REGIONAL #196:  After some high-profile draws in the last batch, this bracket was much less eye-catching.  There was a Cardinals team that had won a pennant in the prior season that I suspected was still pretty good, and a Marlins team that had won a flag two years before that I was pretty sure had been totally gutted.  Also included were entries from the Mets and the Tigers that each were three years past a Series appearance, and a 90s Yankees team four years before they started a pennant streak of their own.  The remaining squads I guessed would have some good players but also notable weaknesses; for my prediction, I went with the Cardinals over the Mets in the finals.  The ELO rankings (which to my consternation seem to have been discontinued this season by the fivethirtyeight website that I use) indicated that I picked two of the worst teams in the bracket, and chose two of the “other” teams that I dismissed, the Angels and Dbacks, to meet in the finals with the Dbacks being a slight favorite for the top seed.

First round action

I had picked the 2007 Cardinals to win this bracket on the basis of being the defending NL pennant winners, but they limped to a 78-84 record with Albert Pujols (9th in MVP voting) being the only player to brag about, and Adam Wainwright (14-12, 3.70) topping a rotation that got steadily worse from there.  They were marked ELO underdogs to the 88-win 1996 Expos, who had far more options for their first round starter, settling on Jeff Fassero (15-11, 3.30) who received some Cy Young votes that season.  Pujols makes his presence known in the bottom of the 1st, missing a HR split but David Eckstein barely beats the throw to score on the resulting double, but the Expos tie it in the top of the 2nd when Moises Alou scores on a Shane Andrews grounder.  From there, both starters are locked in, and nobody can mount a threat until Mike Lansing doubles to lead off the top of the 8th, and the Cards summon Troy Percival and his 1.80 ERA from their strong bullpen.  However, he issues a walk and a single to FP Santangelo and the fleet Lansing races home to give the Expos a lead.  Andrews then adds some insurance in the top of the 9th with a 2-run homer, and Fassero closes out a 6-hitter as the Expos move on with the 4-1 win.  

The 2015 Angels graded out as the #2 seed in the bracket, winning 85 games and having MVP runner-up Mike Trout and Albert Pujols surrounded by a bunch of slow guys who couldn’t get on base; however, their rotation was pretty solid with Garrett Richards (15-12, 3.65) at the front of it.  The 1992 Yankees proved to be worse than I had imagined, a 76-86 team with few guys who could field and no real dominating hitters, although Melido Perez (13-16, 2.87) was at least able to find the ballpark, unlike his brother.  The Yanks begin the bottom of the 1st with three straight singles courtesy of the Angels pitching and defense; the fourth batter is the DH Mel Hall, who rolls the 6-12 and Richards is injured and likely done for the tournament, although his performance to that point suggested that he wouldn’t be missed much.  Jose Alvarez replaces him and induces a DP ball that ends the inning and limits the damage to just one run, and Pujols makes it known that it will take more than that with a towering 2-run homer in the top of the 3rd to put the Angels on top.  In the bottom of the 4th, a Charlie Hayes sac fly and an RBI double from young Bernie Williams re-establishes the New York lead, and the Angels move to their closer Huston Street to begin the 5th.  The Yankees are determined to stick with Perez, who is tossing a 3-hitter through seven innings, but with two out in the 8th he falls apart and a double from Erick Aybar ties the game, so closer Steve Farr and his 1.56 ERA come in to try to prevent further damage.  Trevor Gott takes the mound for the Angels in the bottom of the 8th, and he does his job but so does Farr and the game heads for extra innings.  Farr blows through the Angels in the top of the 10th, but in the bottom of the frame Gott’s defense fails him; an error by SS-2 Aybar, a single that gets past 2B-4 Johnny Giavotella, and a walk loads up the bases with two outs for Mel Hall.  It’s a grounder to Giavotella, he drops it, Williams trots home and the Yankees head to the semifinals with an extra-inning 4-3 win on a walk-off error.

The ELO rankings had this as a pretty even matchup between two teams in decline but that were nonetheless still decent.  The 2016 Tigers won 86 games with an all “1” DP combo, five hitters with over 20 homers, and Miguel Cabrera getting MVP votes, and Justin Verlander (16-9, 3.04) was a force to be reckoned with, finishing 2nd in the Cy Young ballots.  This was nicely mirrored by the 2005 Marlins, who won 83 games with a strong 1&2 DP combo, two guys crushing 33 homers which included none other than Miguel Cabrera, who was 5th in the MVP votes, and on the mound was another Cy Young runner-up, Dontrelle Willis (22-10, 3.63).  Miggy South starts the scoring with an RBI double in the bottom of the 1st, and Juan Encarnacion follows by converting a TR 1-2/flyB to drive in Cabrera and the Marlins have a two run lead after one.  Verlander then settles in and holds off the Marlins, but like Gary Coleman, the Tigers can’t figure out what Willis is talkinbout, and he closes out a 3-hitter, striking out Cabrera North to wrap up the 2-0 shutout.

