REGIONAL #144:  This was an unusual draw, as for the first time in nearly a hundred regionals there weren’t any teams from this millennium involved.  This is particularly rare because many of the 20th century seasons have now been fully sampled, so the majority of remaining teams are from 2000 forward.  There was a pennant winner in the 1974 Dodgers, and the 1948 Dodgers won a pennant the year before and the year after, so Dodger Blue had a couple of strong representatives.  There were also two variants of Milwaukee teams, including a Braves squad that was a couple of seasons away from greatness.   I guessed that those Braves would meet the ‘74 version of the Dodgers in the final, with LA prevailing.  The ELO ranks agreed, identifying the ‘74 Dodgers among the 100 best teams of all time.

First round action

The 1990 Astros went 75-87, and among their biggest assets were an Astrodome-bolstered pitching staff fronted by scuffballer Mike Scott (9-13, 3.81) and a rarity, an A-stealing catcher by the name of Craig Biggio.  They faced the 85-69 NL runner-up 1955 Braves, who were powered by big years from Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron; the Braves selected Ray Crone (10-9, 3.46) to start but had a good number of options.  However, the favored Braves found themselves in a glen early when a Glenn Davis double and a Glenn Wilson 2-run single gives the Astros a 3-0 lead in the top of the 1st.  That lead proves to be very short-lived, as in the bottom of the inning a Mathews RBI single and a 3-run homer from George Crowe gives the Braves the lead, and it’s looking like a wild one.  Sure enough, Ken Caminiti ties it in the top of the 2nd with an RBI single, and the Astros retake the lead in the 3rd on a Rafael Ramirez fielders choice.  However, in the 4th Braves #9 hitter Danny O’Connell singles and Bobby Thomson (1-13) races home from second to tie the game once again.  The Astros are simply not to be denied, as Wilson leads off the 5th with a homer, and then an Eric Yelding triple and a Biggio double and Crone is yanked and in desperation the Braves insert Warren Spahn on the mound.  Spahn whiffs Casey Candaele to end the inning but it is now Houston 8, Milwaukee 5 and County Stadium is eerily quiet.  The Braves try to rally in the 6th with two hits, but PH Chuck Tanner hits into an inning-ending DP and Scott gets out of the inning unscathed.  A Biggio sac fly adds another run for the Astros in the 7th, and Scott just seems to get stronger as the game goes on, so the Astros wrap up the 9-5 upset win to move on.  However, Ramirez is injured in the 9th inning and he will miss the semifinal game, with Houston lacking much in the way of a viable replacement.  

The 76-76 1911 Yankees (really the Highlanders at the time), typical of a deadball team, didn’t have much power but nonetheless had some guys who could hit, including infamous player/manager Hal Chase, who presumably did most of his hitting when gamblers weren’t paying him not to.   The 1996 Brewers had a similarly mediocre record of 80-82, but got there with guys like Greg Vaughn and John Jaha hitting 30+ homers; however, an extremely shallow rotation that dropped off fast after Ben McDonald (12-10, 3.90) would put them at a disadvantage against New York ace Russ Ford (22-11, 2.27).  In the 3rd, an injury to Brewers CF Pat Listach knocks him out for the tournament, although they seemed to have numerous alternatives without a dropoff in performance.  Both pitchers are in charge until the top of the 6th, when John Jaha jacks a 2-run homer into the cow pasture beyond the Hilltop Park outfield, but at that point Chase apparently decides all bets are off as he leads off the bottom of the inning with a single, steals second, scores on a John Knight double, and then a Jeff Sweeney single serves to tie the game back up.  However, in the 7th injury replacement Matt Mieske delivers a 2-out double and then scores on a Fernando Vina single and the Brewers regain the lead.  New York continues to threaten against McDonald, but the Brewers aren’t wild about their bullpen options and with the prospects of some frightening starters in future rounds, decide to stick with McDonald, who rewards their confidence and closes out the 3-2 win to send the Brewers to the semis.

