REGIONAL #169:  The teams that initially caught my eye in this draw were the ‘84 Cubs, who I remembered winning their division, and the ‘86 Twins, who were one year away from their epic World Series win.  There were also a couple of vintage Red Sox teams that I thought would be Splinter-less, a Pirates team from the 90s that might have preceded their descent into irrelevancy, and a Braves team that most likely bore little resemblance to their great teams of the next decade.  Although I was pulling for a Cubs/White Sox final, I had the feeling that the Sox wouldn’t be able to hold up their end of the bargain, so I figured that the Cubs would instead beat the Pirates mainly to spite me.   However, the ELO rankings did actually predict a Sox/Cubs matchup, one that the Cubs, who were ranked as the only good team in the regional, should win easily with the bottom of the bracket consisting of apparent mediocrities.

First round action

The 1986 Twins would win the Series the following season, and although this version managed to lose 91 games they had the pieces in place with Kirby Puckett 6th in the MVP balloting and Gary Gaetti also getting some votes.  However, their pitching bore the signs of working in the Homerdome, with Frank Viola (16-13, 4.51) allowing 37 HR, still better than teammate Bert Blyleven’s total of 50.  The 1989 Braves were also starting to put together a great club, but they were even further away, losing 97 games with problems opposite from the Twins, with a rather punchless offense but a young staff fronted by 22 year old John Smoltz (12-11, 2.94).  Twins LF Randy Bush leads off the game with a bang, more specifically a converted HR 1-4 split,  Puckett makes it 2-0 with a solo shot in the 3rd, and in the 5th Kent Hrbek misses a HR 1-8 split but drives in two on the resulting double to extend the Twins lead.  In the 8th, Oddibe McDowell breaks the shutout by finding one of Viola’s HR results for a solo shot, and a Lonnie Smith single makes the Twins look in their pen–but they look away in horror and stick with Viola.  He walks an aged Dale Murphy, but Twins SS-3 Greg Gagne then turns a nifty DP to end the inning and prevent further damage.  Viola then survives the 9th to finish up a 6-hitter and send the Twins to the semifinals with a 4-1 win.

Once again, the top two ranked teams in the regional face off in the first round; once I discovered the ELO rankings, I briefly thought about structuring each regional according to those seedings but that wouldn’t be fair to those teams that played in this tournament 40 years ago, so random it is and the #1 seeded 1984 Cubs face the #2 seed 1953 Red Sox in round one.  The Cubs won 96 games and the NL East, barely losing to the Padres in the NLCS, and they boasted a solid lineup and a remarkable year from midseason acquisition Rick Sutcliffe (16-1, 2.69).  The Red Sox went 84-69 and Mel Parnell (21-8, 3.06) got some MVP votes; Ted Williams spent most the season in Korea but he had a killer partial card with 91 remarkable ABs that would restrict his appearances until after the 5th inning.   A walk and a Larry Bowa double in the top of the 2nd set up a 2-run single from Bob Dernier and the Cubs move out to an early lead, and then Ryne Sandberg leads off the 3rd with a homer to extend it.  Sutcliffe doesn’t allow a hit until the bottom of the 4th, but the second hit he allows is a 2-run homer by (temporary) DH Del Wilber; then with two away he gives up a solo tape measure shot to Dick Gernert and the game is tied.  The Cubs respond immediately in the top of the 5th with back to back doubles from Leon Durham and Ron Cey, and Cey races home on a Keith Moreland single to put the Cubs back up by two.  That is more than enough for Sutcliffe, who reasserts control for the rest of the game, striking out the side in the 9th (including Williams) to toss a 4-hitter to seal the Cubs’ 5-3 win.

The 1963 Red Sox went 76-85 and no longer had Ted Williams camped in LF, but as a replacement they had a promising 23 year old in Carl Yastrzemski and a 20 game winner in Bill Monbouquette (20-10, 3.81) to serve as their round one starter.  They were slight ELO favorites over the 2013 Blue Jays, who had a similar 74-88 record but were a distinctly modern team sporting five guys with 20+ homers that struck out a lot, a deep bullpen and a very shallow rotation with RA Dickey (14-12, 4.21) at the front.   The game begins eventfully for Jays SS-3 Jose Reyes, whose error in the top of the 1st helps load the bases with nobody out, but whose highlight defensive play manages to end the inning with no runs scoring.  To cap that off, he then leads off the bottom of the 1st with a solo HR.   But then Monbouquette gets stingy and although Dickey is tossing a shutout, the Jays decide to move to their stack of relievers early fearing Dickey’s gopher ball issues and Steve Delabar comes in to begin the 6th.  That doesn’t work very well, as after two quick outs Bob Tillman hits a solo shot and the game is tied.  Edwin Encarnacion matches that in the bottom of the inning with a solo shot of his own, and then Colby Rasmus misses his HR split for an opportunity to make it two in a row, but with the resulting double Boston moves to their relief ace, Dick Radatz, who strands Rasmus at second.  Now down by a run, disaster strikes for Boston in the 7th when Yaz is lost to injury for the rest of the regional, and then in the bottom of the inning Ryan Goins rips an RBI double through the legs of 1B-5 Dick “Dr. Strangeglove” Stuart, and then Reyes rips another through the wickets of P-5 Radatz to extend the Jays lead to 4-1.  In the 8th, Bob Costas’s nemesis Gary Geiger crushes a solo shot off new Jays reliever Brett Cecil and one out later Lu Clinton smacks another, and suddenly it’s a one-run game.  Radatz holds in the bottom of the inning, and the game heads to the top of the 9th with Cecil on the shortest of leashes.  Felix Mantilla draws a two-out walk to bring up the slot formerly occupied by Yaz, but injury replacement Roman Meijas is no Yaz and he flies out harmlessly to give Cecil a sloppy save and the Jays the trip to the semis with the 4-3 win.  

