REGIONAL #220:  After the last regional where two Reds teams made the final, the draw for this group had me hopeful that I might see an all-White Sox culmination and defy my usual Sox jinx.  One of the Sox squads came right after their historic 2005 Series win (although that 2005 team was eliminated from this tournament in the first round, as is typical), so I figured they should have the best shot.   According to my hazy memory, I didn’t see a lot of tough competition for them with the exception of the ‘94 Braves, a strike year team that would win the NL for the next two seasons when play resumed.  I guessed that those Braves would meet the 2004 version of the Sox in the finals and that the Sox jinx would kick in, sending the Braves on as regional champs.  The ELO ratings agreed on the Braves as the favorites, ranking them as the best team in baseball that season, but those ratings indicated that the “moneyball” era in Oakland hadn’t ended by 2005 as I thought, and that those A’s were the #2 seed.  However, the two Sox teams were #3 and #4 with solid ratings and I was still holding out hope for them.

First round action

Although they would take the pennant the following season, the 2004 White Sox finished barely above .500 at 83-79 as they were still missing some important parts of that championship team.  Still, the lineup contained quite a bit of power led by Paul Konerko, who earned some MVP votes, and there were a couple of good starters in the rotation including Freddy Garcia (13-11, 3.81).  They faced the #7 seeded 2017 Orioles, who lost 87 games with a lineup that included 7 guys who struck out more than 100 times, led by the atrocity known as Chris Davis; Dylan Bundy (13-9, 4.24) was the closest thing to a decent starter but the O’s did have a strong bullpen to help out.  In the 3rd, an error by Baltimore LF-3 Seth Smith sets up a 2-run blast by Frank Thomas to put the Sox ahead, and in an effort to keep it close the O’s decide to move to their pen as soon as permitted with Darren O’Day beginning the 6th.  Meanwhile, Garcia is cruising along nicely until the bottom of the 8th, when #9 hitter Mark Trumbo crushes a 2-run homer of his own and the game is tied heading into the 9th.  Baltimore closer Brad Brach shuts down the Sox in the top of the 9th, Garcia does likewise in the bottom of the 9th, and the game heads to extra innings.  Brach tosses a perfect 10th, and Garcia starts out with two quick outs but then he walks Davis and Trumbo follows with a double to put the winning run on 3rd; the Sox send for star rookie Shingo Takatsu out of the pen, and it’s a flyball X out to LF-3 Carlos Lee, who makes a futile wave at a liner that gets by for a hit and Davis trots home with the winning run as the Orioles walk off a 3-2 extra inning win.  

The #2 seeded 2005 A’s won 88 games in the final years of the “moneyball” experiment, and according to the Pythagorean projection they should have won 93, although I wasn’t certain how.  They did have Eric Chavez receiving a few MVP votes, and a solid rotation with Rich Harden (10-5, 2.53) sporting a strong card, but overall I was rather unimpressed by the OBP that these teams were supposedly famous for, and their team SLG% was near the bottom of the league.  They faced the 1987 Rangers, a team with a lot of pop but not much defense or pitching, although 39 year old Charlie Hough (18-13, 3.79) did lead the AL in innings pitched.  However, Hough did have some problems with the gopher ball and in the bottom of the 1st the second batter, Dan Johnson, finds Hough’s solid HR result for a solo shot and a quick lead.  The Rangers tie it up in the 3rd when Jerry Browne takes time off from governing California to draw a walk, stealing second, and wins the race home on a two-out Pete O’Brien single.  The A’s get on base in the 5th with two walks, and then Jay Payton beats the throw to score from second on a 2-out Jason Kendall single and regain the lead.  When Hough issues a single and a walk to begin the bottom of the 7th, the Rangers move to workhorse reliever Dale Mohorcic, who promptly allows an RBI single off his card to Bobby Crosby and the A’s now lead by two entering the 8th.  Nick Swisher jacks a solo shot for some insurance in the bottom of the 8th, which is more than Harden needs as he closes out a two-hitter for the 4-1 win that sends the A’s to the semifinals.  

