REGIONAL #151:  This was an interesting collection of teams, many of whom were a year or two from glory.  There were the Braves just after the last pennant of their 90s dynasty, the Giants a year before making a shot heard round the world, the Royals a couple of years after their Denkinger Series win, a Mets team a couple of years before a pennant, and two Angels teams, one of which I thought might have fallen just short in the AL and the other at the beginning of the Mike Trout era.   The Cubs would take a shot at a second straight regional win, but I didn’t think there would be much chance of that; instead, I guessed the Braves would take the ‘88 version of the Angels in the finals.  The ELO ranks agreed with me on the favorite, but they suggested that I missed my estimate of those competitive Angels by a few years, and had the 1950 Giants as the competition for the Braves in the finals.  

First round action

Two seasons after their Series win, the 1987 Royals were still a decent 83-79 team with weapons like Brett, Bo Jackson, and Danny Tartabull in the lineup and a capable rotation fronted by Bret Saberhagen (18-10, 3.36).  By the ELO ranks their opponents, the 2013 Angels were pretty much equally decent despite a somewhat worse 78-84 record, with 21-year old Mike Trout finishing second in the MVP voting and CJ Wilson (17-7, 3.39) at the top of the rotation.   The Royals take the lead in the bottom of the 2nd when Bye-Bye Balboni nails a solo shot off one of his oddball HR numbers, but they miss an opportunity for a second run later when Jamie Quirk is cut down at the plate trying to take an extra base on an Angel Salazar single.  In the 4th, they are dealt another blow when Bo Jackson gets hurt and is out for the rest of the regional, but that seems to galvanize the Royals as Kevin Seitzer nails a 2-run triple in the 5th, Danny Tartabull drives in Seitzer with a single, and Bo’s replacement Gary Thurman knocks in Tartabull to chase Wilson for Scott Downs.  Downs finally ends the inning, but not before a Balboni sac fly makes it 6-0 Royals.  The Angels respond in the 6th when Kole Calhoun smacks a 2-run homer off Saberhagen’s card, but Willie Wilson leads off the bottom of the inning with a triple and Seitzer’s sac fly adds more padding to the KC lead.  In the 9th, the Angels try to make some noise when Josh Hamilton drives in Trout with a 2-out single, but Saberhagen closes it out for the 7-3 complete game win.

The 2000 Braves deserved their status as regional favorites, winning 95 games and the NL East but falling short in the NLDS; other teams would have to keep up with the Jones, namely Andruw and Chipper, and the top of the rotation was formidable, led by Greg Maddux (19-9, 3.00), but the bottom end got worse quickly as John Smoltz was lost to injury for the entire 2000 season.  They faced the 1962 Phillies, who went 81-80 with a decent lineup fronted by guys like Tony Gonzalez, Don Demeter, Johnny Callison, and Roy Sievers, with Art Mahaffey (19-14, 3.94) heading up a mediocre starting rotation.  In the bottom of the 1st Mahaffey gets Jonesed with back to back doubles from Chipper and Andruw, both off Mahaffey’s card, but the rally gets cut short when Andruw (1-18) is nailed going home on a 2-out single by Andres Galarraga, but the Braves still lead 1-0.   They add three more in the 2nd when an error by Phils 1B-3 Frank Torre opens the door for a 2-out rally, and four straight Atlanta hits to start the 3rd and Mahaffey is gone, but the Braves lead extends to 9-0 before Jack Baldschun can end the inning.  There’s a 2-run single from Chipper in the 5th and Maddux is cruising, so the Braves make wholesale replacements in the lineup for the 6th to avoid injury risk, meaning that Bobby Bonilla gets to come in and earn some of the salary the Mets are still paying him.  The Phils sense their chance, so in the 6th Tony Gonzalez hits a solo shot and Callison adds an RBI single, but in the 8th the Phils’ 4th error of the game sets up a sac fly by Andruw Jones and Maddux finishes things out as the Braves romp to a 12-2 win.