The years between the Black Sox and the Go-Go Sox tended to be a bleak wasteland for the South Siders, and the 65-83 1938 White Sox were not a powerhouse, although they did sport four .300 hitters at the top of the lineup, a couple more on the bench, and a promising young pitcher on the mound in Monty Stratton (15-9, 4.01), who would tragically lose his leg after a hunting accident that November, ending his major league career although he did later pitch with remarkable success in the minors.  They were slight ELO favorites against the 1993 Pirates, who went 75-87, who had won the NL East the previous season but went into a steep decline after losing Barry Bonds to free agency; Steve Cooke (10-10, 3.89) was the best of a bad rotation.  The portents are bad for Stratton in the top of the 1st when Jay Bell leads off with a single, and then Lonnie Smith finds and converts Stratton’s HR split for quick and crooked number.  One batter later, Andy Van Slyke nails a solo shot on his own card, and then in the 2nd Smith again finds’ Stratton’s longball, this time with two out and two on, and it’s now 6-0 and that’s the end of the Monty Stratton story in this tournament, #2 starter Thornton Lee coming in to relieve.  That doesn’t stop the bleeding, as in the 3rd a two-out error by Sox SS-3 Boze Berger sets up a three-run homer from #9 hitter Kevin Young, who converts a HR 1/DO for the shot, although the Sox finally get a run on a Gee Walker RBI single in the bottom of the inning.  The hits just keep coming for the Pirates, who score four more in the 4th on three extra base hits, including an Al Martin triple, and then things settle down until the 7th, when Sox PH extraordinaire Merv Conners misses a HR 1-16 split but does drive in a run with the resulting double.  In the bottom of the 9th, Luke Appling comes off the bench to contribute an RBI single but manager Jimmy Dykes pinch hits to record the final out as the Pirates coast to a 13-3 win.  

The survivors

In the semifinals it was now time for the bracket favorite 1984 Cubs to see just how good they were without their ace Sutcliffe on the mound, but their rotation was decent and Dennis Eckersley (10-8, 3.03) was a strong option.  The 1986 Twins decided to risk Bert Blyleven (17-14, 4.01) and his 50 HR allowed that resulted in two complete and one partial HR result on his card, hoping that the Cubs wouldn’t notice those outcomes.  In the bottom of the 1st, the Cubs don’t find those HR results but they do find two singles and a double all on Blyleven’s card and they jump to a 2-0 lead after one.  A two out, two run single from Kent Hrbek ties things up in the 3rd, and things remain that way until the bottom of the 6th when Jody Davis puts a 2-run shot in the Wrigley bleachers (off his own card).  When the Twins begin the 7th with back to back missed-split doubles by Randy Bush and Kirby Puckett, the Cubs summon Warren Brusstar from the pen and he rapidly quells the threat, and it’s a one-run game to enter the 9th.  The Cubs bring in defensive replacements and Lee Smith to close against the top of the Twins order, and he walks Bush but Puckett hits into a double play and Gaetti fans so it’s Cubs win, 4-3, and they head to the finals in pursuit of the franchise’s 7th regional crown.

