REGIONAL #154:  No pennant winners in this group, but there were a variety of pairs:  two Orioles teams, two 1990 teams, and the last two squads from 1962 to take their shot in this tournament.  My first glance at this collection suggested that many of them might be decent but that none would be great; I knew that the Cardinals would take the NL a few years after this ‘62 squad so I picked them to win; from memory I had no rational basis for selecting any of the teams from the top half of the bracket who would face them, but I figured the most recent team, the 2018 Orioles, would do so simply because of the typical power and depth advantages of modern squads.   The ELO ranks did think that my selected Cards team was the second best in the group, but they would face the top ranked team in round one in the ‘95 Orioles–with my prediction of the 2018 Orioles in the finals as comical being by far the worst rated team in the bracket.  So, in the final those ranks forecast the elder Orioles over a Padres team seeking to become the second straight San Diego regional winner.  

First round action

Little did I know when I blindly picked the 2018 Orioles to reach the finals that they had 115 losses and their season-ending ELO rating placed them among the 50 worst teams of all time, nicely symbolized by Chris Davis and his .168 average with 192 strikeouts.  Picking a starting pitcher presented no decent options, with swingman David Hess (3-10, 4.88) getting the nod mainly because he had the fewest innings pitched in which to be terrible.  They faced the 74-88 1990 Brewers, who had some remnants from the Harvey’s Wallbangers era as well as an aged Dave Parker, but it was a team with too many DH’s and not enough fielding in support of Ted Higuera (11-10, 3.76) and the rest of the staff.  In the bottom of the 1st a 39-year old Parker shows that he’s still dangerous, crushing one into the far reaches of County Stadium for a solo shot, and Greg Vaughn adds a 2-run blast in the 2nd to make it 3-0 Brewers.  However, in the 4th a 2-out rally by the Orioles, featuring RBI singles from Trey Mancini and Tim Beckham, makes it a one-run game, and Adam Jones then doubles in Jonathan Villar in the 5th to tie the game.  When Parker doubles to lead off the 6th, followed by a squib single by Gary Sheffied, the Orioles figure that they aren’t going to get many shots at a win so they bring in Mychael Givens to relieve Hess; unfortunately, Givens isn’t much of a fielder as a P-4 and he turns a Rob Deer grounder into a 2-base error to relinquish the lead.  That is followed by a Paul Molitor RBI single and then a Greg Vaughn DP scores Deer, so it’s 6-3 Brewers heading into the 7th.  The Orioles try a rally in the 9th as Danny Valencia leads off with a HR on Higuera’s card; Caleb Joseph adds a double but gets no further as Higuera strikes out Davis and Villar to close out the 6-4 win.

The 1962 Indians went 80-82, with eight guys in the starting lineup in double digit homers and 20-game winner Dick Donovan (20-10, 3.59) a nice option on the mound.  They faced a 75-87 1990 Padres team with two Hall of Famers in Tony Gwynn and Roberto Alomar whose Pythagorean record suggested that they should have been a .500 team, and they had a good staff ace in Ed Whitson (14-9, 2.60), so it looked to me like the two teams were pretty closely matched.   The Indians break the ice in the top of the 3rd when DH Gene Green singles in Ty Cline, but the Padres get three squib singles in the 4th to load the bases, although they only convert one run on a Benito Santiago fielder’s choice that ties the game.  When the Indians get runners on 1st and 3rd with one out in the 6th, the Padres opt to use their advantage in the pen and bring in Greg Harris, but he walks Willie Kirkland to load the bases and then Tito Francona raps a hard single that scores two and the Indians lead, 3-1.  SD gets one back in the bottom of the inning when Gwynn leads off with a triple and, after two failed efforts to get him home, Santiato singles to make it a one-run game.   Harris and then Craig Lefferts hold the fort, and then in the bottom of the 9th the Padres get singles from Santiago and Mike Pagliarulo and the tying run is 90 feet away with one out.   The Indians elect to stick with their ace Donovan and play for the DP from Garry Templeton, and he cooperates, hitting the game-ending gbA on his own card and sending the Indians to the semifinals winning the 3-2 nailbiter.