The 2013 Mets went 74-88 and the lineup for the team was probably even worse than that as the team had traded away some key regulars during the season; their saving grace was that a very good Matt Harvey (9-5, 2.27) was still available to pitch in the first round.  He would face the 1988 Angels, who had a similarly unimpressive 75-87 record and were not at all the team I remembered (I looked it up and it was the ‘86 squad of Dave Henderson fame that I was thinking about).  The Angels had a rather pedestrian lineup and Mike Witt (13-16, 4.15) didn’t have nearly the card that Harvey possessed.  That being said, the Angels put together a 3-run inning in the 2nd, catalyzed by a Devon White double, and although Harvey settles down, the Mets are struggling against Witt.  Finally, in the bottom of the 7th a walk and only the second hit of the game against Witt and the Angels take no chances, summoning closer Bryan Harvey (no relation to the Mets starter, apparently) to quell the threat, and he does so by whiffing Juan Lagares for the third out.  In the top of the 8th, Mets C-3 Anthony Recker further wrecks the Mets chances by committing his second error of the game that allows Wally Joyner to score, and with the padding the Angels opt to preserve Harvey and bring Greg Minton in to close things out.  Minton makes things interesting in the bottom of the 9th by walking the first two Mets, but then retires three straight, fanning Recker to end the game and send the Angels on with a 4-0 shutout.  The Mets rack up more errors (3) than they do hits (2) and slip quietly back into storage.   

Although the ‘47 version had unexpectedly won the previous regional, the 1954 Cubs were even greater longshots here, losing 90 games and aside from Hank Bauer, a too old Ralph Kiner, and a too young Ernie Banks, there was much to see here.  They faced a near-contemporary 86-68 1950 Giants team that was one year away from a famous playoff win, with Sal Maglie (18-4, 2.71) manning the barber shop against the Cubs’ Paul Minner (11-11, 3.96).  The Giants load the bases with nobody out in the 2nd, but can only convert on a Don Mueller sac fly, although they scrape out another run in the 3rd on a Monte Irvin fielders’ choice.  The Cubs get a run back in the 5th courtesy of an error by Giants 3B-3 Hank Thompson and a two-out gbA++ with a held runner, and when they threaten with a walk and a single in the 8th to put runners on 1st and 3rd the Giants eye their bullpen, but unfortunately Maglie is also their best reliever, so they leave him in and he puts Kiner and Banks down with no damage.  Maglie thus enters the 9th with the Giants clinging to the one-run lead, and Maglie sits the bottom of the Cubs order down 1-2-3 to preserve the 2-1 win and send the Giants on to the semifinals, meaning that for a change every first round game was won by the ELO favorites.

The survivors

The first semifinal featured the #1 seed 2000 Braves and Cy Young runner-up Tom Glavine (21-9, 3.40) against the #3 seeded 1987 Royals and Charlie Leibrandt (16-11, 3.41) in what promised to be a good matchup, although the Royals were still without Bo Jackson.  The Royals nonetheless erupt in the top of the 1st, with a Danny Tartabull RBI double and a 2-run single by George Brett, but the inning ends with Frank White getting knocked out of the game with an injury and now the sorely depleted Royals try to hang on.  They add two more runs in the 4th with a 2-out RBI single from Jackson’s replacement Gary Thurman and two Braves errors, the second by SS-3 Furcal that makes the score 5-0 Royals.  When the Royals start up another 2-out rally in the 8th, the Braves finally give up on Glavine and summon Mike Remlinger from the pen, who quells the rally, and the Braves finally get to Leibrandt in the bottom of the inning with a 2-run shot from Chipper Jones that is then back-to-backed with a blast from Andruw Jones, and at that point the Royals have seen enough Jones and bring in John Davis in relief, but he suffers from some shoddy KC fielding and the Braves get another run on a Brian Jordan sac fly.  The game thus enters the 9th with the Royals clinging to a one-run lead; Brett immediately changes that situation, leading off the top of the 9th with a homer and it’s then up to Davis to try to close things out in the bottom of the 9th against the top of the Braves order.  With one out, Rafael Furcal singles and steals his second base of the game, putting the tying run at the plate with the two Jones due to bat.  Chipper flies out, but Andruw draws a walk; Andres Galarraga then pops out with the winning run at bat and the Royals upset the regional favorite 6-4, and earn a berth in the finals.      

