SUPER-REGIONAL T:  This group of eight seemed to include a variety of unlikely contenders considering that six pennant winners had begun this group of 64, but none of them had survived past round three.   Of the eight that did persevere, not many were within hailing distance of an epic season, with the Rays being two years post their first pennant, and for the Mets and Brewers pennants would be 5+ years away.  Picking from among this group seemed to be a total crapshoot, but I figure the Brewers would emerge from the top half of the bracket and fall to the Rays in the finals.  The ELO rankings agreed with that prediction, portraying the four teams in the bottom of the bracket as much better than the dubious group at the top.

Round four action

Two rather unlikely regional winners square off in this round four matchup.  The 1976 Padres went 73-89 but pulled off three straight upsets to win Regional #153; however, they now faced the bane of the underdog squads in going to the bottom of their rotation in the form of Tom Griffin (9-6, 4.10), who was a base on balls waiting to happen.  The 1990 Brewers had a similar record at 74-88 but they sported a much better ELO ranking, and they did have some Hall of Famers such as Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and the newly inducted Dave Parker; Mark Knudson (10-9, 4.12) was tapped for the start from a variety of options.  The Padres jump to a quick lead in the top of the 1st on an RBI single from Dave Winfield that gets past SS-3 Bill Spiers, but Winfield is caught stealing by BJ Surhoff to prevent further damage.  Both pitchers work their way out of jams until Parker delivers a 2-out RBI single in the bottom of the 5th that ties the game, and Gary Sheffield follows with another for a Brewers lead.   When Griffin yields a double to Greg Vaughn and a walk in the 6th, he’s gone for Dave Tomlin, who ends the threat with no damage.   However, in the 8th Timlin is injured for the tournament, and Butch Metzger holds to send the game to the 9th with the Padres still down by a run.  But Knudson tosses a perfect 9th to hold on for the 2-1 Brewers victory and the end of the line for the upstart Padres. 

Another couple of teams that had no business making it to round four of the tournament, the 97-loss 2009 Royals and Kyle Davies (8-9, 5.27) taking on the arguably worse 64-90 1947 Senators, with Mickey Haefner (10-14, 3.64) sporting a nice card for a #4 starter on a 90-loss team that was no doubt enhanced by pitching in spacious Griffith Stadium.  The task for the Royals was complicated by lengthy injuries suffered by Mark Teahen and Alex Gordon in their regional final, and RF-2 Mitch Maier doesn’t help matters when he misplays an Eddie Yost single in the top of the 2nd that allows a run to score.  Things just get worse for the Royals when 2B Alberto Callaspo gets injured for 10 games in the bottom of the inning, with the KC bench already badly depleted.  A Sherry Robertson RBI double in the 4th makes it 2-0 Senators, and run-scoring singles from Stan Spence and Al Evans in the 5th extend it to a four-run lead.  The Royals try Jamey Wright from the pen to begin the 6th, and he holds the Nats scoreless for four innings.  However, that’s not quite as good as Haefner, who blanks the battered Royals for nine innings and finishes up a 2-hit shutout as the Senators move on with a 4-0, while the Royals return to the storage drawers to nurse their wounds.  

There were no particular partisans for the Zoom game of the week between the 2010 Rays and the 2007 A's; Tall Tactician liked the look of the 96-win, AL East-winning Rays while brother Chuck would try to squeeze the last dime out of the moneyball A’s, who had handled three pretty good teams in winning Regional #158 despite a mediocre 76-86 record.  Both managers were uneasy about their #4 starters, Wade Davis (12-10, 4.07) for the Rays and Chad Gaudin (11-13, 4.42) for Oakland, and were convinced this was going to be a high scoring affair.  Sure enough, the A’s Milton Bradley proves he’s a gamer with a solo homer off Davis’s generous gopher ball options in the bottom of the 1st, and although an RBI double in the top of the 2nd by Sean Rodriguez makes it a tie game, Mark Ellis homers in the bottom of the inning to put Oakland back on top, 2-1.  However, for the rest of his appearance Gaudin can’t escape an inning without allowing a run, with a Carl Crawford homer tying it in the 3rd, a 2-out RBI single by #9 hitter Bartlett in the 4th, and a run scoring single by Carlos Pena in the 5th providing Tampa with a 4-2 lead.   Meanwhile, Davis has taken control of the game for the Rays, but TT doesn’t trust those homer results and in the 6th moves immediately to Grant Balfour, but that turns out poorly as A’s DH Jack Cust crushes a 2-run homer to tie the game…one that would have been a 3-run homer but Shannon Stewart had been caught stealing.  Chuck then summons the A’s sole decent available relief pitcher, Huston Street, and although the Rays threaten, none score and the game enters the 8th still knotted.  At this point TT opts for the imposing Joaquin Benoit and his 1.34 ERA to try to send the game to extra innings, at which point Street will be toast with only terrible options remaining for the A’s.  However, Nick Swisher foils that plan with a long solo homer, and Street ends his eligibility for the super-regional with a 1-2-3 9th to seal the 5-4 win for the A’s and a trip to round five.  