This first round game between the 1995 Orioles and the 1962 Cardinals matched the best two teams in the regional, according to the ELO ranks.   The Orioles were the top seed despite being an under .500 team, going 71-73 in that strike year but having some big bats in Palmiero, Baines and Ripken, and a couple of very good starting pitchers including Mike Mussina (19-9, 3.29), who led the AL in wins and was 5th in the Cy Young vote.  The Cards finished over .500 at 84-78, and were led by an elder Stan Musial, with a .924 OPS at age 41, and a young Bob Gibson (15-13, 2.85) who was already beginning to frighten the National League.  In the bottom of the 2nd, Charlie James finds and converts Mussina’s HR split for a 2-run shot, and in the 4th an error by 1B-2 Rafael Palmiero sets up a Julian Javier RBI double that makes it 3-0.  Gibson stymies the O’s until the 8th, when a 2-base error by defensive replacement SS-3 Dal Maxvill is followed by a Palmeiro flyball that LF-4 Musial turns into a 2-run triple, and so the tying run is on 3rd with one out.  Gibson lets one fly at batter Jeff Manto’s head, but he hangs in there and smacks a HR 1-7, and although he misses the split it’s a sac fly and the game is tied.  However, in the bottom of the inning Curt Flood and Bill White lead off with singles and the O’s call upon Jesse Orosco to try to get out of the jam, facing a Musial intent upon atoning for his fielding mishap.  Musial squibs a split single to bring in Flood, and then Ken Boyer converts another split single to load the bases, and there’s still nobody out.  A whiff and then a gbB that gets the runner at home and it’s looking like Orosco might get out of the inning, but then defensive rep Bobby Gene Smith pokes another split single and then Javier and Maxvill both draw bases loaded walks and the Cards enter the 9th with a four run lead.   Gibson shuts the Orioles down in the 9th, striking out two of three to complete his 5-hitter and the Cards take the battle of the top seeds by a 7-3 margin.  

I thought the 83-79 1989 Rangers looked pretty familiar, with Palmiero and Baines anchoring the lineup, and wondered if I had recently played a Rangers squad from that era, and no–they were both on the Orioles in the preceding game.   But unlike Baltimore, these Rangers had one Nolan Ryan (16-10, 3.20) on their side, which apparently helped make them slight ELO favorites over the 2012 Mariners, who had a pretty decent Felix Hernandez (13-9, 3.06) anchoring their staff but had almost nobody who could get on base, having traded Ichiro to the Yankees in midseason.  In the top of the 3rd, Baines does something he couldn’t do in the previous game, knocking a 3-run blast with two out to put the Rangers in front.  However, in the bottom of the 4th Casper Wells converts a strange 5-2 DO 1-18/flyB off Ryan’s card, and a flustered Ryan then allows a single to Jesus Montero that makes it 3-1.  The Rangers promptly get that run back in the 5th on a fielder’s choice by Ruben Sierra, and as the game progresses both squads suffer injuries, Rangers SS Fred Manrique for the regional, and Mariners C John Jaso for two games; more pile up in the 8th as Rangers C Geno Petralli is out for the tournament (15 games) and M’s CF Michael Saunders is knocked out for the remainder of the game.  But Ryan stays healthy, and cruises until there are two out in the bottom of the 9th, when Wells finds and converts Nolan’s HR split for a solo shot; that’s the last gasp for Seattle, however, and the battered Rangers limp on with a 4-2 win and Ryan wins the strikeout battle against Hernandez, 12 to 9.   

The survivors

In this semifinal, the 1962 Indians for the second game in a row find themselves to be a slight ELO underdog to a team with a worse record than they had, this time the 1990 Brewers, and Milwaukee’s Ron Robinson (12-5, 2.91) was better at keeping the ball in the park than the Indians’ Pedro Ramos (10-12, 3.72).  Ramos suffers from some shoddy Cleveland fielding in the top of the 2nd when SS-3 Woodie Held commits a 2-base error that sets up a Robin Yount flyball that CF-2 Ty Cline turns into a two-run double.  In the 3rd, Ramos has nobody to blame but himself as Paul Molitor hits Ramos’ solid 4-10 homer for another two runs, and in the 4th a double and two walks loads the bases full of Brewers for Gary Sheffield, who finds and converts Ramos’ 4-9 HR 1-8 for a grand slam that sends Ramos to the showers for Bill Dailey from the pen.  But the Brewers aren’t done, as Indians 3B-2 Bubba Phillips drops a grounder to set up a 2-run blast from Greg Vaughn, so by the time Dailey records the third out it’s Brewers 10, Indians 0.  In the 6th, the Brewers start bringing in the scrubs for safekeeping, and that doesn’t stop the bleeding as backup 1B Greg Brock leads off the inning with a homer.  The Indians finally try to make some noise in the 9th, getting runners on 1st and 3rd with nobody out, but the Brewers bring the infield in to try to preserve Robinson’s shutout, and it works like a charm; Robinson closes out the 6-hit gem and the Brewers move on to the finals with the 11-0 blowout, where they will attempt to be only the 3rd team in the franchise to take a regional.

