REGIONAL #159:   My team selector program went on a Royals binge for this bracket, inviting three different KC squads to participate including the 2014 pennant-winners.  There weren’t any other immediate contenders that jumped out; there was an A’s team in decline from the Bash Brothers days, and a Rangers team that was a few years away from a pennant-winner (one that by the way went down in the previous regional).   I thought the top half of the group looked stronger than the bottom half,and I ultimately went with the AL winning 2014 Royals over the Rockies of the past season to emerge from the finals.  The ELO ranks indicated that neither half of the bracket was very strong, and although the pennant winning Royals were the favorites, they were ranked as only the 6th best team of 2014.  Still, they were predicted to handle largely mediocre opposition, with the ELO picking an all-Royals final with the other two KC squads having rankings that were virtually tied with each other.  

First round action

The 2014 Royals won 89 games and captured the AL pennant from a wild card slot, but their ELO score was not very impressive, portraying them as the 6th best team in baseball and only the 4th best team in their league.  Their strengths were in strong defense (five “1”s in the lineup) and excellent relief pitching available to support swingman starter Danny Duffy (9-12, 2.53), although their offense was rather anemic and their rotation was pretty pedestrian for a pennant winner.  However, they were still prohibitive favorites against the 94-loss 1993 A’s, who didn’t do much bashing with Canseco gone and McGwire relegated to part time duty with 84 ABs, and Bobby Witt (14-13, 4.21) at the top of the rotation.   The A’s do a little bashing in the 2nd when Ruben Sierra finds and converts Duffy’s HR split with two out for a solo shot, but 3B Craig Paquette promptly gets injured making the third out–which under tournament rules allows McGwire to get into the lineup.  In the 3rd, Duffy issues two walks and then Terry Steinbach takes him deep for a three run shot, putting the Royals in a sizable hole.  A Troy Neel sac fly makes it 5-0 Oakland in the top of the 5th, and when Mike Bordick leads off the 7th with a single, Duffy is pulled for Wade Davis and his 1.00 ERA, but with two out Steinback rolls a 5-2, which is the only hit on Davis’s card, and it happens to be a solid triple and the A’s extend their lead, while putting Steinbach just a double short of a cycle.  Meanwhile, Bobby Witt is throwing bullets and he finishes out a 3-hit shutout to send the regional favorites back into storage in the first round, as the A’s win 6-0 despite only recording five hits themselves.

The ELO ranks had this first round game as a matchup of two middling squads.  The 75-87 2007 Rangers would in a few years become the pennant winner that didn’t survive the previous regional; although the team had some offensive weapons there were a number of instances where the backup was better than the regular, and the rotation was pretty dreadful with Brandon McCarthy (8-10, 4.87) being the best it could offer.  They faced the 1995 Mets, who went 69-75 in that strike-shortened season and were still hoping to get their money’s worth out of Bobby Bonilla, as well as hoping for a decent outing from spot starter Bill Pulsipher (5-7, 3.98).  In the bottom of the third, both Jose Vizcaino and Rico Brogna find and convert McCarthy’s HR 1-8 split, and the Mets jump to a 3-0 lead, which Brogna extends with an RBI single in the 4th.  When Carl Everett leads off the 5th with a towering blast to make it 5-0, McCarthy gets the hook and Joaquin Benoit is summoned in desperation.  The Rangers also bring in numerous backups in the 6th, and one of them, Mark Teixeira, gets them on the board with an RBI single and then they load up the bases with two out, so the Mets pull Pulsipher and have Doug Henry face Rangers PH Victor Diaz; Henry issues two straight walks before recording the third out and the Mets lead is suddenly cut to two.  The omens keep looking bad for the Mets when C Todd Hundley is knocked out of the game with an injury in the bottom of the inning, and then David Murphy raps a solo shot off Henry’s card in the top of the 7th, although Jeff Kent answers with one of his own in the bottom of the inning and the Queens faithful breathe a little easier.  Not taking any chances, the Mets summon closer John Franco to begin the 8th, but a 2-base error by SS-3 Vizcaino followed by a Diaz double off Franco’s card and it’s a one-run game.  However, in the bottom of the 8th the Mets pound Benoit in his final inning of eligibility, and a Bonilla double, a Brogna RBI single and a sac fly from injury replacement Kelly Stinnett and it’s a big pad for Franco entering the 9th.  But the Rangers aren’t going down easy, and Michael Young converts Franco’s HR HR 1-7 split for a 2-run blast, and then Teixeira and Sammy Sosa get singles off bad OF fielding by the Mets and the go-ahead run is at the plate for the Rangers.   But Franco bears down and whiffs Marlon Byrd and Diaz and the Mets hang on for the 9-7 win, moving on but with a taxed bullpen and without Hundley until the regional final.  