This semifinal featured two teams with very similar mediocre records and rankings, the 2013 Blue Jays with Mark Buehrle (12-10, 4.15) on the mound and the 1993 Pirates who were going with Paul Wagner (8-8, 4.27), although interestingly each team had a fully rested reliever in their pen who had zero hits on their card.  The Pirates put up a run in the bottom of the 1st when Jay Bell scores on an Al Martin grounder, but in the top of the 2nd the Jays respond with a small 2-out rally when Melky Cabrera doubles and Macier Izturis singles him home to tie the game.  However, in the bottom of the inning an error by SS-3 Jose Reyes loads the bases for the Pirates with two outs, and Martin steps to the plate to deliver a monstrous grand slam as the Pittsburgh offense continues to churn out runs as they did in round one.  Colby Rasmus delivers an RBI single in the top of the 3rd to narrow the gap to 5-2, and the Jays give up on Buehrle and move quickly to their excellent pen and Steve Delabar, who saw some action in the first round.  Delabar survives the 3rd but begins the 4th with two walks and an error from 3B-2 Brett Lawrie, and the Jays summon hitless wonder Sergio Santos to try to get out of the bases loaded, nobody out jam.   The infield comes in and Santos elicits three straight groundouts with each runner nailed at home, and he is mobbed coming back to the dugout and the Three Rivers crowd is getting a little nervous.  However, the Jays momentum halts when their RF Jose Bautista is knocked out of the rest of the regional with an injury to end the 5th, but when they put runners on 1st and 3rd with two away in the 7th the Pirates bring in Stan Belinda and he gets the third out to preserve the lead.  In the 8th, Jays injury replacement Rajai Davis is himself injured, the third injury of the game for Toronto, and they are beginning to wonder if they will need to pull people out of the stands to finish the game.  The Pirates bring in reliever Joel Johnston in the 9th to try to close out the game, and he gets two quick outs but then allows two consecutive singles to Jays pinch-hitters, and given his gopher ball problems the Jays immediately move to Blais Minor to pitch to Reyes.  Reyes responds with hard single off Minor that scores a run, and with the tying run on and the go-ahead run at the plate in the form of dangerous Edwin Encarnacion, the Pirates are forced to bring in their own hitless reliever, Mark Dewey, to try to end this once and for all.  Dewey delivers, Encarnacion swings, and he crushes a ball that may have landed in one of the rivers, a three-run shot that puts the Jays ahead that stuns the crowd.  The decision now belongs to Jays reliever Juan Perez, and he comes out and retires the heart of the Pirates order 1-2-3, and the Jays record an epic 6-5 come-from-behind win that sends them to the finals–with three outfielders injured and three relievers burnt.  

This regional final looked like a lopsided one.  The #1 seed, division winning 1984 Cubs had a healthy lineup, a bullpen with all arms available at least for a few innings, and a strong number three starter in Scott Sanderson (8-5, 3.14) ready to go; the #4 seeded 2013 Blue Jays, who had survived two scares to get this far, sported three injured outfielders and three well-used relievers who would be unavailable for this game, and Esmil Rogers (5-9, 4.77) was the only remaining starting option for the Jays, and he wasn’t a good option.  That proves obvious quickly, as Rogers walks the first two Cubs in the top of the 1st and then finally throws a strike to Ryne Sandberg, who bounces it off the hotel windows in the SkyDome courtesy of a solid HR result on Rogers card.   After an error by Jays SS-3 Jose Reyes, Jody Davis again finds the same HR result on Rogers, meaning that Rogers has now allowed the requisite 5 runs in 2/3rds of an inning and can be pulled; a petition is immediately started by the beleaguered Toronto fans to ironically rename the ballpark the Rogers Centre, after the embattled pitcher to commemorate his tournament 67.16 ERA.  The Cubs add another run in the 4th on a Bob Dernier RBI double, but the Jays finally respond in the bottom of the inning when a 2-out error by RF-2 Henry Cotto sets up Adam Lind for a long 2-run homer that narrows the lead to 6-2.  Unfazed, the Cubs keep it going in the 5th with a 2-run single that chases reliever Darren Oliver for game 1 savior Brett Cecil, although the Jays put up a run on a JP Arencibia fielder's choice in the 7th as a reminder to the Cubs that these Jays have come back from serious deficits before.  In the bottom of the 9th, the Jays get a couple of hits to make Sanderson sweat, but he retires Arencibia on a lazy fly to end the game and clinch the 7th regional for the Cubs with the 8-3 win, with all seven teams coming from different decades.  

Interesting card of Regional #169:  This group had a number of interesting cards; 1953 Ted Williams was a marvel to behold in his 91 at bats, but he was just featured in the last regional, and while 1938 Merv Connors and his 1.146 OPS was an interesting find, neither he nor his team did much of anything.  In contrast, the 2013 Blue Jays were a sub-.500 squad that got to the regional finals in part due to a remarkable bullpen, and this card was the most remarkable of all.   If you need some help from the pen, it just doesn’t get much better than the card of Sergio Santos; the batters can only hope they roll on their own card because they won’t find any help here.  Initially drafted as a position player, Santos was converted to a pitcher in the minors and came to the majors with the White Sox.  He wasn’t entirely a low-IP one year wonder, either, as he saved 30 games with the Sox in 2011.  He was traded to the Jays after that season, but missed much of 2012 after developing shoulder problems early in the season.  This 2013 card represents his efforts to work back into form after his injury, and those efforts were remarkably successful.  However, the next season was the exact opposite, where nearly everyone he faced was either a hit or a walk, with a 2.190 WHIP in even fewer innings than he had in 2013, and the Jays released him.  In a couple of stints with different teams in 2015, it was obvious that his shoulder problems had returned and that his career was over, but for these 26 innings in 2013, he was truly untouchable.