This round four matchup was a Zoom game of the week, with Toronto-area resident Eaglesfly taking the reins of the 2000 Blue Jays.  The Jay had a middling 83-79 record despite oozing with steroid-era power that had bashed their way through Regional #160, but their rotation also bore the scars of that era and their #4 starter, Steve Trachsel (8-15, 4.80) was certainly no exception.  ColavitoFan volunteered to steer the 1995 Mets, who had a 69-75 record in that strike-shortened season that narrowed his #4 starting options to one:  Dave Mlicki (9-7, 4.26), and to make matters worse they would be without the services of injured 2B Jeff Kent for the foreseeable future.  The game begins ominously for the Jays, as Trachsel is injured while walking the first batter of the game, forcing a move to an already depleted bullpen resulting from some tough regional games.  Paul Quantrill then comes on and promptly allows a run-scoring double to Rico Brogna and the Mets move out to a 1-0 lead.  Unfortunately for the Mets, Mlicki does not get injured while allowing four hits to the Jays in the bottom of the 1st, including RBI hits from Carlos Delgado and Darren Fletcher, and Shannon Stewart adds another in the 2nd as the Jays move out to a 3-1 lead.  Mlicki then fails to get anyone out in the 3rd until allowing a 3-run homer to Tony Batista, and the Jays lead 6-1 but the good news is that ColavitoFan can finally pull the terrible Mlicki and Jason Isringhausen gets the assignment.  In the 4th, a last-minute lineup adjustment by ColavitoFan pays off as Chris Jones leads off the inning with a homer that narrows the gap to 6-2, and Ryan Thompson’s sac fly in the 6th makes it 6-3 as the Mets slowly inch back into the game.  In the top of the 7th, the Jays insert Lance Painter as their 4th pitcher of the game, and he paints the Jays a disastrous picture, yielding five hits including a big 2-run double to Brogna; by the time he’s pulled after recording only two outs, the Mets now hold a one run lead.  From there, it’s Doug Henry and John Franco thwarting the power-packed Jays lineup and the Mets pull off the remarkable comeback for the 7-6 win.  

The survivors:  round five

Two teams with losing records that nonetheless survived to round five, the 1990 Brewers and the 1947 Senators square off to determine which of them will play for the super-regional title.   Both teams were back to the top of their rotation, with the Nats’ Walt Masterson (12-16, 3.13) and Milwaukee’s Ted Higuera (11-10, 3.76) getting the honors.  In the bottom of the 1st, Buddy Lewis (who had just been the subject of a Friday Night Strat trivia question) hits a 2-out RBI double to give the Senators a quick lead, while Masterson is masterful in repeatedly bailing out the bad Nats defense.  The Brewers threaten in the top of the 7th with 1st and 3rd with one out, and the Senators bring in the infield; A-stealer Paul Molitor is tossed out trying to steal second and Masterson fans the next two batters to end the threat.  The Brewers get the tying run in scoring position in the 9th, but Masterson induces a grounder out of Molitor for the third out and the unlikely Washington Senators head to the super-regional finals with the 1-0 shutout gem. 