The 1990 White Sox won 94 games and had a slightly better ELO ranking than the 2004 team that had already been eliminated in this bracket, with 22-year old rookie Frank Thomas eligible to DH with an impressive initial Strat card, and a strong rotation with Eric King (12-4, 3.28) getting the round one start.  That other Sox team had been eliminated by the second worst team in the group, with these Sox now getting to face the bottom ranked squad in the 1965 Astros.  The Astros lost 97 games while discovering that there was no power to be had in their first season in the Astrodome.  They did have Jimmy Wynn in the lineup but nobody to load up the toy cannon other than a young Joe Morgan, who maybe they should have hung onto; Larry Dierker (7-8, 3.49) headed up a serviceable pitching staff that benefited from the ballpark.  King looks more like a knave in the bottom of the 2nd, allowing four hits and three walks that are good for a 4-0 Houston lead, and the Sox can do nothing until Thomas breaks up Dierker’s perfect game in the 5th with a single that amounts to nothing.  Another Houston walk and a single in the 6th and the Sox figure they may as well go to closer Bobby Thigpen, and he ends the threat without incident but the South Siders still trail by four.  That expands when Morgan leads off the bottom of the 7th with a homer, and the Sox bats don’t come alive until the 9th when they put together three singles, the last an RBI hit from Robin Ventura.  But PH Phil Bradley grounds into a double play to end the game and the Astros move on with the 5-1 win and the Sox accompany their 2004 brethren on the Ventura highway back to the storage drawers.

My recollections of the strike-shortened 1994 season was that it really shortchanged the White Sox and the Expos, who both had their best teams in quite a while, but according to the ELO the best team in baseball that season was the 1994 Braves even though their record of 68-46 was only good for second place in the NL East.  However, these Braves were beginning a streak of greatness that would last the rest of the decade, with Fred McGriff finishing 8th in the MVP votes, three places behind teammate Greg Maddux (16-6, 1.56) who was the unanimous Cy Young winner.  Using Maddux seemed like overkill against the 87-loss 2017 Pirates, who had little to brag about other than a somewhat declining Andrew McCutcheon and Josh Bell, who got some votes for Rookie of the Year; Pittsburgh’s best starter option Trevor Williams (7-9, 4.07) probably couldn’t have made the Braves rotation.  The Braves strike in the top of the 2nd with a two-run moonshot from Ryan Klesko, and they add another on a 2-out double from Rafael Belliard that could have been more if 1-14 Jeff Blauser hadn’t been thrown out.  A three-run edge for Maddux seems like it should be safe, but the Pirates respond with a run in the bottom of the inning on a 2-out triple by Adam Frazier who scores on a Gregory Polanco single to narrow the gap to 3-1.  Klesko is then injured to lead off the 4th but the next batter, Javy Lopez, crushes one in honor of his fallen teammate and then Terry Pendleton goes back-to-back and the Braves extend their lead.  A two-out RBI double by injury replacement Mike Kelly adds to the pile, and so with nothing to lose the Pirates turn the game over to their closer Felipe Rivero to begin the 6th.  Mark Lemke adds an RBI single in the 8th for more insurance, and the Pirates do come up with a run in the 9th on a Polanco fielder’s choice but it’s too late as the Braves move on despite a rather lackluster performance from Maddux, who scatters nine hits in the 7-2 win.    

The survivors

The Zoom game of the week involved the semifinal between the 2017 Orioles, managed by nacster who requested the worst team he could get, and the #2 seed 2005 A’s, with me at the helm having lost just about every game I’d played that week in various projects.  Nac decided that the secret lay in being unpredictable, so he fielded a lineup with Chris Davis’s 195 strikeouts as the leadoff hitter, and from the hair-raising remnants of the O’s starting rotation it was Ubaldo Jimenez (6-11, 6.81) and his gopher-ball collection on the mound.  I was on orders from Billy Beane to stay the course, and so Joe Blanton (12-12, 3.53) was the conventional selection to start.  Both starters began things in fine form, and neither offense could mount a sustained threat, with nac’s smallball efforts failing to produce results, and the A’s “get on base” strategy just producing a variety of runners stranded by an unexpectedly sharp Jimenez.  The game proceeded as a scoreless tie through the 7th inning stretch, but then a lengthy delay resulting from the Friday Night Strat crowd struggling with my trivia question (who was the NFL receiver who was the only person ever to pinch hit for Ted Williams?).   Distracted by the crowd’s inability to come up with the answer, Jimenez comes in for the bottom of the 7th and makes one mistake, and Jay Payton crushes that mistake into the far reaches of the urban blight of Oakland for a two run homer that breaks the ice.  Now armed with the lead, I sense that it isn’t going to get any larger and so I call for closer Huston Street and his 1.72 ERA to preserve the game.  Nac dings the reliever’s imposing card for a couple of hits, but none of them lead to a run and it’s a one-way Street to the finals for the A’s as Blanton and Street combine for a 6-hit shutout in the 2-0 win. 

