SUPER-REGIONAL BB:  This group of regional winners was mainly made up of two franchises with three entries each:  three different Red Sox teams from three different decades, and three different Oakland teams from the relatively recent past.  The remaining two squads also looked competitive, involving a Reds team from the year following their most recent pennant, and a Mariners team that should be sporting some names like ARod, Griffey Jr., and Randy Johnson.  My hunch was that the most recent of the Red Sox teams would prevail in the finals against those Mariners; the ELO ratings agreed that 2016 Boston would take the finals, but predicted an all-Red Sox finals with 1999 making the 6th round as well.

Round four action

The 1996 Mariners were an 85 win team that were coming into their own, and they had proved their mettle in Regional #217 with two extra inning wins and a one-run victory in the regional final.  They would be taking on the 1999 Red Sox, who won 94 games and fell just short of a pennant in the ALCS that season; the Sox would send out knuckleballer Tim Wakefield (6-11, 5.08) against Seattle’s Bob Wolcott (7-10, 5.73) in a rather shaky-looking pitching matchup.  Sure enough, the scoring starts in the bottom of the 1st with an RBI single from Brian Daubach putting Boston up 1-0, but The M’s respond with RBI knocks from Edgar Martinez and Ken Griffey Jr. in the 3rd and Seattle leads.  Dan Wilson adds a solo homer in the 6th and they erupt in the 7th with a two-run ARod homer and a solo shot from Griffey and it’s 7-1 Seattle.  However, the Red Sox get to Wolcott in the bottom of the inning and by the time he’s pulled, the lead has narrowed to 7-4; Nomar Garciaparra adds a run-scoring double in the 8th and it’s a two-run game heading into the 9th.  A Jay Buhner insurance homer in the top of the 9th proves important as Jeff Frye singles in a run in the bottom of the 9th but Tim Davis comes in and records the final out as Seattle survives and advances with the 8-6 win.

The 1991 Reds fell from a Series championship the preceding year to a 74-88 record, but they had marched through Regional #219 behind timely hitting from a solid lineup; on the mound would be Randy Myers (6-13, 3.55) in his lone year serving as a starting pitcher.  The Billy Beane-led 2005 A’s flipped that record around at 88-74, with Moneyball paying off with a pitching staff that allowed an average of one run per game in their regional; Dan Haren ((14-12, 3.73) would get the responsibility of keeping that trend going.  The A’s help him out by battering Myers in the bottom of the 1st, with 4 hits off the pitcher’s card that include a 2-run single from Dan Johnson and another RBI single by Mark Kotsay for a 3-0 lead.   The A’s load the bases again in the 2nd, but this time come away with just a sac fly from Johnson that nonetheless extends the lead.  The Reds strike back in the 3rd with two out, back to back doubles by Hal Morris and Barry Larkin, and when rookie RF-3 Nick Swisher misplays a Chris Sabo single Larkin scores, narrowing the gap to 4-2.  In the 4th, a 2-base error by Swisher sets up an RBI double from Jeff Reed that makes it a one-run game, and multiple highlight reel plays by Reds SS-1 Larkin bail out a wild Myers to keep the A’s in range.  With the margin razor thin, a single in the top of the 6th provokes the A’s to summon closer Huston Street, but that doesn’t work as Bill Doran singles to send the tying run to third.  The A’s opt to play for the double play, and that also doesn’t work as Carmelo Martinez knocks a slow grounder and the only play is the force at second, allowing the tying run to cross the plate.  Meanwhile, the Reds are nervous about Myers but their top two relievers are burnt from the regional, and they opt to stick with Myers, who takes the tie into the bottom of the 9th and holds serve to send the game into extra frames.  New A’s reliever Octavio Dotel issues a walk to Hal Morris to lead off the 10th, and then Larkin pushes a single past the first baseman holding Morris to put the go ahead run on third.  In comes the infield; Dotel then whiffs Sabo but walks Paul O’Neill and the bases are loaded.  Up steps PH Chris Jones, infamous for a walk-off grand slam a few super-regionals ago.  Sure enough, it’s a 6-5, HR 1-19 on Dotel; even I can convert that split, and it’s a go-ahead grand slam for Jones and the Reds.  Myers has one more inning in him, and it’s 1-2-3, whiffing PH Bobby Kielty for the final out and the Reds come from down 4-0 to take the 8-4 win and will move on.  

I recruited brother Chuck to play a zoom game so that he could have the experience of managing Ted Williams on the 1959 Red Sox for this round four game, but we discovered that perhaps I wasn’t doing him any favors because Williams had his worst season, and two of their other starters, RF Jackie Jensen and SS Don Buddin, were out with injuries suffered in the regional.  He did have Bill Monboquette (7-7, 4.14) available as his #4 starter, who was a bit better than my options with the 2021 A’s, where I eventually opted for a homer-prone James Kaprielian (8-5, 4.07) in the hopes of reaching a rested and deep bullpen.  But it was the A’s Matt Chapman who finds a pitcher HR result first, a solo shot in the top of the 2nd that puts the A’s up 1-0.  However, in the bottom of the inning Kaprielian can’t get anyone out, loading up the bases for Bob Costas’s favorite Strat player Gary Geiger, and Geiger strokes a 2-run single followed by a Pumpsie Green sac fly that makes it 3-1 Red Sox.   The A’s strike back in the 3rd with a Tony Kemp RBI double to make it a one-run game, but the Splendid Splinter strikes back in the bottom of the inning with a 2-run single and Kaprielian is gone.  The A’s pen then holds Boston at bay, and although Kemp hits into a run-scoring double play to narrow the gap to 5-3 in the 5th, subsequent threats are foiled and Geiger adds insurance with a two run homer in the 8th.  The A’s mount a rally in the 9th and Mike Fornieles is summoned from the pen to put out the fire, which he does, and the Red Sox move on with a 7-3 victory; Buddin will be back for their round five game but the more important Jensen will remain sidelined for the foreseeable future.  