Brother Chuck had led the 2007 A’s to a come-from-behind win in round four, and although in the process he had burnt Oakland’s best reliever, he would have top-of-the-rotation Dan Haren (15-9, 3.07) on the mound, with RF Travis Buck still out with an injury suffered in the regional.  The matchup against a 1995 Mets team that had pulled off a remarkable comeback in their prior game seemed to merit a Zoom faceoff, and I would try to continue their luck with Bill Pulsipher (5-7, 3.98) hopefully doing better than he had in his round one start that had been won by his bullpen, a game in which Jeff Kent suffered an injury that continued to keep him out of the lineup.  Despite their best hopes, once again Pulsipher proves generous with the hits, yielding a series of RBI hits to Nick Swisher, Mark Ellis, and Dan Johnson as the Mets again are faced with a steep deficit after the top of the 1st.  However, as has been their way they immediately chip away at the lead, with a run scoring on a double play ball hit by Bobby Bonilla and a 2-out RBI single by Todd Hundley narrowing the gap to 3-2 in the bottom of the 1st.  Edgardo Alfonso ties the game in the bottom of the 2nd with an RBI single but Eric Chavez homers to lead off the 3rd to reestablish an Oakland lead.  In the 4th, Chaves adds a 2-run triple giving him the two hard parts of a cycle, and he scores on a Johnson single and it’s 7-3 A’s; the good news for the Mets is that Pulsipher can now be pulled, and Mike Birkbeck comes in to hold the A’s at bay for four innings.  In the meantime, Hundley picks up another RBI hit in the 5th and Rico Brogna makes up for missing a HR 1-16 split earlier with a solid HR solo shot in the 7th, and once again the Mets appear to be creeping back into the game.  A leadoff triple by Johnson in the 8th and I decide to go with John Franco for the strikeout to keep the Mets in the game; however, he does one better, with a LOMAX wiping out the running at third and a whiff to finish the inning with emphasis.  However, Mark Ellis gets to Franco with an RBI double in the top of the 9th, meaning that the A’s take an 8-5 lead into the bottom of the inning needing three outs to move on.  With little to work with in the pen, Chuck lets Haren take his shot at the final inning, but after recording an out Jose Vizcaino slaps a base hit, bringing up Bobby Bonilla; Chuck, showing inordinate fear of Bonilla, or perhaps his contract, opts to intentionally walk Bonilla for the second time in the game, a controversial move that puts the tying run at the plate in the form of Todd Hundley.  Hundley then draws a bases on balls, and suddenly the tying run is aboard and Chris Jones steps to the plate.  Now, Jones is only in the game because ColavitoFan had opted for his bat over Tim Bogar’s glove in the prior game, and I had retained that lineup since, after all, it had worked swimmingly in the prior round.  So Haren delivers, the roll is 1-6; a solid home run for a walk-off grand slam that gives the Miracle Mets a 9-8 victory.  A little research revealed that this is actually the 5th walk-off home run of the tournament, and the second (after the 1954 White Sox, how could I forget) to be immortalized on a Zoom game. 

Super-Regional final:  round six

In a very unlikely matchup for a super-regional final, the 64-90 1947 Senators, winners of five straight upsets, found themselves facing the 1995 Mets, who had put together two remarkable comebacks in their past two games to reach this spot.   The Nats would again be the underdogs according to the ELO ratings, but the Mets had some factors that might be equalizers, with Jeff Kent still out to injury, and closer John Franco burnt while their starter Pete Harnisch (2-8, 3.68) was not a Hall of Famer, unlike Washington’s Early Wynn (17-15, 3.64).  The Mets get to start playing from behind once again when the Senators get runs via a Mickey Vernon single and a 2-out double by Sherry Robertson, but Harnisch settles down and the Mets narrow the gap in the 4th when Bobby Bonilla leads off with a tape measure homer.  Two batters later, it’s round five hero Chris Jones with a long 2-run blast and the Mets have uncharacteristically come back to take the lead early in the game.  Although Harnisch is now mowing down the Nats, the Mets move to Jason Isringhausen to begin the 8th, but he loads the bases with two singles and a walk, and then he walks Stan Spence to tie the game with still nobody out.  After a lineout, PH Rick Ferrell laces a 2-run single, another PH Gil Coan adds an RBI single, and Eddie Yost provides a sac fly and suddenly the Mets are once again looking at another large late-inning deficit.  A single to begin the top of the 9th chases Isringhausen, but Doug Henry promptly loads the bases and Mickey Vernon drives the ball through a drawn-in infield and Farrell adds a sac fly and the Mets need another miracle staring at a six run deficit in the bottom of the 9th.  But Wynn isn’t having it, and the Mets go down as the Senators record a statement 9-3 win and become one of the most improbable teams to advance to the final field of 32.  