The 1948 Dodgers went 84-70 to finish 3rd in the NL, and were tweeners after winning in ‘47 and before winning in ‘49.  It was Jackie Robinson’s sophomore year and not a moment too soon, as he was pretty much the main weapon on the Brooklyn offense and they hoped that he and Preacher Roe (12-8, 2.63) would be able to handle the 1993 Twins.  Those Twins lost 91 games and although they might have had a little more offense than the Dodgers, their defense and starting pitching were rough, with Jim Deshaies (11-13, 4.41) looking like the best of some unattractive options.  However, the Twins strike big in the 2nd when LF Pedro Munoz crushes a 3-run homer, and then light-hitting SS Pat Meares goes back-to-back and Minnesota jumps to a four run lead.  Not to be outdone, the Dodgers go on a tear in the top of the 4th, racking up six hits against Deshaies and RBI by familiar names like Campanella, Furillo, Cox and Hodges serve to tie the game.  Undaunted, Munoz leads off the bottom of the inning by depositing Roe’s first pitch over the baggie covering the Metrodome outfield wall, and the Twins regain the lead.  In the 6th, Hodges misses a HR 1-13 split and gets stranded at second, and the Dodgers are having trouble getting anything going against Deshaies.  Nonetheless, the Twins are nervous about Deshaies’ gopher ball tendencies and eye their bullpen, but don’t like their options so they stick with their starter.   And Deshaies does his job–until there are two out in the 9th inning, and one pitch away from the win when Pee Wee Reese rolls the 6-9 that is a solid homer on Deshaies and the game is tied.  The Twins belatedly summon Larry Casian from the pen, and he gets Robinson for the third out, but Roe finds his second wind and blows through the Twins and we head to extra innings.  Casian sets down the Dodgers in the 10th, with Brooklyn DH Bruce Edwards injured on the last out of the inning.  In the bottom of the frame, Roe, in his last inning of eligibility, records two quick outs but then Dave Winfield singles to put the winning run on base with Brian Harper at the plate.   Roe delivers, Harper swings, and it’s gone–a 2-run walkoff homer and the Twins record a hard fought upset with the 7-5 victory.

The 1974 Dodgers won 102 games and the NL, and were an all-around pretty good team–hitting, pitching, and fielding.   Along with NL MVP Steve Garvey, they had an embarrassment of riches in the starting rotation, selecting Andy Messersmith (20-6, 2.59) for the start but with Tommy John and Don Sutton waiting in the wings, who were pretty much just as good.  They faced a punchless 74-72 1947 A’s team, and Connie Mack deserved the HOF just for getting these guys above .500; somehow Phil Marchildon (19-9, 3.22) won 19 games with a team that batted .252 with a collective 61 homers.  The Dodgers load the bases in the top of the 1st but Marchildon gets out of the jam with no damage; they then load the bases again in the top of the 2nd but this time Davey Lopes rolls a HR 1-12, misses the grand slam with a 13 roll, but clears the bases with the resulting double and the sparse Shibe Park crowd gets even quieter.  The Dodgers load the bases yet again in the 4th with two out, and then A’s SS-2 Eddie Joost allows an infield single to Willie Crawford to score one run, and then promptly commits a two-base error on a Joe Ferguson grounder to allow two more.  In the 5th, once again the Dodgers load the bases, and after Marchildon walks in a run, he throws a strike to Jimmy Wynn and the Toy Cannon launches a shot that bounces off the Ballantine Beer scoreboard in RF for a grand slam.  In the 6th, Marchildon is gone, Bob Savage is in, and the Dodgers begin wholesale substitutions to ward off unnecessary injury chances, but it doesn’t matter–LA loads the bases again, sub Tom Paciorek hits a bases clearing triple, and by the time Savage gets the 3rd out, it’s 16-0.  Messersmith is cruising until he loses his composure in the bottom of the 9th, allowing back to back doubles from Hank Majeski and Barney McCoskey, and then a 2-run homer to Sam Chapman off the pitcher’s card, but the Dodgers see no point in wasting a relief pitcher and Messersmith finishes it up with a 16-3 blowout win in which LA raps 16 hits and benefits from six errors by the A’s.

The survivors

The 1996 Brewers and the 1990 Astros were both upset winners in the first round, and although the Brewers were slight ELO favorites any such advantage was erased by going deeper in the rotation, as Houston’s Danny Darwin (11-4, 2.21) was miles better than Milwaukee’s Scott Karl (13-9, 4.86).  Craig Biggio gets it going in the top of the 1st with a leadoff single, steals second, and races home on a Casey Candaele single; the sequence repeats in the 3rd when Biggio walks, steals, and again scores on a Candaele single, except this time Candaele scores on a Glenn Davis double and it’s 3-0 Astros.  The Brewers strike back in the bottom of the 4th with a 2-run triple from Dave Nilsson, but in the top of the 5th an error by Brewer 3B-2 Jeff Cirillo sets up a 2-run Franklin Stubbs homer and Houston pads their advantage.  A leadoff single by Caminiti in the 6th and Karl is pulled in favor of Brewers closer Mike Fetters, but he only gets out of the inning untarnished because Caminiti is nailed trying to score on a Biggio single.  Meanwhile, Darwin cruises until the bottom of the 9th, when he allows two hits and a walk to load the bases with nobody out, and Dave Smith is summoned from the pen with the winning run at the plate in the form of injury replacement Matt Mieske.  Smith delivers, 1-6 roll on Mieske’s card, HR 1-17 and it’s gone–a walk-off grand slam that gives the Brewers the amazing come from behind 6-5 win and the Astros can only look on in disbelief.