This semifinal matched the top and bottom seeds of the bracket, the favored 1994 Braves with Steve Avery (8-3, 4.04) on the mound against the #8 seeded 1965 Astros and Turk Farrell (11-11, 3.50).  The Braves would still be without injured Ryan Klesko, but they could still bring plenty of artillery to bear against one toy cannon.  Neither team manages a hit until the top of the 4th, when the Astros put together three of them with an RBI double from Ron Brand providing the Turk with a 1-0 lead.  The Astros are just getting warmed up, as they barrage Avery with five hits and a couple of walks in the 5th and the Braves try Steve Bedrosian, but he’s little better and when the dust clears the Astros lead 9-0 and the stunned Braves are wondering, “who are these guys?”.  Atlanta finally gets on the board in the bottom of the 6th with a 2-run blast from Fred McGriff, and they get a pair of RBI singles from injury replacement Mike Kelly and Javy Lopez in the 8th to get a bit closer.  But the Astros get another run against Mark Wohlers in the top of the 9th and Farrell dispatches the Braves to seal the 10-4 win and propel the unlikely bottom seed to the finals. 

Having disposed of the top seed in the semifinals, the #8 seeded longshots known as the 1965 Astros were ready to take on the #2 seed in the 2005 A’s in the regional finals.  The A’s would have Barry Zito (14-13, 3.86) on the mound against Bob Bruce (9-18, 3.72) of the Astros, whose card was better than his won-loss record would suggest.  The A’s jump out to a lead in the top of the 2nd when Bruce issues two walks, and then a 2-base error by 1B-2 Jim Gentile and a Marco Scutaro double result in a 3-0 Oakland edge, the first time these Astros had been behind in this regional.  A 2-base error by Oakland CF-2 Mark Kotsay sets up a two-out RBI single from Bob Lillis that gets past A’s SS-3 Scutaro, but Joe Morgan leaves the bases loaded making his first out after garnering hits in his first two ABs.  However, in the top of the 5th Scott Hatteberg gets on (third) base with an RBI triple on a missed HR 1-14 split, and although he gets stranded on third the A’s now lead 4-1.  In the bottom of the 7th, Zito issues a two-out walk to AA stealer Jimmy Wynn, who swipes second and scores on a single by Rusty Staub; a followup single by Walt Bond puts the tying run on base and the Astrodome is roaring.  The A’s decide that Zito can’t be trusted and bring in Jay Witasick who retires Lee Maye for out number three.  He holds the fort, while A’s seek to preserve him for super-regional action and summon Octavio Dotel in the 9th who closes out the 4-2 win, and while Oakland GM Billy Beane’s moneyball experiment may never have gotten him a pennant, it does result in a regional title in this project.  

Interesting card of Regional #220:  The odd souls paying any attention to my endless tournament know that it’s all-Basic and that I rarely pay much attention to the flip side of the cards, but this one struck me as kind of unusual.  The Basic side is interesting in itself–I can’t think of very many cards that have FIVE solid home run results in the same column, let alone two solid doubles joining them.  Another peculiar aspect of Jose’s card is that his ratio of extra base hit outcomes to singles outcomes is, shall we say, rather high–no slap hitter, this Jose.  Curious to see if he was a typical wildly imbalance, low AB wonder, I flipped over his card and discovered that he had some pop against both lefties and righties, although against RHers he bests his Basic side with SIX solid HR outcomes in his one column.  Still, what struck me was that he actually had more chances to hit a single against both LH and RH on the advanced side; still not very many (particularly vs. LH), but I was curious why Strat would make him more likely to hit for singles in the advanced game, which doesn’t really fit with my card-making expectations.  At any rate, Oliva earned this card as a 23 year old rookie and if I was playing in a keeper league in 1995 I would have picked him up in the rookie draft, but his OPS went from 1.042 to .486 in ‘95 and that was the end of his career in the majors.  He signed minor league contracts with a few teams, and was under contract in the Mariners’ system when he sadly died in a car accident in the 1997 off-season at age 26. He left behind a formidable card that merits the humble recognition as the interesting card of the bracket.