Interesting card of Super-Regional T:  At first, this may appear to be a partial rerun of this feature from Regional #155, which featured the card of the inestimable Gil Coan, but bear with me, because this is going to turn into a rant (warning: some math ahead).  Now, Mr. Coan once again helped lead his 1947 Senators to victory as a late inning sub, with 6 straight upsets putting them into the final 32 surviving teams in this tournament.  However, if you want to read my writeup on Mr. Coan, I'll refer you to my blog for his regional results, because here I want to take time to express my irritation with the game company for their latest assault on my White Sox.  To begin the math portion of our presentation, getting Mr. Coan to hit .500 is a difficult feat, because for the 50% of rolls where he is on the pitcher's card, he will only hit .256, the league average for the 1947 AL.  He makes up for that with a card on which 68.6% of at-bat results is a hit, which averages out to a projected batting average of .471--not quite .500, but I'll take it.  Now, consider the case of Eddie Murphy from the 1919 White (Black) Sox of the recently issued Deadball Diamond Gems.  Eddie's .486 average puts him in the same ballpark as Gil's--but his card doesn't, because only 37.9% of the AB results are hits.  Combine that with a .268 league average for the 1919 AL, and Eddie's card should be good for a .323 average: not .486, not Ted Williams, not even Pete Rose.  Now, perhaps for some reason Strat wanted to normalize Diamond Gems cards against each other--however, because of the quality of pitching on those teams, the "league average" would be even lower and Murphy would hit for even less.  But even that excuse can be ruled out based upon teammate Shoeless Joe's Diamond Gems card, where Jackson's .351 average presents as a card with 42.7% of ABs resulting in hits, combining for a .348 average against 1919 AL pitching--pretty close.  So why pick on Eddie Murphy--was it because of Beverly Hills Cop III?  Assuming not, I am left with two possible conclusions:  1) that Strat made a mistake and that we are owed an errata card for Murphy (for which I'm not holding my breath), or 2) that Strat suddenly decided (since Coan's 1947 card was only released a few years ago) to provide low AB wonders like Murphy (and Coan and the like) with "imagined" cards, based upon Strat's voodoo projections similar to the 2020 "imagined" or the Negro League DG teams.  If it's the latter, count me in the “opposed” category.  Just give me the card that is merited by the actual stats, and I'll decide how to use it, thank you.  I may be in the minority, but it is an empirical question:  just how well do you think those "2020 imagined" cards sold?

SUPER-REGIONAL S:  There were four pennant winners that began this group of 64, but three of them were in Regional #152 and the survivor of that bracket, the 2017 Dodgers, were the lone league champion in this group of eight.  The Dodgers were perhaps eager for revenge after getting trash-canned out of a Series win, but it looked like they would face some capable opposition in their quest to move on to the final set of 32 teams in the tournament.  These potential opponents included two Pirates teams on either side of their 1960 miracle squad, and entries from the Royals, Angels, and Twins that I seemed to remember having made strong runs in real life.  Still, the Dodgers seemed like the obvious choice as bracket favorites; I guessed that the steroid-era Twins would power past their opposition but that eventually their pitching would fall short in the finals.   The ELO rankings agreed, as they also had the Dodgers as prohibitive favorites, with the Twins really constituting the only real challenge they might face. 

