SUPER-REGIONAL Z:  There were three pennant winners among the 64 squads that began this super-regional, but only one had survived to make this group of eight–a flash-in-the-pan Marlins team that went from wild card to Series champs.   However, there were some teams here that were with a season or two of their own pennants, including the Once Upon a Time in Queens Mets, the Bash Brothers A’s, and the Killer B’s Astros.  My guess was that it would be the A’s and the Mets in the final, with the A’s power prevailing over the Mets pitching; the ELO rankings selected the pennant-winning Marlins over a Cardinals team from the nineties to win what it portrayed as a fairly mediocre group of survivors.

Round four action

The 1984 Mets had most of the pieces in place that would frustrate Bill Buckner shortly thereafter, but they faced a pretty big dropoff in moving to their #4 starter, Bruce Berenyi (12-13, 4.45).   In contrast, the 1959 Orioles had begun a tradition in their new home in Baltimore of strong rotations, and Milt Pappas (15-9, 3.27) was an enviable option to have at the tail end of it, although the Orioles lacked the offensive weapons wielded by the boys from Queens.  Even so, the O’s load the bases in the top of the 1st courtesy of some walks on Berenyi’s card, but they can only convert one run on a sac fly from Gus Triandos.  The Mets cause isn’t helped any when leadoff hitter Wally Backman is knocked out of the game with an injury in the bottom of the 3rd, but his replacement Ron Gardenhire rips a ball past the infield that was holding Jose Oquendo on 1st and that ties the game in the 5th.  Mets DH Kelvin Chapman adds a 2-out RBI single in the 6th to give them the lead, and in the 7th Mookie Wilson chops a 2-out single, steals second, and scores on a Keith Hernandez hit to add to the lead. In the top of the 8th, a Gene Woodling leadoff single is followed by a double from Bob Nieman, and with the two runners in scoring position the Mets move to the pen for Doug Sisk, but Bob Boyd pokes a squib single to score one and then Mets C-3 Mike Fitzgerald can’t stop an errant Sisk pitch with two outs and the tying run crosses the plate.  However, in the bottom of the inning backup SS Rafael Santana bloops a 2-out RBI single, and then Gardenhire drives another hit that is misplayed by O’s LF-4 Bob Nieman and the Mets reassert their lead heading into the 9th.  The game is then turned over to Mets closer Jesse Orosco, and he shuts down Baltimore in order to close out the 5-3 win that sends New York to round five with the dominating top of their rotation coming up.  

The 1993 Cardinals won a solid 87 games and cruised through their regional outscoring opponents 22 to 7, and although #4 starter Rheal Cormier (7-6, 4.33) was quite hittable, their bullpen was deep despite closer Lee Smith needing rest.  The 1984 Rangers lost 92 games but had been able to overcome bad defense with decent pitching and timely hitting in their regional, and Danny Darwin (8-12, 3.94) was a pretty good option at the bottom of a rotation for a 90-loss team.  In the bottom of the 1st Larry Parrish finds Cormier’s solid 6-5 homer for a 2-run shot, and then an error by Cards 1B-4 Gregg Jeffries sets up another run on a fielder’s choice to make it 3-0 Texas after one.  Bernard Gilkey wastes no time striking back, leading off the 2nd with a triple and scoring on a Todd Zeile sac fly, and in the 6th Rangers SS-4 Curtis Wilkerson makes his second error of the game and that allows a run when PH Gerald Perry rips a single past 2B-4 Wayne Tolleson.   With the tying run now on third, the Ranger move to closer Dave Schmidt and he whiffs Mark Whiten to preserve the one-run lead.  A leadoff hit by Billy Sample and Cormier hits the showers, with Mike Perez tasked with keeping things close and he retires the side without damage.  However, in the 8th defensive replacement George Wright comes up with a clutch 2-out single that scores the speedy Sample and provides the Rangers with an insurance run; things get ugly from there as Perez loads the bases and Parrish delivers a 2-RBI single.  Les Lancaster then comes in only to walk the bases full once again, and Gary Ward delivers the grand slam; two walks later it’s backup catcher Marvis Foley with a 3-run homer and the Rangers bat around for a 10-run inning that has the Arlington crowd forgetting about the heat.  Hoping to preserve an overused Schmidt for a possible appearance in a regional final, Dickie Noles comes in to mop up and although he and the bad Ranger defense try to make it interesting by allowing a couple of runs, it’s not enough as Texas moves on with a dominating 13-4 win.

