REGIONAL #164:  This looked like the “horseshoes” bracket, as quite a few of these teams were oh-so-close to a pennant.  There were Twins, Rangers, and Royals teams who were all one year after winning the AL, and Reds and Giants teams that were both one year before winning the NL.  For good measure there was also a Cardinals team and a couple of Canadian squads that would likely be competitive, and overall this appeared to be a wide open regional filled with what I thought would be solid teams, any of which could win it all.  After somehow correctly picking the finalists in the last regional, I was stumped on this one, but I guessed that the Royals would take the Reds in the final.  The ELO ranks did agree that there were multiple strong teams in the bracket, but indicated that neither of my picks were among them; instead, those rankings predicted a very interesting final between an evenly matched 21st century Rangers team and a John McGraw-era Giants team from nearly 100 years earlier, with the Giants being slight favorites.

First round action

One season after winning the first pennant for the franchise in ages, the 1966 Twins won 89 games to finish second in the AL behind big years from Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva as well as a monster season from Jim Kaat (25-13, 2.75), who led AL pitchers in the MVP voting.  However, as was typical of that era, once you got past the heart of the lineup there was little punch available.  The Twins were nonetheless big favorites over a bad 1998 Expos team that lost 97 games, with their main weapons being Vlad Guerrero and a killer Ugueth Urbina in the bullpen, although Dustin Hermanson (14-11, 3.13) was not a bad starter at the top of the rotation. In the top of the 1st, Kaat strikes out the first two batters but then Vlad crushes one into the far reaches of Metropolitan Stadium, upon which Kaat loses his composure and allows three straight singles, with Shane Andrews racing home on the last one from Orlando Cabrera to make it 2-0.  In the 3rd, Oliva misses a HR 1-14 split but the resulting triple scores two and then Jimmie Hall singles home Oliva and the Twins move on top.  Hermanson settles down but when an error by Expos 1B-5 Brad Fullmer puts the leadoff runner on in the bottom of the 7th, they see no reason not to go to Urbina, and he gets out of the inning assisted by a caught stealing from Cesar Tovar.  Thus the Twins cling to the one run lead entering the top of the 9th, and they try to seal it by with a defensive replacement for Killebrew at 3rd and bringing in Al Worthington to close it out.  He does the job as the Expos go down in order and the Twins survive and advance with a 3-2 win in which they only could garner four hits.

I picked the 1986 Royals to win the regional, but their ELO rankings suggested that I overestimated them and after actually looking at the team and setting their lineup, I had to agree. They had gone from Series champs in ‘85 to a 76-86 team with little other than George Brett as an offensive threat, although Mark Gubicza (12-6, 3.64) was one of the few starters who hadn’t seriously regressed from the prior year.  In contrast, the 2012 Rangers had declined little from the team that had won the AL the prior year, winning 93 games to make the postseason as a wildcard, and boasting a lineup with 7 hitters bashing 15 or more homers with Adrian Beltre and Josh Hamilton coming in 3rd and 5th in the MVP voting and starter Matt Harrison (18-11, 3.29) 8th in the Cy Young ballots.  It doesn’t take long for the Rangers power to be on display, as in the bottom of the 1st Hamilton hits a towering 2-run homer, and then a two-out error by Royals C-2 Jim Sundberg opens the door for another tape measure shot, this one by Mitch Moreland, and it’s quickly 4-0.  KC responds with four hits in the top of the 2nd, getting one run on a single by DH Jorge Orta but being denied a second run when Angel Salazar (1-14) is nailed at the plate to end the inning.  The Rangers load the bases in both the 2nd and the 3rd but Gubicza pitches his way out of both jams with no damage, and he holds Texas in check until the 8th, when a 2-out David Murphy RBI single is followed by a 3-run blast from Hamilton and Gubicza, who led the league in fewest HR/9 allowed, is gone for Steve Farr who finally records the third out.  That padding proves to be more than enough for Harrison, who finishes out the 8-1 victory to move the Rangers to an interesting semifinal matchup against the Twins.  

The 1989 Reds won the Series the following season, but probably only because they fired Pete Rose as manager, as he led them to a 75-87 season with only Eric Davis and Barry Larkin having seasons of note, and the Nasty Boys bullpen was also ready to support a scary rotation topped by Tim Leary (8-14, 3.52).  Accordingly, they were ELO underdogs to the 2019 Cardinals, who won 91 games and the NL Central but were swept in the NLCS.  The Cards had by far their best starter going for them, Jack Flaherty (11-8, 2.75), who came in 4th in the Cy Young voting.  The Reds are horrified when Larkin comes up lame leading things off for them in the 1st, but the dice gods are kind and he’s able to remain in the game.  That seems to rile the Reds, and after they get a couple of baserunners Todd Benzinger rolls Flaherty’s HR 1-16 split, misses it, but drives in two on the resulting double.  Leary scatters hits by the Cards and keeps them off the scoreboard, but when Kolton Wong leads off the 6th with a single off Leary’s card the Reds decide it’s time to get nasty, and Norm Charlton comes in to keep the Cards scoreless.  Flaherty gets wild in the bottom of the inning and loads the bases up, but the Cards elect to let him pitch out of it, and he mostly does so but Jeff Reed hits a sac fly to make it 3-0 Cincy.  In the top of the 9th, the Cards finally start to chip away at new reliever John Franco, and when RF-3 Paul O’Neill can’t get to a two-out Yadier Molina single the Reds lead is cut to two and the tying run is at the plate in the form of DH injury replacement Matt Wieters.  The Reds have Dibble warming up in the pen but give Franco one more batter, and Wieters hits a grounder to 3B-3 Chris Sabo–who drops it, it’s a one run game, and Dibble comes in to face #9 hitter Harrison Bader and his .205 average, and because of the mid-game injury to PH Jose Martinez there is nobody better on the bench.  Dibble delivers, Bader grounds out, and the Reds breathe a huge sigh of relief and survive the 3-2 win.