Round four action

It’s the Beatlemania era for this round four matchup between the 1964 Indians and the 1963 Pirates, and being a pitching-rich era both teams had strong #4 starters for this game.  The Tribe had Jack Kralick (12-7, 3.20) while after three complete game wins in their regional the Pirates felt comfortable taking Al McBean (13-3, 2.58) out of the pen for a swing start in this game.  But Dick Howser begins the game by converting a split for a triple off McBean’s card, and he scores on a John Romano grounder, and later Tito Francona slides under the tag to score on a 2-out single by Leon Wagner for a 2-0 lead before the Bucs can bat.  The Pirates get another scare in the bottom of the inning when Roberto Clemente, who had already been knocked out for two games in the tournament regional, rolls an injury but he’s able to remain in the game.  In the 2nd slow-footed 1-9 Jerry Lynch tries to score for the Pirates on a single with two out, but he’s out by a mile, and it’s not until the 5th that Pittsburgh can get on the board with the faster Mazeroski able to score on a 2-out single by Smoky Burgess.  However, a Lynch single followed by a Donn Clendenon double to put two in scoring position with nobody out in the 6th, so Cleveland opts for Don McMahon and bring the infield in to try to keep the slim lead.  But young Willie Stargell rips a grounder ++ through the infield to score both runners and suddenly it’s a Pittsburgh lead.  And McBean’s rough start was quickly corrected, as he allows only one hit in the final six innings to complete a 5-hitter and the Pirates move on with the 3-2 comeback win.  

Both the 2004 Twins and the 1993 Angels had been pushed to extra innings in order to win their regional finals, meaning that both had some wear and tear on their bullpens with the bottom of their rotations coming up, with terrible Kyle Lohse (9-13, 5.34) for the Twins and the even worse John Farrell (3-12, 7.35) forced into service for the Angels because of a scarcity of innings in that strike year.  Surprisingly, nobody scores until Chad Curtis raps a 2-run double to give the Angels the lead in the bottom of the 3rd, and then the Twins’ primary power threat Justin Morneau immediately gets injured in the top of the 4th for the rest of the super-regional and beyond, making the picture even more bleak for Minnesota.  Even though Ferrell has a shutout going, the Angels go to their pen to begin the 6th, with Steve Frey, but in the 7th Cristian Guzman singles under the glove of 2B-3 Torey Lovullo to drive in a run that makes it a one-run game.  At that point the Twins summon reliever Juan Rincon to try to keep things close, and in the 9th Luis Rivas converts a SI 1-5 and then steals second to put the tying run in scoring position, but PH Shannon Stewart pops out on Frey’s card to send the underdog Angels on to round five with an unexpected 2-1 pitching duel, with California mustering only four hits in the win.   

The 69-85 1947 Cubs had relied upon fairly weak opposition, my White Sox jinx, and good work from their bullpen to win Regional #150, but they would now need #4 starter Hank Borowy (8-12, 4.38) to go late in the game against the 1955 Pirates.  However, in keeping with the fortunate draws of the Cubs, these Pirates were even worse on paper, going 60-94 but taking their regional despite ongoing injuries to Jerry Lynch and Johnny O’Brien, thanks to three strong complete game wins from the rotation.  However, the dropoff to Ron Kline (6-13, 4.15) was a big one and a 94-loss lineup missing two regulars was not a pretty sight.  The Pirates smallball their way to a run in the top of the 2nd on a double, a bunt and a sac fly from Dick Cole, while the Cubs load the bases in the 4th with a two-out rally but Don Johnson hits the Miami Vice hole in his best column and they get nothing to show for it.  In the 5th, weak hitting catcher Jack Shepard finds and converts Borowy’s HR split for a solo shot, and when Phil Cavaretta leads off the 6th with a base hit the Pirates pull Kline despite his shutout, and opt for Dick Hall who retires the side without incident.  In the top of the 7th RF-3 Bill Nicholson swishes on a Roberto Clemente flyball for a 2-base error, and Emil Kush is summoned from the pen with runners on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out.  Although he issues a walk to load the bases, the Cubs defense holds and it remains 2-0 Bucs going into the 7th inning stretch.   In the bottom of the inning, injury replacement 2B-4 Cole drops a Johnson grounder and Andy Pafko convert a 2-out SI* 1-12 split to drive in the Cubs’ first run; Cavaretta then further tests the terrible Pittsburgh defense and slaps a single past LF-4 Frank “the other” Thomas and the game is tied.  That holds to the bottom of the 9th, when Johnson leads off by driving a double past 3B-4 Gene Freese (who is apparently still a better fielder than his brother George).  Lennie Merullo singles off Hall’s card putting the winning run 90 feet away for the top of the order.  Hall gets Stan Hack to ground out, but then Pafko rips a liner into right, pinch runner Bobby Sturgeon trots home, and the reverse jinx for the Cubs continues to hold with a come-from-behind 3-2 win in which they hold the Pirates to only three hits.  

