REGIONAL #223:  After the draw for this group I thought I needed to recheck the code for the random team selector program I’d written, because it spit out three 1994 and two 1988 American League teams out of the eight teams, with pairs of entries from the Indians and Orioles.  Regardless of the random number generator, I thought there were going to be some decent squads here even if there were no pennant winners.  The ‘94 version of the Indians didn’t have a chance to win a pennant in that strike year, but they did so in the following season, and I thought that the ‘99 A’s were building toward some good teams while the Mets and the earlier version of the Orioles were probably declining from pennant-winning squads some seasons back.  I went with those strike year Indians to beat the A’s in the final, while the ELO rankings also favored those Indians but had the later Orioles team as the second seed in the regional.  

First round action  

It’s a (brief) Subway Series in this first round game, with a decent matchup in the #3 seeded 1988 Yankees and the #4 seeded 2005 Mets.  The Yanks won 85 games, although that was only good for 5th place in a tough AL East; they had some offensive weapons led by Dave Winfield who finished 4th in MVP voting, but their pitching staff was a weakness with John Candelaria (13-7, 3.38) the only good option in the rotation.  Although the Mets were slight underdogs having won only 83 games, I liked their chances with a strong lineup with three MVP vote-getters in David Wright, Cliff Floyd, and Jose Reyes, and a dominating Pedro Martinez (15-8, 2.82) fronting the rotation.  The Mets display their pop in the top of the 1st with a solo HR from Mike Cameron, but in the 3rd Rickey Henderson raps an RBI single and the AAA stealer promptly steals second, although Pedro strands him and the game is tied 1-1 after three.  In the 5th, Cameron knocks an RBI double, putting him a triple short of a cycle, and DH Mike Jacobs adds a sac fly and the Mets lead by two.  The Yankees cut it to one in the bottom of the inning as Henderson scores on Winfield double, but in the 7th Carlos Beltran doubles and scores on Cameron’s 4th hit of the game to provide the Mets with some breathing room.  A single by Floyd leads off the 8th and the Yankees finally replace the Candyman with Rags, but Righetti is greeted by an error from 2B-2 Willie Randolph and then a walk loads the bases.  In an effort to keep it close, the Yanks bring the infield in with nobody out, but Reyes promptly rolls the gbA++ to score two more and steals second for good measure.  Miguel Cairo then knocks a liner that falls in front of CF-3 Claudell Washington and the Mets add two more to their lead, and ultimately Cairo scores on Cameron’s 5th hit of the game.  Cameron scores on a missed HR split double from Jacobs and the Yanks burn off their Rags with a Leiter, who comes in to finally record two outs but six runs score in the inning and Yankee Stadium is filled with Bronx cheers.  In the 7th, Martinez is dinged by a comebacker and has to leave the game, although he shouldn’t miss any future starts if needed; Steve Trachsel is brought in to mop up and although he yields a run on a Henderson fielder’s choice in the 9th, it’s to no avail as the Mets advance with a 10-3 battering of their crosstown rivals.