The ELO ranks had this as the marquee matchup of round one between two strong teams.  The 1986 Blue Jays were from an era that had seen Toronto teams from 1985 and 1989 capture regionals, and this version was also a good one that went 86-76 with George Bell and Jess Barfield finishing 4th and 5th respectively in the MVP voting, although the starting pitchers weren’t having their best seasons with Jimmy Key (14-11, 3.57) getting the starting nod.   They faced the regional ELO favorite, the 86-68 1920 Giants, who finished 2nd in the NL before reeling off four straight pennants in the following seasons.  The Giants boasted four Hall of Famers and three 20-game winners, with Fred Toney (21-11, 2.65) selected for the round one start.  The game begins in the 1st on a foreboding note for the Giants when leadoff hitter Dave Bancroft misses Key’s 1-18 split, and although he scores on a Ross Youngs single, Damaso Garcia then turns a nifty DP to kill the NY rally.  The Jays then come fighting back in the top of the 2nd, when sloppy NY fielding provides an RBI single for Rance Mullineks and another 2-run single by Willie Upshaw and Toronto moves up by two.  Lloyd Moseby then breaks the game open in the 3rd with a 3-run homer, although in the bottom of the inning a couple of doubles from Youngs and Bennie Kauff leads to a Giants run, with Kauff making the third out getting nailed at the plate (1-16) trying to score on a George Kelly single.  In the 5th Jays DH Cliff Johnson drives in a run with a triple and then scores on a single by Garcia, and the Giants, sensing their time in this tournament is getting shorter, try a second 20-game winner, Jesse Barnes, in relief.  However, he’s victimized by more bad fielding from 2B-4 Larry Doyle which sets up a 2-out, 3-run homer by George Bell (off Barnes’ card on a 1-5 split, no less), and it’s now 12-2 and the Jays scrubs are coming into the game wholesale as insurance against injury.  The Jays scrubs get a run in the 7th when Rick Leach triples and scores on a sac fly from Garth Iorg, while Giants catcher Frank Snyder gets injured in the bottom of the inning, probably hoping to catch an early streetcar home.  In the meantime, Key doesn’t allow a hit after the 3rd inning and the Jays waltz to an easy 13-2 win over the bracket favorite to gain the semifinals.

The survivors

The #2 seed 2012 Rangers were now the bracket favorites after the first round, but the #4 seeded 1966 Twins had the next best ranking of the semi-finalists so it looked like this matchup of two former Senators franchises could determine the regional.  Both squads had solid starters available, with the Twins’ Jim Perry (11-7, 2.54) going against Texas’s Yu Darvish (16-9, 3.90).  However, Darvish displays his weakness quickly in the top of the 1st, walking four batters off his own card, but the Rangers are fortunate that Minnesota can only convert one run on a Tony Oliva sac fly.  However, their luck runs the other direction in the bottom of the inning as their LF David Murphy is knocked out of the game with an injury.  The Twins then rally in the 2nd, lining two singles past the glove of Twins 2B-3 Cesar Tovar, and then a double from Nelson Cruz, a two-run single by Michael Young, and an RBI grounder from Elvis Andrus and the Rangers move on top 4-1 after two.  That doesn’t last long, as in the top of the 3rd two Twins singles off Darvish’s card and a Darvish error load the bases for Zoilo Versalles, and the former MVP delivers a double that clears the bases and ties the game.  They then take the lead in the 4th when replacement Texas LF-2 Josh Hamilton drops a Don Mincher flyball for a two-base error–the fourth Ranger error in four innings.  The Twins lose C Earl Battey to injury in the 6th, and in the bottom of the 7th the Rangers get Ian Kinsler on courtesy of an error by SS-3 Versalles, but he’s eventually stranded on 3rd as my decision to PH for Young proves to be a costly mistake that would have been a double on Young.  A leadoff walk to Killebrew in the 8th, Darvish’s 8th free pass of the game, and the Rangers bring in Koji Uehara who retires the side without incident.  It comes down to the bottom of the 9th, and the Rangers get the leadoff runner on when injury replacement C Jerry Zimmerman muffs a popup, but Perry is unfazed and he personally turns a Mitch Moreland grounder into a DP and the Twins hang on for the 5-4 win and a trip to the finals.