The 2017 Dodgers won 104 games and the NL pennant before losing a controversial Series to a trashcan-banging group from Houston, and as befitting a league champion they had a solid #4 starter in Yu Darvish (10-12, 3.86).  The 1987 Royals were a much less impressive 83-79 team but they had outscored their Regional #151 opposition 23 to 9 despite having lost Bo Jackson for the entire regional, and he would still be out for this matchup so it would be important for Bud Black (8-6, 3.60) to keep things close.  The Royals waste no time demonstrating their credentials, with Danny Tartabull smacking a 3-run homer in the top of the 1st for a rapid and healthy lead.  Back to back doubles by Curtis Granderson and Joc Pederson give the Dodgers a run in the bottom of the 2nd, and Darvish escapes a bases-loaded jam in the top of the 3rd to keep the Dodgers in striking distance.  In the 5th, Logan Forsythe misses Black’s 6-5 HR 1-3/DO split, the 4th time the Royals have done so in 5 innings, but Corey Seager finally makes him pay by singling in front of RF-4 Tartabull to score Forsythe, and the Royals lead is down to one.  Beginning with the 6th, both starters are on very short leashes, and it’s Black who gets pulled first after allowing a single to Yasmani Grandal, so John Davis enters the game; however, with two out Pederson doubles and the slow 1-8+2 catcher Grandal slides under the tag and the game is tied.  In the 7th, Chris Taylor draws a leadoff walk, steals second easily on C-4 Jamie Quirk, and races home on a Seager single and the Dodgers lead for the first time.  Cody Bellinger then doubles past 3B-4 Kevin Seitzer and a Justin Turner sac fly extends the LA lead, although the 1-14 Bellinger is out trying to score on a Yasiel Puig base hit.  Darvish yields a hit to George Brett in the 8th and the Dodgers summon Brock Stewart from the pen, who whiffs Steve Balboni and Frank White in succession to end that threat.  But in the 9th PH Lonnie Smith leads off with a single that LF-2 Pederson misplays, putting the tying run at the plate with nobody out.  PH Bill Pecota then singles and Smith scores easily, bringing up the top of the order with the tying run aboard and nobody out.  LA then reluctantly is forced to bring in Brandon Morrow to try to preserve the lead, and after a whiff, a walk, and another whiff Tartabull steps into the batter’s box.  However, he lofts a lazy fly and Pederson gloves it to seal the 5-4 win for the Dodgers and a visit to round five.  

The survivors:  round five

The 1963 Pirates and the 1993 Angels only won 74 and 71 games, respectively, but over four rounds of this tournament they’ve proven to have what it takes to win, and now both squads are back to the top of their rotation for round five:   Bob Friend (17-16, 2.34), who had tossed a 10-inning shutout for the Bucs in round one, and Mark Langston (16-11,3.20), who had a 3-hit shutout of his own under his belt for the Halos.  The Angels waste no time in breaking Friend’s scoreless streak, beginning the bottom of the 1st with three straight hits including a Tim Salmon RBI single, but a caught stealing and a DP prevent the inning from being worse for Pittsburgh.  A 2-out single by Rene Gonzales puts up another run for the Angels in the 2nd, but in the 6th an error by Langston helps to load the bases for Roberto Clemente; he misses a grand slam HR split, but two score on the resulting double and Jerry Lynch picks up the third runner on a sac fly and the Bucs take the lead.  A walk and a single to begin the 7th and the Angels decide that Langston is too rattled, so Mike Butcher comes in from the pen and he quickly escapes the jam when Bill Mazeroski pops into a DP on an attempted sacrifice.  However, in the 9th young Willie Stargell rips an RBI triple and Maz atones with a 2-out single that scores Pops, and Friend wraps up a new scoreless streak of seven innings as the Pirates march on to the super-regional final with the 5-2 win, their third come-from-behind win in a row.