As the only favorite that wasn’t upset in round one, the 1974 Dodgers were feeling pretty good about their chances for the regional, particularly with Tommy John (13-3, 2.59) matched against Kevin Tapani (12-15, 4.43) and the 91-loss 1993 Twins.  And most of the Dodger Stadium crowd hadn’t gotten to the park in time to see Jimmy Wynn and Willie Crawford both hit 2-run homers in the bottom of the 3rd to give LA a substantial lead.  The Twins had come from behind in the first round to beat a different Dodger squad, and Dave Winfield leads off the top of the 5th with a homer to serve notice that they don’t plan to go down quietly.  In the 8th, Wynn muffs a flyball from Twins PH Bernardo Brito and the run scores on an RBI single from Chip Hale, but the Dodgers more than get it back when 3B-4 Hale allows a 2-out double and then Kirby Puckett adds a two-base error and the Dodgers lead by four heading into the 9th.  John then sets the Twins down in order to complete the 5-hitter and the Dodgers march to the finals with the 6-2 win. 

The regional final matched the #1 seed 1974 Dodgers against #5 seeded 1996 Brewers, and the pitching matchup between Don Sutton (19-9, 3.23) and Milwaukee’s Angel Miranda (7-6, 4.94) was even more lopsided.  The Dodgers had outscored opponents 26-5 in getting this far, while the Brewers had survived two one-run games, getting outhit in both.  And the Dodgers start off the way they’d been playing all bracket, loading the bases with a two-out rally in the bottom of the first and having them cleared by a Joe Ferguson double, Bill Buckner adds another double, and it’s 4-0 LA after one.  Miranda walks the bases loaded in the 3rd but escapes with just one run scoring on a Steve Yeager fielder’s choice, although a Lopes leadoff homer in the 4th makes it 6-0 and the Brewers have few alternatives after burning their closer in round two.  Even so, a leadoff walk in the 6th is Miranda’s 8th of the game and the Brewers have seen enough, moving to Doug Jones, but Steve Garvey greets Jones with a double and the Dodgers get additional insurance on a Cey sac fly.  Sutton cruises and is ready to roll for the top of the 9th, but the Dodgers need to refresh themselves on the Brewers’ late inning heroics in this tournament.  Greg Vaughn leads off the inning with a homer, Jaha and Nilsson follow with hits, and then Jeff Cirillo brings them all in with a 3-run homer and suddenly it’s a three-run game and there is still nobody out.  The Dodgers finally have to admit that Sutton has nothing left and move to iron horse Mike Marshall out of the pen, and he does the job, wrapping up the 7-4 win and the regional title for the Dodgers.   ELO ranked among the top 100 of all time, the Dodgers were a well-balanced team, and cruised through this regional without much of a contribution from NL MVP Garvey, with guys like Wynn, Lopes, and Joe Ferguson leading the charge.

Interesting card of Regional #144:  In the 2021 season, Zack Wheeler of the Phillies led MLB with 213 innings pitched, assembled in 32 starts.  He was the only pitcher last season who had more innings than this RELIEF pitcher, the one-man bullpen for the regional winning 1974 Dodgers, Mike Marshall.   Marshall won the Cy Young Award as a reliever, appearing in 106 games, leading the NL in saves while also recording 15 wins.  No pitcher has come close to appearing in 106 games, not even in the 19th century, when pitchers were just 50 feet from home plate and throwing underhand.  Marshall began the 1974 season by pitching on five straight days, and beginning in June he appeared in 13 consecutive games; during the season, he pitched on consecutive days 53 times, and once in both games of a doubleheader.   Marshall had a history of being cut or traded from teams because of his opinionated views, many of which were about what was best for his career:  he was drafted as a shortstop but teams resisted his efforts to shift to pitching because of back problems; he was ordered to stop throwing his trademark pitch, the screwball, by several coaches, ironically because it would be hard on his arm.   Perhaps because of his Ph.D. in kinesthesiology, he seemed to know what worked best for him, as he had a long career that saw him lead the AL in saves with 90 appearances with the Twins at the age of 36.