Although the pairings in each bracket are random, in this first round game it turned out that the #1 seed 2017 Diamondbacks were paired with the #8 seed, the 2003 Mets.  The Dbacks won 93 games and made a brief postseason appearance as a wild card; they could hit, as the lowest SLG% in their starting lineup was .442 and they had a strong rotation fronted by Zack Greinke (17-7, 3.20), 4th for the Cy Young, but they had some fielding issues with an all “4” DP combo.   But the Mets had more issues, losing 95 games, with three Hall of Famers on the team who were all well past their prime and Al Leiter (15-9, 3.99) as a serviceable starter who deserved better.  Things start ugly for the Mets when David Peralta leads off the game with a homer, but the Mets show some pluck by quickly tying it in the bottom of the inning on a 2-out Ty Wigginton RBI single.  Jake Lamb is not silent in the top of the 2nd with a run-scoring double, and that is followed by a long homer from Yasmany Tomas, and when Paul Goldschmidt bounces a flyball off the head of LF-4 Cliff Floyd for a 2-base error to score another run, the Mets extinguish Leiter and try Mike Stanton, figuring things can’t go too much worse.  But in the 3rd, AJ Pollock finds Stanton’s solid HR result for a solo shot to dig the hole deeper, and in the 6th Mets closer Armando Benitez comes in only to allow a 2-run single to Goldschmidt and the Dbacks start moving to the defensive replacements while the Shea faithful start moving to the traffic jam on the BQE.  And they don’t miss anything as Greinke closes out a 5-hitter and the Diamondbacks advance easily with the 8-1 win.  

The survivors

The #7 seed 1992 Yankees had already knocked off the second seed in the regional, but that extra-inning win depleted their bullpen and now they faced the #3 seeded 1996 Expos in the semifinal.  The Expos felt pretty good about sending out Pedro Martinez (13-10, 3.70) against the Yanks “best” option, Scott Kamieniecki (6-14, 4.36), as getting hits off Scott was much easier than spelling his name.  The Expos score in the top of the 1st isn’t really his fault, as his SS-4 Randy Velarde throws a relay into the dugout for a 2-base error that scores a run, and FP Santangelo makes it 2-0 Expos in the 2nd with an RBI single.  Pat Kelly leads off the bottom of the 5th with a homer that makes it a one run game, and the Yanks decide to go to Sam Militello out of the pen to start the 6th, feeling that they’ve gotten their money’s worth out of Kamieniecki.  However, the first batter to face Militello, Moises Alou, finds and converts the pitcher’s HR split to raise questions about that decision.  Meanwhile, Martinez is shaky but effective, not recording a hitless inning until the 7th and no 1-2-3 innings until the 9th, but he proves to be an escape artist and the Expos escape with a 3-1 win that sends them to the finals.  

The 2017 Diamondbacks were the regional’s top seed, and they had little problem cruising through round one so they would have a rested pen in support of Robbie Ray (15-5, 2.89), who might not need it as he got some Cy Young support.  However, their semifinal opponents, the 2005 Marlins, had overcome a top-flight pitcher in the opening game and Josh Beckett (15-8, 3.38) had a solid card of his own.  The Marlins strike in the top of the 1st as Miguel Cabrera, rested up after pulling double duty in the first round, pokes an RBI single to score Luis Castillo.  In the 2nd, the Dbacks lose their only outfielder that can actually catch the ball, AJ Pollock, to injury, but Ray is cruising until Juan Encarnacion finds Ray’s solid HR result to begin the 7th inning, and the Dbacks then summon unhittable Jimmie Sherfy from the pen.  Although he does his job, there’s nothing else he can do as Beckett and the Marlins record their second straight shutout with a 4-hit 2-0 gem and the Florida men head to the finals.

For the regional final, it was the #3 seeded 1996 Expos and swingman Ugueth Urbina (10-5, 3.71) against the #5 seed 2005 Marlins, who had already pulled off two straight upsets with two straight shutouts, and AJ Burnett (12-12, 3.44) seemed capable of possibly extending that streak.  The Marlins draw first blood in the bottom of the 1st when a run comes in as Carlos Delgado hits into a DP (after making a 2-base error in the top of the inning), and things don’t look any better for the Expos when Moises Alou has a tournament-ending injury to end the top of the 3rd.  In the 5th, the Marlins get back to back doubles from the bottom of their order in Mike Lowell and Juan Pierre to provide a little insurance, and a leadoff double in the bottom of the 7th makes the Expos pull Urbina for closer Mel Rojas, but he gets pounded for 5 hits and the Floridians lead by six when the dust settles.  However, Henry Rodriquez ends the Marlins scoreless streak at 25 innings when he blasts a 3-run shot in the top of the 8th and the Expos try to send a signal that they aren’t done yet, but they are; Burnett closes out a six-hitter and the Marlins take the regional with the 6-3 win, with their starting rotation sharing bracket MVP honors as they only allow the opposition to score any runs in 1 of 27 innings.  This is only the second regional win for a Marlins team, with the other (the 2013 team) coming 132 brackets ago. 

Interesting card of Regional #196:  I think it’s safe to say that Strat-o-matic has never printed a pitcher’s card with a lower ERA than this one, the card of a 25 year old rookie named James Sherfy.  It seemed to me that Jimmie never really got much of a chance in the majors, seeing limited action in three more seasons, but he ended with pretty good career marks, like a 3.28 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, and averaging a strikeout per inning–surely some team could use a reliever like that.  At any rate, he can take some solace in knowing that he has the lowest ERA Strat card in print history, but is he the only one?  I’m not certain, but I haven’t run across another in the 1,568 different teams I’ve now played with cards and dice.  It’s also noteworthy that his ERA is printed as 0.00 with the leading zero, while in recent years I’ve tended to see pitchers with sub-1.00 marks having the lead numeral left off, such as .69, but not this one.  At any rate, it’s an imposing card but he couldn’t keep his regional-favorite squad from getting knocked out in the semifinals of this tournament.