The 1947 Cubs would need their luck to hold up in this round five matchup against the pennant-winning 2017 Dodgers, with both teams returning to the top of their rotation, with LA’s Alex Wood (16-3, 2.72) having the league’s best winning percentage while the Cubs’ Johnny  Schmitz (13-18, 3.22) led the league in losses.   Bill Nicholson leads off the top of the 2nd for the Cubs with a double, and Eddie Waitkus shoots a single in front of LA CF-3 Joc Pederson for an early Chicago lead, but in the bottom of the inning Yasmani Grandal rips an RBI single under the glove of Cubs SS-3 Lennie Merullo, and Curtis Granderson adds a sac fly that puts the Dodgers up 2-1.  Wood then survives a number of jams, but as the Dodgers are also held in check they opt for supercloser Kenley Jansen to begin the 8th in the hopes of preserving the one run lead.  And he records six straight outs, four by strikeout, to earn the save in the narrow 2-1 win that propels the Dodgers to the super-regional final.

Super-regional final

The super-regional final features the bracket favorite, 104-win 2017 Dodgers and Cy Young runner-up Clayton Kershaw (18-4, 2.31) against the 74-88 1963 Pirates, who had relied on their three Hall of Famers to get this far, while Don Cardwell (13-15, 3.07) would seek to reprise his four-hit complete game that he tossed in the second round.   The Pirates provide a quick demonstration of their mettle as Dick Schofield leads off the top of the 1st by finding Kershaw’s Achilles heel–a solid 5-5 home run that stuns the few Dodgers fans who arrived on time for the game.  However, in the bottom of the inning Cody Bellinger crushes a 2-run shot for an emphatic Dodger response and it’s game on.  The Pirates defense then crumbles in the 2nd, with errors by P-5 Cardwell, SS-3 Schofield, and 1B-2 Clendenon lead to four unearned runs, and in the 3rd Curtis Granderson gets an RBI triple on a missed HR 1-17 split and although Cardwell fans two to strand him at third, it’s still a 7-1 LA lead after three.  Jerry Lynch gets a run-scoring triple of his own in the 4th, but Donn Clendenon is promptly lost for the tournament with an injury and Lynch also gets stranded 90 feet away.  Three hits against Cardwell in the bottom of the 4th, the last an RBI double by Bellinger, and the Pirates move to the pen for Bob Veale and his 1.04 ERA, but Yasiel Puig singles in both baserunners to put the Dodgers up 10-2.  The Dodgers score on a Bellinger DP in the 6th to add to the pile, and then in the 8th Roy Face comes in to be battered with a Cory Seager RBI single followed by another 2-run homer by Bellinger.  The Pirates load the bases in the 9th with three singles for a last ditch effort, but Kershaw notches his 11th and 12th strikeouts of the game to end the beating and the Dodgers win the super-regional with a 14-2 blowout and stake their claim as a team to beat in the final round of 32.

Interesting card of Super-Regional S:  Although the 1963 Pirates fell short in the final, they did knock off five consecutive wins to get that far, and one of the reasons was timely hitting by a rookie that at age 23 was not yet being called “Pops” by his teammates.  Although he had a few appearances the prior season, 1963 was Stargell’s rookie year, and although it was probably the worst full season of his career, it deserves recognition as his first Strat card, the original of which is also presented here.  Stargell began playing organized baseball relatively late, and he was only the third best player on his high school team (behind future major leaguers Tommy Harper and Curt Motton), so he was not a particularly heralded rookie, and his early difficulties against LHP and the spacious dimensions of Forbes Field made for a slow start to his career.  He celebrated his first full season playing in Three Rivers Stadium by leading the majors with 48 homers, although he was famous for hitting tape-measure shots that would be a round-tripper anywhere–only four balls have been hit completely out of Dodger Stadium, and Stargell hit two of them.  In this tournament, the rookie Stargell had to step up after an injury to Pirates star Roberto Clemente, and he was good for one walk-off homer and five RBI in the five games leading up to the super-regional final–a pretty good showing for an unspectacular card.