For Friday Night Strat, we recruited our Canadian representative Eaglesfly to manage perhaps the last remaining Montreal representative in the tournament, the 91-win 1987 Expos, to face me and the Bash Brothers in the 1987 A’s, whose 81-81 record was only a prelude to a couple of pennants that would follow.  We were at the dregs of the rotation and Montreal’s Floyd Youmans and the A’s Curt Young (13-7, 4.08) needed to hang on faced with depleted bullpens.  Tim Wallach’s RBI double in the bottom of the 1st provides les Expos with an early lead, and Vance Law and Hubie Brooks add run scoring hits in the 4th to extend their lead to 3-0.  Wallach adds a solo homer in the 7th and Mitch Webster adds a sac fly in the 8th, while Youmans is brilliant through 8 innings, fanning eight and holding the powerful A’s to three hits.  However, in the 9th Youmans comes back to reality, as Mark McGwire, Terry Steinbach, and Mike Davis all poke run-scoring singles and the A’s put the tying run on base as Eaglesfly nervously summons Andy McGaffigan to try to get the third out before the lead crumbles entirely.  And he does the job as the Expos survive a 5-3 win and move on, while the A’s run ends at three wins as they head back into storage.

Strat enthusiast Kevin decided to make a pilgrimage to Endless Tournament Central for a shot at leading some of the remaining entries from the Astros franchise towards the final stages of the project.   For this game, he would helm the 2003 Astros, a solid 87-win team that lost their division by one game and who would go on to win the NL pennant two years later; however, in this round four game they were down to their #4 starter, an uninspiring Ron Villone (6-6, 4.13).  That left me to manage the 1997 Marlins, whose 92 wins were only slightly better than Houston but who had gone on to win the Series championship from a wild card playoff slot; they would have Al Leiter (11-9, 4.34) on the hill.  Both pitchers get off to a strong start, and Craig Biggio doesn’t break the scoreless tie until the top of the 4th with an RBI single, while the Marlins are held hitless through four.  However, they get their first hit in the bottom of the 5th when Villone loses control and walks in two runs, and when Jeff Conine adds a 2-run homer in the 6th for only the third Marlins hit, Villone is pulled for Brad Lidge.  The Marlins don’t record another hit, but the Marlins pen in the form of Robb Nen and Dennis Cook prove to be too much for the ‘stros and the pennant-winning Marlins close out the 4-1 win to survive and advance.

The survivors:  round five

It’s an altogether Orwellian round five game between the 1984 Mets and the 1984 Rangers, but the prospects look bleak for the Rangers, who lost 92 games while the Mets won 90 in the same season.  To make matters worse, the Mets would be sending out Rookie of the Year winner and Cy Young runner-up Doc Gooden (17-9, 2.60) and they would be getting Wally Backman back in the lineup after a minor injury.  The Rangers were hoping that Mike Mason (9-13, 3.61) would do better than he did in round one, when he staked the 2008 Dbacks to an 8-0 lead before getting pulled, precipitating a furious comeback for a 13-9 Texas win.  In the bottom of the 3rd, Gooden walks .182 hitter Ned Yost and then a single on his card is his first hit allowed; that seemed to rattle him because then Larry Parrish delivers a 2-out, 3-run homer and the Rangers continue an offensive display that has averaged over eight runs a game through the first four rounds.  A sac fly by Wayne Tolleson makes it 4-0 after four, and from there Mason is dominating.  He doesn’t allow anything off his card until a Rafael Santana single to lead off the 9th, but then he walks two and the bases are loaded with one out.  George Foster then hits a grounder towards the terrible Rangers up-the-middle defense, and true to form 2B-4 Tolleson drops it and one run scores, putting the go-ahead run at the plate in the form of Darryl Strawberry.  The Rangers stick with their ace Mason, and he walks Strawberry and now the tying run is at second.  A glance at the Texas bullpen yields no obvious solutions, and so Mason pitches to Hubie Brooks, who pops out rolling in his prime column.  The Mets then summon an ancient icon to pinch hit for weak-hitting catcher Mike Fitzgerald:  40-year old Rusty Staub, with a chance to recapture past glories.  But it is not to be; Mason strikes him out for whiff number 7, just one shy of Gooden’s total, and the underdog Rangers earn a berth in the super-regional finals with a 4-2 win.