Both the 1962 Cardinals and the 1989 Rangers reached the semifinals with the assistance of Hall of Fame starting pitchers, and their #2 starters weren’t bad but were nonetheless a bit of a dropoff, with the Rangers’ Kevin Brown (12-9, 3.35) going against the Cards’ Ernie Broglio (12-9, 3.00).   The Cards were the highest remaining seed in the bracket and the Rangers had the added disadvantage of having their starting catcher and shortstop both out for the regional.   However, it’s the Rangers who start off the scoring in the bottom of the 1st when Rafael Palmiero finds Broglio’s homer result for a solo shot and a one run lead.  That lead is short lived as Brown can’t seem to get anyone out in the 2nd, as the Cards rip off four straight singles and take a 3-1 lead.  The Rangers try to mount a threat in the 3rd but Cards C-3 Gene Oliver throws out A stealers Cecil Espy and Julio Franco to bail out Broglio, and they squander another opportunity in the 6th when Pete Incaviglia grounds out with the bases load–and gets injured in the process, adding to the Texas hospital bills.  Meanwhile, Brown has settled in, but so has Broglio, who suffers from a bit of wildness but only allows 3 hits until the 9th, when injury replacements Rick Lead and Jeff Kunkel both hit singles to put the winning run at the plate with two out.  But Broglio retires PH Jack Daugherty to cement the 3-1 win and propel the Cards into the finals.

The regional finals pit the #2 seed 1962 Cardinals, the team that I picked to win the group, against the #4 seeded 1990 Brewers, a franchise that had won only two such brackets in this tournament (as compared to 8 previous wins for the Cards).   Larry Jackson (16-11, 3.75) had been a workhorse for the Cards, while Chris Bosio (4-9, 4.00) had been more of a spot starter for Milwaukee but looked better than the alternatives.  Regardless, both start out the game in good form, and things remain scoreless until the bottom of the 4th, when Ken Boyer finds Bosio’s solid 4-10 HR result for a solo shot.  That one run holds up as Jackson is lights out until the top of the 9th, when Yount leads off the inning with only the 3rd hit of the game for the Brewers, and then the unbelievable occurs as CF-1 Curt Flood makes a two base error on a Dave Parker fly, and the tying and go-ahead runs are in scoring position with nobody out.  The infield comes in as does reliever Bobby Shantz, the first call to the bullpen the Cards have made in the regional.  Shantz delivers to Gary Sheffield, who pokes a grounder past defensive replacement SS-3 Dal Maxvill and the game is tied, with still nobody out.  The Cards keep the infield in, so Sheffield steals second, and then Paul Molitor hits a DO 1-5/flyB on Shantz’s card; he misses the split but it’s a sac fly and the Brewers lead for the first time in the game.  In come the defensive replacements for Milwaukee for the bottom of the 9th to try to support Bosio against the bottom of the Cards lineup.  Bosio gets two quick outs, but then PH Fred Whitfield hits Bosio’s 4-9 HR 1-4/DO result, misses the split, but puts the tying run in scoring position in the form of pinch runner Minnie Minoso, with Julian Javier at the plate.  The Brewers consider walking Javier to get to the even weaker-hitting Maxvill, but decide to pitch to him and he flies out harmlessly to give the Brewers the 2-1 come from behind win and the regional crown, only the third for their franchise–joining 1987 and 2003.

Interesting card of Regional #154:  His team got knocked out in the regional final, but a 26-year old Bob Gibson got them past the first round even though 1962 was certainly not his finest season (as anyone who owns the 1968 Cardinals can attest).   Still, it was a significant season for him, as he was named as an All-Star for the first time while beginning to master the control problems that he had early in his career.  It’s interesting to me that as his BB/9 rate started to decline, his HBP/BF rate began to increase–making me think that with his increasing control was an increasing willingness to use the chin music he was famous for, but which he probably hesitated to use when he wasn’t sure where the pitch would end up.  Now, for us Strat players, his 1962 season was significant because it was his FIRST Strat card, shown here along with the Advanced version that was released in the late 1980s (which was the version I used here in the tournament).  For trivia buffs, I believe the 1962 Advanced set was the first time that the game company issued a season that they had already printed, but with updated features, and of course in 2019 the company decided we needed yet another version with SADV features (instead of a new golden-era season that we haven’t seen before, for example).  Note that the original 1962 Gibson card is not only bigger, but it’s a little bit better; anyone who has the SADV version can compare to further see how the tinkering with the formulas has evolved, but I’m happy with my old-school versions.