For the Zoom game of the week, it was the best against the worst, with Cleveland’s own ColavitoFan manning the helm of the top seeded 1994 Indians, who went 66-47 and were one game out of first in the AL Central at the time that the strike ended the season.  Short season or not, this was a good team that would easily win the pennant the next season once play resumed, and in ‘94 Albert Belle and Kenny Lofton went 3-4 in the MVP votes while Charles Nagy (10-8, 3.45) was one of a couple of decent options for the round one start.   At the other extreme of the seedings were the 1988 Orioles, a dismal team best remembered for losing 21 straight games to begin the season en route to 107 losses, and the only thing they had in common with the Indians was Eddie Murray in the lineup.  Always up for a challenge, Nacster opted to manage this motley crew, and he tapped Jose Bautista (6-15, 4.30) as the best they could muster.   However, one of Bautista’s problems was those home run results at 4-9 and 4-10, and Lofton finds that solid 4-10 in the top of the 3rd to loft one for a two-run lead.  In the 4th, 23 year old Jim Thome crushes a solo shot for additional padding, and meanwhile Nagy has a perfect game going through five.  However, in the 6th the O’s break the ice and the better of the two Ripken brothers drives in a run, but Thome responds in the top of the 7th with another solo shot, perfectly setting up a 7th inning stretch trivia question that none of the Friday Night Strat crowd could guess, with Thome as the correct answer.  After seven feeble innings, it looks like Nac’s managerial ministrations might pay off in the bottom of the 8th, as a couple of hits from the dreadful bottom of the O’s order puts the tying run at the plate.  ColavitoFan has a nagging feeling that Nagy is done, and he plucks Eric Plunk from the bullpen, who gets the second out and then faces Nac’s top of the order, stacked with Baltimore’s two Hall of Famers.  The first one, Murray, draws the walk and the bases are loaded with one out and Cal Ripken Jr. at the plate as the go-ahead run, and Nac is cackling as he rattles the electronic dice in his phone.  At the last second, ColavitoFan clarifies that he is keeping the infield back, and that matters greatly as Ripken comes up with the gbA++ for the rally-killing double play.  Plunk then quickly dispatches the Orioles in the bottom of the 9th and the Indians move on with the 4-1 win; the Orioles head back to the card catalogs and take some solace in knowing that even they can’t lose 21 straight games in a single elimination tournament.

The 1999 A’s were a pre-Moneyball but mid-steroid era team that won 87 games with Jason Giambi, Matt Stairs and John Jaha all over 30 homers; however, the rotation got bad quickly after Tim Hudson's (11-2, 3.23) turn.  One of those bad starters turned out to be the top pitcher in the rotation for their opponents in the 1994 Rangers, Kenny Rogers (11-8, 4.46), which should tell you something about this team whose 52-62 record was good enough for first place in a terrible strike-year AL West.  Nonetheless, the Rangers jump out to a quick lead on back to back doubles from Will Clark and Jose Canseco in the top of the 1st, and in the bottom of the 1st the A’s must grieve the loss of their LF, Ben Grieve, to injury.  Texas extends their lead when Rusty Greer leads off the 3rd with a long homer, and a fielders choice from Doug Strange in the 4th makes it 3-0 Rangers.  Meanwhile, the A’s only get their first hit in the 4th from injury replacement Rich Becker, but he’s quickly wiped out on a DP and Rogers just keeps dealing the cards.  A couple of two-out Ranger singles in the 7th and Hudson is gone for Jason Isringhausen, who strikes out Canseco to end the threat but the A’s still trail.  Izzy does the job until the top of the 9th, when he allows doubles off his card to both Clark and defensive replacement Billy Ripken for an insurance run, which turns out to be a good thing as in the bottom of the 9th Becker and Jaha go back to back off Rogers’ solid HR result; the Rangers know when to fold ‘em and they assign reliever Darren Oliver to try to get the last two outs.  However, the first batter he faces is Giambi, who finds a solid HR on his own card for a back-to-back-to-back series that makes it a one-run game.  Next up is Stairs, who rips a liner past RF-2 Greer for a double that puts the tying run in scoring position.  2B-2 Ripken then makes a fine play for the second out, but Oliver walks Miguel Tejada and the winning run is now on.  Out comes pinch-hitter Olmedo Saenz, and Oliver delivers:  a 2-8, solid HR, a three run blast for the 4th A’s homer of the inning and it’s game over, with the A’s riding the roid rage to a remarkable 6-4 comeback win and a trip to the semis.  