The 1950 Giants now find themselves to be the surviving favorite in the bracket, with Larry Jansen (19-13, 3.01) getting the start, but their lack of offense in the first round was worrisome.  They faced the 1988 Angels and Chuck Finley (9-15, 4.17), a guy with numerous previous hard-luck appearances in this tournament although his most recent appearance in Regional #148 as his 1993 self resulted in a 4-hit shutout.   The Giant start with a bang when Eddie “the Brat” Stanky leads off the bottom of the 1st with a triple, but he’s cut down at the plate trying to score on an Alvin Dark grounder; Dark eventually does score on a Monte Irvin fielder’s choice and it’s 1-0 New York.  In the 4th, the Giants load the bases with nobody out but Finley bears down and gets out of the jam with no damage, assisted by an outstanding catch from CF-1 Devon White.  The Angels take heart from that performance, and load the bases up in the top of the 5th for Chili Davis, who finds Jansen’s 4-10 solid HR for a grand slam that abruptly quiets the Polo Grounds.   A 2-out 2-run blast by Jack Howell in the top of the 7th chases Jansen for Jim Hearn, but he gets hit and the inning ends with a 7-1 lead for the Californians.  The Giants get one run back in the bottom of the inning courtesy of a Chili Davis error and a Stanky RBI single, and in the bottom of the 9th they make a stand.  Stanky hits another RBI single, Dark drives in a run on a fielder’s choice, and the Giants get runners on first and second with two out and Monte Irvin at the plate as the tying run.  The Angels have to admit that Finley is toast and bring in closer Bryan Harvey to try to get the final out.  Irvin lofts a deep fly ball to center but the Polo Grounds swallow it up as White hauls it in and the Angels head to the finals with the 7-4 victory.  

It’s the #3 seed 1987 Royals against a team from their own era, the #5 seeded 1988 Angels, for the regional title, with these squads having disposed of the two bracket favorites on their way to this matchup.  The Royals were happy to be getting Frank White back from injury but Bo Jackson was still out of the lineup, and both teams had relied upon bullpen innings to get through the first two rounds, so starters Mark Gubicza (13-18, 3.98) for the Royals and Kirk McCaskill (8-6, 4.31) were hoping to go deep in the game.  In the 2nd, the Royals load the bases with two out, and then three consecutive singles by Angel Salazar, Willie Wilson, and Gary Thurman provide KC with a 4-0 lead.  The Angels get a run back in the bottom of the 3rd on a Johnny Ray RBI double, but in the 5th a Danny Tartabull RBI single and a George Brett fielder’s choice makes it 6-1 and McCaskill is gone for Greg Minton.  However, things go south for Minton in the 6th when Angels 3B-3 Jack Howell makes his second error of the game with two out to load the bases, which is followed by hits from Kevin Seitzer and Tartabull that push the lead to 9-1.   In the 8th Howell lets two singles go by him, one a run-scorer by Steve Balboni, although the Angels get that one back in the bottom of the inning when RF-4 Tartabull can’t get to a Tony Armas RBI single.  Gubicza then closes out the Angels in the 9th and the Royals take the regional crown with the 10-2 win, with Gubicza scattering 10 hits in the victory but exhibiting better control than expected, walking only one.  This is the 5th regional win for the Royals, and the 3rd from the 80s, as this ‘87 squad joins ‘81 and ‘84 in the winner’s circle.  This version did it with timely hitting, a deep if unspectacular starting rotation, and up the middle defense with Salazar and White as an all-”2” DP combo and CF-1 Willie Wilson getting to everything hit his way.   Also worthy of mention were the important contributions of Gary Thurman with both bat and glove in replacing injured Bo Jackson for virtually the entire regional.

Interesting card of Regional #151:  Well, the 1987 Royals won the regional, and that season lives in Strat infamy as the beginning of the perforated cards as well as the one-year span of the least readable cards ever produced by the game company.  This one features Danny Tartabull, who batted cleanup for the victors and drove in at least one run in all three games of the regional.  As cards go, it’s a classic 2-column pattern made famous by Babe Ruth in the Old-Timers set, although Tartabull’s version leaves a hole at that 2-8 split that showed up at least once during this bracket.  It’s also fitting to remember Danny as he was part of a father/son duo (with dad Jose), and it seems to me that there’s been a rash of such sons currently playing in the big leagues.  In this particular duo, Danny was clearly a better hitter than his dad, with a career .864 OPS to Jose’s .622.  Unfortunately, in the realm of fatherhood, Danny didn’t fare as well; once his career ended, he made the news having been named the top deadbeat dad in Los Angeles after allegedly failing to pay more than $275,000 in child support for his two sons.