in the rankings was most evident in the depth of their starting rotations, with Seattle able to go with an underrated Matt Young (8-18, 3.51), while the Padres were hoping Christian Friedrich (5-12, 4.80) could get the game to the bullpen.  In the 3rd, Padres’ LF-2 BJ Upton drops a Jay Buhner fly ball, and Buhner scores on a Henry Cotto triple; Cotto then scores on Derek Norris passed ball and the Mariners hold the early lead.  In the 5th, Friedrich has a streak of wildness that keeps the bases loaded all inning, but the M’s only convert two runs on two sac flies by Griffey Jr. and Buhner.  A two out single in the 6th by Harold Reynolds chases Friedrich for Brad Hand, who retires the side without further damage but the Padres are having trouble against Young, who strikes out the side in both the 5th and 6th innings.  He keeps cruising until the 9th, beginning the inning by striking out Ryan Schmipf, but then he gets overconfident to Adam Rosales, who crushes a solo shot to get the Padres on the board.  But Young retires the next two in a row to close out a 5-hitter for the 4-1 win and, for the first time in the history of this tournament, the Seattle Mariners are regional champs.  The regional MVP is awarded collectively to the M’s starting rotation of Hanson, Johnson, and Young, who allowed on average only 0.67 runs and 4.33 hits to opponents in their three complete games.

Interesting card(s) of Regional #140:  Perhaps the Bonds tandem may qualify as the best father-son duo over the course of their respective careers, but when it comes to a single season–furthermore, on the same team!!--nobody compares to the pair of cards for the Ken Griffeys on the regional-winning 1990 Mariners.  Junior was 20 years old, in his second season, during which he was an All-Star, a Gold Glove, and finished 19th in the MVP voting after being 3rd in the Rookie of the Year balloting the previous season.  So how about his 40 year old dad?  Well, hold my beer, son.  After beginning the season with the Reds with a dismal .206 average in limited at-bats, he manages to get traded to the Mariners to play with his son, and upon his arrival he apparently needed to show the kid how it was done:  for the M’s, he hits .377 and his OPS of .963 was better than Junior’s by more than 100 points.  Senior would play one more season with Junior and the Mariners, bowing out with a respectable .780 OPS; Junior, of course, would go on to win the MVP in 1997 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016.