This game was a kind of flip of a previous first round matchup in this bracket, with the 2011 Indians facing the 1994 Orioles; this time, the Orioles were favored but the ELO ranks suggested that they weren’t as good nor the Indians as bad as was the case in the previous mismatch.  These Orioles went 63-49 and had the second best record in the AL East when the strike was declared, with Cal Ripken and Rafael Palmiero getting MVP votes and Lee Smith and Mike Mussina (16-5, 3.06) respectively 5th and 4th for the Cy Young.  The Indians were a mediocre 80-82 and were mainly hoping 40 year old DH Jim Thome could duplicate the feats of his younger self earlier in the regional, with Justin Masterson (12-10, 3.21) at the top of a rotation that went quickly downhill from there.  In the top of the 1st, one half of the Indians’ all-Cabrera DP combo, this one Asdrubal, hits a solo HR as the second batter of the game, and Mussina is rattled, issuing a couple of walks and then a three-run blast from Matt Laporta and Cleveland has a 4-0 lead before the Orioles swing a bat.  In the 3rd, Carlos Santana, who has consistently been black magic in this tournament forcing me to use up all my guitarist puns, hits a 2-run homer that makes it 6-0 Indians.  Things get even worse for Baltimore in the 4th as RF Fukudome, not to be confused with a ballpark sponsored by a punk rock band, flips off the O’s with another 2-run shot, this one off Mussina and in desperation the Orioles move to Lee Arthur Smith.  He records two quick strikeouts, but then Santana continues his evil ways with his second homer of the game and Cleveland leads 9-0 with the Orioles having yet to muster a hit.  Harold Baines finally notches a single against Masterson in the bottom of the inning but is quickly wiped out on a DP.  However, in the bottom of the 6th Masterson seems determined to make it interesting, walking three straight batters to lead off the inning and then delivering the grand slam to Leo Gomez, and the sizeable Indians lead is essentially halved.  But Masterson recovers and he finishes things out with a 3-hitter as the Indians once again down the Orioles, this one by a 9-4 score, but a 9th inning injury to Michael Brantley (likely for the tournament) will hurt their chances to make it an all-Tribe final.  

The survivors

A solid semifinal matchup between the top seed 1994 Indians and the #4 seeded 2005 Mets had Cleveland’s Dennis Martinez (11-6, 3.52) facing 39 year old Tom Glavine (13-13, 3.53) for a spot in the bracket final.  Martinez has a gruesome second inning, walking three and allowing three singles, and the Mets stake Glavine to a quick 4-0 lead.  The Indians load the bases in the 3rd with one out but Glavine fans Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome to quiet the Cleveland crowd, but they come back to life a little with a Kenny Lofton RBI single in the 4th that narrows the lead to 4-1. Cleveland picks up another run in the 5th when Jim Thome beats the throw home on a two-out Paul Sorrento single, and then Manny Ramirez slashes a two-out single that scores Baerga and Belle; Thome then singles past SS-2 Jose Reyes and Glavine heads to the rocking chair with Juan Padilla and his ERA getting the third out but the score is now tied.  That tie lasts up to the 9th; Martinez sets down the Mets quietly in the top of the inning, but Thome leads off the bottom of the 9th with a single.  Padilla then records two quick outs to bring up Indians #9 hitter Sandy Alomar Jr.; he lifts a little popup into fair territory but Mets C-4 Mike Piazza muffs it, putting Alomar on first and Thome in scoring position with the winning run.  Padilla then faces Lofton and the top of the order; he brings his best and Lofton crushes it, barely clearing the fence in the deepest part of The Jake and the Indians head to the final with a come from behind, walkoff 7-4 win.