This semifinal matched two teams that pulled upsets in round one, although both the 1986 Blue Jays and the 1989 Reds were decent squads with sufficient talent to win the bracket.  The Blue Jays were favored here, with Jim Clancy (14-14, 3.94) on the mound against the Reds and Jose Rijo (7-6, 2.84), whom the Reds were hoping could control his wildness long enough to rest a bullpen that had seen a lot of work in the first round.  Both pitchers start out strong, but in the top of the 5th the Reds begin to find the problems on Clancy’s card, with RBI singles from Barry Larkin and Paul O’Neill providing a lead that would have been larger had not Jays 1B-2 Willie Upshaw turned a crucial DP to end the inning.  Rijo’s wildness then comes into play in the bottom of the inning, as with two out he walks the bases full to face powerful George Bell–Rijo then bounces a pitch that gets by C-2 Jeff Reed and the Reds lead is cut to 2-1.  A one-out single by Larkin in the 7th and Clancy is pulled for relief ace Mark Eichhorn, but he walks Davis, O’Neill gets on with a force play sending Larkin to third, and then Todd Benzinger gets the gbA++ single with O’Neill held and the Reds extend their lead.  Again, the Jays respond in the bottom of the inning, with Damaso Garcia doubling and scoring on a Tony Fernandez single, and the Reds have the Nasty Boys up in the pen but allow Rijo to try to get the last out from Bell, which he does and it’s a one-run game heading into the 8th.  Eichhorn holds serve, so it comes down to Rijo and the bottom of the 9th with the bottom of the Jays order coming up.  Two quick outs and the Jays pinch hit Rich Leach for Garcia, and Leach comes through with a squib single and Manny Lee pinch runs as the tying run with Willie Upshaw as the top of the order at the plate.  The Reds opt to give Rijo one more batter before summoning Rob Dibble, and Upshaw responds by converting a triple split on his own card to tie the game and put the winning run on 3rd.  Rijo slams his glove to the ground as Dibble is summoned to face Fernandez, and then watches in horror as Fernandez laces a hard single and Upshaw trots home to clinch the walk-off 4-3 win.  

The regional finals match two squads with virtually identical ELO scores, both among the top 500 squads of all time.   The 1966 Twins made the finals by surviving two one-run games, while the 1986 Blue Jays had to stage a two-out rally in the bottom of the 9th for a come from behind win.  It seemed to me that the pitching options for the Twins were far better than those for Toronto, as Dave Boswell (12-5, 3.14) had a strong card and there were probably 3 other Twins starters with better numbers than the Jays’ Doyle Alexander (5-4, 4.46).  Cesar Tovar leads off the game for the Twins by finding one of Alexander’s HR results, but he misses the 1-13 split and gets stranded at second.  In the 3rd, Twins C Earl Battey leads off the inning the same way, missing the split again but this time he scores when Ted Uhlaender rolls a solid double result on Alexander’s card.  Tovar then singles in Uhlaender and the Twins lead 2-0 and the Jays are counting the innings until they can yank Alexander.  They don’t get a hit until the 4th, when George Bell crushes a solo shot with two out that makes it a one-run game.  The Twins retaliate as after getting two out, Alexander allows four straight hits off his card, the last being a 2-run double from Don Mincher, and as expected the Jays go straight to Tom Henke at the earliest opportunity, the beginning of the 6th.   Henke does his job, but so does Boswell who carries a 2-hitter into the bottom of the 9th and the Jays need another miracle to pull this one out.  However, Bell whiffs on a 2-11 just missing his 2-10 HR, and then Boswell completes the set by striking out the rest of the side to finish out the 2-hitter giving the Twins the 4-1 win and their 6th regional title–but their first from the 1960s.  The Twins’ accomplishment is a true team effort, with their biggest weapon in Killebrew held without a HR or RBI in any of the three games.

Interesting card of Regional #164:  In 1989, 25 year old Rob Dibble was just beginning to emerge as a promising reliever and member of what would become infamous as the “Nasty Boys” bullpen when the Reds won the World Series in the following season.  In the season represented by this card, Dibble would break the MLB record for strikeouts per nine innings, with 12.8, so if you were getting the Strat sets back then like I was, this was quite a card to behold.  However, Dibble went on to break his own record two more times, in 1991 and 1992, and in this era of big whiff totals there are six _starting_ pitchers that put together seasons with bigger K/9 numbers than this.  Even so, he might have gone on to break his own record yet again, but in 1993 he began to have a series of injuries, including a broken forearm, surgery on his pitching shoulder, and a ruptured eardrum resulting from a Megadeth concert.  Oddly enough, the theory is that the loss of balance caused by that latter mishap is what essentially ended his career as an effective pitcher, perhaps the only pitcher whose career was laid low by heavy metal.