Fresh off a viewing of Moneyball, brother Chuck seized the opportunity to direct the pre-movie 1999 A's, who were a solid 87-win team, while I would manage the 2016 Red Sox, who won 93 games and the AL East.  As usual with a round four matchup, the teams were at the ugly end of their rotations, with Chuck gambling on Kenny Rogers (5-3, 4.30) while Boston’s Eduardo Rodriguez (3-7, 4.71) was hardly a sure bet either.  John Jaha gets the A’s off to a quick lead with an RBI double in the top of the 1st, but the Red Sox keep pace with a Mookie Betts single that ties it in the bottom of the inning.   However, Rodriguez runs into trouble in the top of the third, with Eric Chavez cracking a two-run triple in the 3rd, and from there it’s just knowing when to hold ‘em for Rogers as the A’s add a few more unnecessary insurance tallies courtesy of Randy Velarde and Ben Grieve.   Meanwhile, Rogers deals a 7-hit complete game and the A’s cruise to round five with the 5-1 victory.

The survivors:  round five

Given that Chuck had won previously with both contestants in this round five game, he got dibs and went with the 1999 A’s and Tim Hudson (11-2, 3.23), leaving me with the 1959 Red Sox and a rather pedestrian (and thus far unproductive) Ted Williams in support of Ike Delock (11-6, 2.95).  The A’s flex their superior offense in the bottom of the third with RBI hits from Jason Giambi and Matt Stairs, but that pales in comparison to their demonstration in the 4th, where five runs are plated including a three-run double from Stairs that makes it 7-0.  A John Jaha solo homer in the 6th adds to the damage, and although Sammy White gets Boston on the board in the 7th with an RBI single, Stairs responds in the 8th with a hit that drives in his 5th and 6th RBI of the game and the A’s crush the Red Sox by a 10-1 margin to earn a shot at the final field of 32.   

Brother Chuck had a big success with ARod and the 1996 Mariners in round four, and now they were facing an underdog 1991 Reds team that was still missing Eric Davis due to an injury suffered in the regional.  However, Jose Rijo (15-6, 2.54), who had finished 4th in Cy Young voting and had tossed a three-hit shutout in round one of the tournament, was back on the mound for the Reds, hoping to be the great equalizer against the durable Jamie Moyer (6-2, 3.31) for Seattle.  Unfortunately for the M’s, the duration for Moyer proves to be quite short, as the Reds pound him for six runs in the bottom of the 1st, including a Glenn Braggs three-run homer, and Moyer exits after 2/3rds of an inning.  In comes Randy Johnson, but he’s racked for RBI hits from Paul O’Neill and Bill Doran in the 2nd and Cincinnati leads 8-0 after two.  The Mariners don’t get their second hit of the game until the 7th, an inning after defensive replacement Mariano Duncan hits a three-run shot for the Reds off Mike Jackson, and the dice aren’t cooperating for Chuck this time around as Rijo finishes with his second 3-hit shutout of the tournament, sending the overachieving Reds to the super-regional final with the blowout 11-0 win. 

Super-regional finals

The super-regional finals featured two teams that had blown out tough opponents in round five.  The 1991 Reds were playing more like the pennant-winning version from their prior season than their mediocre actual record would suggest; they would send out Tom Browning (14-14, 4.18) for the final matched against Omar Olivares (15-11, 4.16) and the 1999 A’s.  Both teams were at full strength and had fully rested bullpens, and when Hal Morris hits the first pitch of the game for a solid homer in the top of the 1st, it looks like those pens might be needed.  It doesn’t take long for the A’s to respond, with Randy Velarde ripping a 2-run double in the bottom of the 2nd and in the next inning it’s RBI singles from Mike McFarlane and Eric Chavez giving the A’s a 4-1 lead.  Carmelo Martinez narrows the gap a bit in the 4th with a sac fly, but from there Olivares just gets stronger, allowing only two hits over the final five innings of the game, while solo homers from John Jaha and Miguel Tejada push the game out of reach.  Thus, it’s the pre-Moneyball A’s that move on to the final field of 32 with a 6-2 win, relegating the Nasty Boys to the storage drawers and earning a shot at the tournament title–if they can win five more games in a row.

Interesting card of Super-Regional BB:  The fact that this Strat card is unremarkable is what makes it remarkable; it represents what was by far the worst season in the career of the Splendid Splinter.  It’s far from a terrible card, what with a very nice .372 on-base percentage and a .419 slugging percentage that wasn’t bad at all.  Those combine for a .791 OPS in a season where the league average was .707, underscoring that Williams was still a better than average offensive weapon. In fact, he was elected to the All-Star team and received votes for MVP.  But in his 19 seasons in the majors, 1959 was the only one in which he failed to have an OPS over 1.000–a truly remarkable accomplishment.  In ‘59, he experienced neck issues during spring training, often wearing a neck brace trying to overcome it.  Most people expected him to retire, and his MVP votes may have been intended to honor the end of a great career, but Williams didn’t want to end on that note.  He asked to play one more season but insisted on a 30% pay cut because of his “poor” 1959, and he finished out with a 1960 season posting a 1.096 OPS and famously homering in his final at-bat in the majors.  Was there ever a better pure hitter than him?