In a meeting of mediocrities,the 70-74 1995 Royals faced off against the 74-87 2021 Rockies.  The second Royals effort in this regional featured a lineup that was pretty good at getting on base with Gary Gaetti providing most of the power, as well as a decent pitching staff headed by Kevin Appier (15-10, 3.89) that had only three starters over 100 IP due to the strike-shortened season.  The Rockies from this past season had some Coors-fueled power up and down the lineup but as has been typical for that franchise, the pitching left something to be desired with German Marquez (12-11, 4.40) seeming to be their best option.  However, it’s Appier who starts out rough, issuing two straight 2-out walks in the bottom of the 1st and then Rockies DH Connor Joe launches one into the thin Colorado air for a 3-run blast.  A two-out Ryan McMahon RBI single makes it 4-0 in the 4th, and in the 6th a 2-out Garrett Hampson single scores another and Appier is done, with closer Jeff Montgomery able to get the last out. However, in the 8th the Rockies rock Montgomery for four hits and two runs courtesy of a Hampson triple, and Marquez finishes out a 5-hit shutout as the Rockies cruise to the 7-0 win and the second Royals team of the regional makes a rapid exit.

The third Kansas City squad of this regional, the 1971 Royals managed to go 85-76 with a largely punchless lineup (Amos Otis and his 15 HR led the team) on the basis of a solid pitching staff and noteworthy team speed.  With young Paul Splittorf (8-9, 2.69) on the mound, they were sizeable ELO favorites over the 96-loss 2012 Twins, who had four guys with more homers than Otis in the lineup but only two starting pitchers with more than 100 innings, Scott Diamond (12-9, 3.54) being the best of those.  Diamond gets in the rough for three hits in the bottom of the 2nd, with the last one being a 2-run single by Bob Oliver, and the Royals take the early lead.  They add another run in the 4th on double from Joe Keough and Ed Kirkpatrick, but their lead falls apart in the top of the 5th on RBI singles from Denard Span and Ben Revere, followed by costly errors from KC’s 2B-2 Cookie Rojas and 3B-2 Paul Schaal that both score runs, and the Twins take a 4-3 lead.  Joe Mauer adds some insurance in the top of the 8th with a leadoff homer, and the Twins bring in the defensive replacements.  Revere then leads off the 9th with a single, steals second, and scores on a Jamey Carroll base hit and Splittorf is finally pulled for Tom Burgmeier, but the Royals have nothing against Diamond and the Twin roll to the 6-3 victory, and all three Royals teams in the regional go down in the first-round without much of a fight.

The survivors

Although they finished under .500, the 1995 Mets were the highest seed remaining in the regional after round one, but they had no decent replacement for injured C Todd Hundley and their bullpen was taxed and could use a complete game from Pete Harnisch (2-8, 3.68).  Meanwhile, their opponent, the 1993 A’s, benefited from an injury that allows Mark McGwire to start the game, and they had a fully rested pen which was good because Ron Darling (5-9, 5.16) was the best of their terrible remaining starting options.  In the 3rd, Harnisch issues two walks and then grooves one to McGwire, who bounces it off the big apple in the Shea outfield for a 3-run lead.  It doesn’t last long, as Darling disintegrates in the bottom of the 4th after Oakland C Terry Steinbach drops a popup which is followed by a Jeff Kent HR off Darling’s split; from there it just gets worse as RBI doubles from injury replacement Kelly Stinnett and Bobby Bonilla and and RBI single from Jose Vizcaino and Darling is gone, replaced by Rick Honeycutt who finally gets the third out but it’s 6-3 Mets after four. The injury bug hits the Mets again in the 5th as Kent goes down for 8 games, and the carnage continues with A’s SS Mike Bordick getting a 7-game injury in the 7th.  The Mets add another run in the bottom of the 7th when Bobby Bonilla doubles and eventually scores on a sac fly from injury replacement Tim Bogar, and Harnisch gives the Mets the sorely needed complete game as they head to the finals with the 7-3 win, without Kent but with Hundley coming back.