With Canadian partisan Eaglesfly having led the 1987 Expos through round five, he had to reprise his leadership against a world champion 1997 Marlins team, with both squads returning to the top of their rotations:  Florida’s Kevin Brown (16-8, 2.69) against Montreal and Dennis Martinez (11-4, 3.30).  It’s the tail end of the Expos order that gets them on the board first, with Casey Candaele and Herm Winningham contributing RBI knocks in the 2nd and Candaele adding an RBI double in the 3rd to make it 3-0 Montreal.  However, Marlins guest manager ColavitoFan had made a last-minute lineup replacement to insert Cliff Floyd into the order, and he responds with a 3-run homer in the bottom of the 6th to tie the game.  Gary Sheffield then gives the fish the lead with a run-scoring triple in the 7th, and Martinez is pulled for Tim Burke, but that doesn’t go any better as Craig Counsel raps a bases-loaded single for two more runs in the 8th.  Meanwhile, Brown continues to work himself out of jams and he manages to close out a 6-3 win for the Marlins, and the last surviving Montreal squad goes down to eliminate their shot at the tournament title.

Super-regional finals

The super-regional final matches the World Series champion 1997 Marlins against an unlikely 92-loss 1984 Rangers team that had slugged their way past more highly rated opposition through their first five games; both starters were decent with Frank Tanana (15-15, 3.25) on the hill for the Rangers and Alex Fernandez (17-12, 3.59) getting the assignment for Florida.  The upstart Texans jump to a quick lead on an RBI single from Pete O’Brien in the top of the 1st, but then a series of misfortunes strikes.  First, the top of the 3rd inning ends with consecutive injuries to Buddy Bell and Larry Parrish, depriving the Rangers of two of their best hitters.  Then, in the bottom of the 3rd Tanana, who is cruising, is also injured, and closer Dave Schmidt comes in to immediately allow a single and then a two run homer to Charles Johnson and Florida leads with Texas having few weapons to work with.  They finally squeeze a few hits off Fernandez in the 8th, and Alan Bannister manages a squib single that ties the game, but Livan Hernandez comes in to shut things down and the game heads to extra innings.  Jay Powell enters the game in the 10th for the Marlins and he shackles the depleted Ranger offense, and in the bottom of the 11th Gary Sheffield converts a TR 1-3 against Dave Tobik that provides the walk-off RBI as the pennant-winning Marlins add a super-regional title to their list of accomplishments, moving on as one of the last 32 teams left standing.

Interesting card of Regional Z:  The 1997 Marlins were an interesting team, winning this super-regional and also the World Series, despite finishing under .500 in 1996 and losing 108 games in 1998.  This one-hit wonder achieved their moment with a collection of good ballplayers who I tend to associate with other teams, guys like Kevin Brown, Alex Fernandez, Moises Alou, Edgar Renteria, and the infamous Bobby Bonilla, whose salary was largely paid by the Mets.  There wasn’t much in the way of homegrown talent on this team, but one player who made a splash debut with the Marlins was this guy.  Livan Hernandez (not to be confused, like I do, with his half-brother El Duque) was a phenom in Castro-era Cuba, leading Cuba to the 1992 and 1993 World Junior Championships and having a dominant performance in the 1994 Baseball World Cup.  However, he defected through Mexico to the US in 1995 at the (alleged) age of 20, and given his background he was a perfect fit with the Marlins given Miami’s large Cuban community.  After one appearance in late 1996, he was brought up to the majors for good in mid-June 1997, and he made the most of it, being runner-up to Scott Rolen for NL Rookie of the Year.  However, it was in the post-season where he really made his mark, winning the MVP award for both the NLCS and the World Series, only the fourth time that had been done.  For his career, he had only appeared in 18 major league games when he started Game 1 of the 1997 Series, still the record for the fewest of any Game 1 starter in the World Series.