The #3 seeded 1999 A’s survived a wild first round comeback and now get to face the #6 seed 2011 Indians, with Cleveland’s Ubaldo Jimenez (10-13, 4.68) going against Omar Olivares (15-11, 4.16) of the A’s for an uninspiring pitching matchup.  In the bottom of the 1st Jim Thome appears eager to face himself in the finals as he belts a 2-run homer to put the Indians ahead, and Kosuke Fukudome adds an RBI single in the 2nd to extend the lead.  Eric Chavez answers with a 2-out RBI triple in the top of the 4th that makes it 3-1.  In the 5th Thome gets another RBI on a sac fly, although the Indians squander an opportunity to blow the game open when Grady Sizemore ends the inning on a bases loaded double play.  Two straight Cleveland singles to start off the bottom of the 6th and the A’s move to reliever TJ Mathews, and although he induces a DP ball it scores a run and the Cleveland lead is up to four.  A 2-base error by Indians 1B-4 Matt LaPorta opens la porta for a 2-out rally, and when Jason Giambi knocks an RBI single to put the tying run at the plate the Indians bring out closer Chris Perez.  However, Matt Stairs rips a liner past P-4 Perez to make it a two-run game heading into the 9th–and these A’s overcame a 4-run lead with six runs in the 9th in the first round, so they’re feeling plenty optimistic.  The A’s put up a single and two walks to load the bases to begin the 9th, and Perez now faces the top of the Oakland order needing three outs without two runs scoring.  He walks Randy Velarde and one of those runs scores, and now the infield comes in to try to keep the game from getting tied.  Ben Grieve, recovered from a game one injury, smacks a grounder to terrible 1B-4 LaPorta and the ball goes through his legs for another 2-base error and the A’s now lead with still nobody out.  Perez then walks Jaha, his fourth of the inning, and finally gets it over the plate to Giambi, who misses the HR split for the grand slam but drives in two as Jaha is nailed at the plate for only the first out of the inning.  The Indians decide to try a different Perez, this time Rafael, but Matt Stairs finds a double on the new pitcher to drive in Giambi and by the time the third out is recorded, the A’s put up their second 6-run 9th inning in as many games, Billy Taylor comes in to close out the Indians and the A’s head to the final with yet another comeback in the 9-5 win.   

What better as a Zoom game of the week than a regional final between the top seeded 1994 Indians and the #5 seeded 1999 A’s, with Cleveland’s own ColavitoFan reprising his strategy that led them to their round one victory, while TT was intrigued by the A’s combination of 6-run ninth innings along with a chemically-enhanced lineup.  With teams getting into the deeper parts of their rotation, the Indians’ Mark Clark (11-3, 3.82) looked like a better option than Oakland’s Gil Heredia (13-8, 4.81), and when the second batter of the game, Omar Vizquel, finds and converts Heredia’s HR split in the top of the 1st it’s looking like the A’s might need more 9th inning heroics to pull this off.  However, Heredia quickly settles down, while Oakland goes to work on Clark, who is not helped by a defense where it seems everyone is either a 1 or a 4, and the A’s keep hitting the ball at the 4s.  An unearned run in the bottom of the 2nd ties things up, and then as 3B-4 Jim Thome and 2B-3 Carlos Baerga wave feebly at balls hit through the infield, TT develops a knack for hitting Clark’s 4-9 HR 1-10/DO, which he does three times in the first four innings, missing the split every time.  However, even with the expensive sparkly fluid-filled split die refusing to cooperate, TT’s A’s continue to pile on, with those missed-split doubles by John Jaha and Randy Velarde driving in runs and the A’s build up a 4-1 lead after five.  ColavitoFan sticks with Clark through the 6th but after a leadoff hit in the 7th he plucks Plunk from the pen, and Plunk holds the A’s at bay.  However, Heredia is still cruising, and he moves into the top of the 9th but when Cleveland starts things off with a single, TT signals for Jason Isringhausen to close things out.  First roll is a 6-5, which would have been the HR on Heredia, but is a strikeout on Izzy and TT looks like Earl Weaver as the A’s roll to the 4-1 win, their third straight comeback victory and the 6th regional title for the franchise. 

Interesting card of Regional #223:  In this tournament of every standard Strat team ever printed, the DH is being used for all teams, meaning that decades of such teams never used or conceived of such a position.  To accommodate this in a somewhat fair way, tournament rules stipulate that any player with at least 100 ABs can start a game as the DH. and fortunately for the 2005 Mets they had a guy with exactly 100 AB who fit the “slugger who can’t field” DH prototype rather well.  These were actually the first hundred at-bats in the majors for Mike Jacobs, gathered when he was called up in late August.  In his first AB, he hit a three-run homer, and he became the first player in history to homer four times in his first four games in the majors a few days later.  However, the Mets were apparently unimpressed, trading Jacob to the Marlins for another DH type in Carlos Delgado in the off-season.  Jacobs continued to show decent power for the Marlins for a few seasons but in 2011 he became the first North American athlete to be caught by a newly developed test for human growth hormone, and his suspension pretty much spelled the end of his career.