The second semifinal matched two victors of first round upsets, the #6 seed 2021 Rockies and Austin Gomber (9-9, 4.53) against the #8 seeded 2012 Twins and their only starting option, Brian Duensing (4-12, 5.12), with both teams having fully rested pens to try to help out two fairly terrible starters.  Pitching in Coors, Gomber had some issues with the longball and Ben Revere demonstrates that by leading off the bottom of the 1st with a roll of Gomber’s 5-9 solid HR to give the Twins the quick advantage.  However, in the top of the 2nd the Rockies load the bases and then #9 hitter Raimel Tapia clears them with a double off Duensing’s card; Trevor Story follows that up with a long home run and the Rockies blow past the Twins to a 5-1 lead.  The Twins begin to claw back in the 3rd with an RBI double from Denard Span, who scores on a Ryan Doumit single and the lead is cut to 5-3, and it’s looking like this game could be a long one.  A two-out double in the 4th by Revere scores one, and then Span singles home Revere and the game is tied and Gomber is a goner with Jordan Sheffield brought in only to issue a walk and an RBI single to Doumit before getting the third out, and the Twins now lead 6-5.  That evaporates immediately as CJ Cron leads off the 5th by converting Duensing’s HR split, and it’s the Twins turn to go to the pen, with Casey Fien retiring the side to keep the game tied.  Cron leads off the 7th with his second leadoff HR of the game and the Rockies regain the lead, and in the 8th they add to it with a 2-out 2-run double from Story.  The Rockies have to go to the pen in the bottom of the 8th and they bring in Robert Stephenson, who was featured in Regional #157 as having the worst pitcher’s card I had ever seen.  Although his 2021 card was much better, the bad karma persisted as the Twins rake Stephenson, with an RBI single from Span followed by a 3-run homer by Josh Willingham and Stephenson leaves after a third of an inning with four runs allowed.  Lucas Gilbreath comes in to get the last two outs but the Twins now take a one-run lead into the 9th.  Fien is now cashed out for the regional and Jared Burton is handed the save opportunity, and he dispatches the Rockies in order to earn the save in the 10-9 see-saw victory that propels the bottom-seeded Twins into the finals. 

The regional final matchup between the #2 seeded 1995 Mets and the #8 seed 2012 Twins sounded more lopsided than it was, as the Mets were an under .500 team who would be without all star 2B Jeff Kent for the foreseeable future.  The main advantage for the Mets was that, although they were a strike year team, they still had more starting pitching with 100 innings than did the Twins, and so the Mets could opt for the mediocre Bobby Jones (10-10, 4.19) while the Twins had no choice but to start the terrible Nick Blackburn (4-9, 7.39), almost certainly the worst pitcher ever to start a regional final.  The game begins a bit problematically for the Twins, as although Blackburn manages to throw a perfect inning in the top of the 1st, Ben Revere leads off the bottom of the 1st by getting thrown out at second trying to steal on Todd Hundley; Josh Willingham then misses a HR split that almost certainly would have scored Revere, and DH Ryan Doumit makes the third out of a scoreless inning by getting injured for 8 games.  Hundley then finds one of Blackburn’s HR results to give the Mets the lead in the 2nd, and injury replacement Tim Bogar rolls the same Blackburn result to lead off the 3rd while later in the inning Rico Brogna nails a 2-run HR off his own card and the Mets lead 4-0.  The Twins get on the board in the bottom of the 3rd courtesy of a Willingham RBI single, but in the 5th the Mets get it back when Brogna misses a HR 1-16/DO split but still drives in a run and drives Blackburn out of the game, having reached his runs allowed minimum to pull.  Closer Glen Perkins comes in to get the third out, but in the 7th Twins 3B-4 Trevor Plouffe plouffes a grounder that sets up a three run homer by Hundley, his second blast of the game, and the Mets lead extends to 8-1.  A two-run homer by Brogna in the 9th gives him a 2-HR game, while Jones waltzes to the complete game 10-1 victory as the Mets take the regional with a blowout.  The Mets honor Brogna with regional MVP honors based upon his three homers and nine RBI in the three games, and notch their 6th regional win, as the 1995 team joins the 1993 and 1996 Mets in forming an unlikely mini-dynasty of bracket winners, as none of those three teams finished over .500 in real life. 

Interesting card of Regional #159:  From the hitting school of “keep swinging hard and something good is eventually bound to happen”, we have one Clete Thomas.  Clete did not make an appearance in the Twins’ three regional games, but their bench was so shallow I admit that I did contemplate using him a few times.  I mean, he doesn’t hit into double plays, and his card is quite easy to read, with none of those splits or multi-line results to clutter it up.  My first Strat set was the 1967 AL, and Dave Duncan’s card with the A’s in that old original set has stuck with me over all these years as the prototype of the bad hitters card, but I think Thomas’s card is even more striking with that “one of these results is not like the others” look.  Apparently he was named after Clete Boyer, his father’s favorite ballplayer, and although Thomas’s career was much shorter than Boyer's, they actually ended up with nearly identical career OPS numbers.  One other relevant factoid about Thomas was that his first career homer came off Nick Blackburn of the Twins–the losing pitching of the regional final, who was similarly creamed by the Mets.