REGIONAL #188:  This group features the inaugural season of one Jackie Robinson, with he and his teammates capturing the pennant in 1947 to make them the highest profile squad in this group.  However, another noteworthy entry was a Yankees team that won the AL the season before AND the season after, but had their streak interrupted by the Go-Go Sox.  There were two examples of the Diamondbacks, one of them coming two years after their first NL pennant, and teams from the Tigers, Cubs, Angels, and A’s that I suspected included one or two decent squads.   I figured the Dodgers would get past the Dbacks in the bottom of the bracket, while I picked the Yankees to make the final despite the generally unimpressive showing of their 1950s teams in this tourney.  That would set up a classic Dodgers/Yankees final, where I predicted that number 42 and his colleagues would prevail.  For the second regional in a row, the ELO ratings agreed with my predictions, making the Dodgers odds-on favorites to win their second regional in a row.

First round action

The 1997 Angels were an 84-78 team that rode the bats of Tim Salmon and Jim Edmonds and endured the declining years of Eddie Murray and Rickey Henderson; they would give Chuck Finley (13-8, 4.23) his 10th start in this tournament, which has to be a record.  Speaking of Rickey H., he was also playing for the 77-85 1984 A’s, and he wasn’t the only thing shared between the teams as Tony Phillips was batting leadoff for both squads.  The ace for the A’s was Ray Burris (13-10, 3.15) and he was backed by the longball threat from Dave Kingman and Dwayne Murphy.  The Angels start the fireworks early with a 2-run homer from Salmon in the top of the 1st, while the A’s load the bases in the bottom of the inning but Davey Lopes makes the third out on a 3-3 roll with a grand slam sitting at 3-4.  In the bottom of the 3rd, Oakland’s Henderson finds and converts Finley’s HR result for a solo shot, and then Carney Lansford rolls the same result but misses the split for a double; however, he’s cut down trying to score on a Kingman single and the score is 2-1 Angels after three.  Edmonds adds some insurance in the 6th with a two out solo homer, but when Mike Heath leads off the bottom of the 7th with a double off Finley’s card, the Angels take no chances and bring in closer Troy Percival to head off the threat.  He retires six straight, and as the game heads into the bottom of the 9th the Angels wish to preserve Percival and bring in a no-name reliever (literally no name on his card; apparently one Pep Harris) to close things out.  He makes a name for himself with an uneventful inning and a save, and the Angels move on with the 3-1 win even though Burris held them to only five hits, while Chuck Finley evens out his tournament record at 5-5.

They had won four pennants in a row before, and they would win another five in a row afterwards, but the 1959 Yankees came up short, finishing only 79-75 in third place behind the Go-Go Sox.  Although many of the famous names were there, aside from Mantle they weren’t having particularly good seasons, and their defense was porous.  They went with Art Ditmar (13-9, 2.90) for the round one start, even though I remember once skipping over Whitey Ford in the first round for a different 50s Bombers and coming to regret it.  Their opponents, the 2009 Diamondbacks, lost 92 games and like the Yanks, were skipping over a bigger name pitcher in Max Scherzer to start Dan Haren (14-10, 3.14), who finished 5th in the Cy Young voting despite pitching for a bad team.  In the bottom of the 3rd, a 2-base error by Yankee 3B-4 Hector Lopez enables the Dbacks to score a run on an Augie Ojeda sac fly before either team had recorded a hit in the game.  However, in the 4th Arizona SS-2 Stephen Drew returns the favor with a 2-base error, and a 2-out single by Bill Skowron–the first hit of the game–ties things up.  Then, Lopez atones for his bad fielding with a 2-out solo shot to put NY ahead.  Justin Upton finally breaks up Ditmar’s no-hitter in the bottom of the 7th by converting a 3-12 SI* 1-2 split, but the Dbacks can’t take advantage of it, and little Bobby Richardson homers off Haren’s card in the 8th to provide an insurance run.  That’s more than Ditmar needs, as he closes out the 3-1 win for the Yanks; Haren tosses a 4-hitter himself but absorbs the loss.  However, in a meaningless at bat in the 9th, Skowron is injured for six games and the Yanks will miss his bat behind Mantle’s.

The 1947 Dodgers won 94 games and the NL and were the top seed here, but in setting their lineup I was surprised by the lack of power (12 homers was tops on the team) in a field that I’d always assumed to be pretty homer-friendly.  I noticed that they finished seven games better than their Pythagorean projection, and so it seemed that they could use a strong showing from their ace Ralph Branca (21-12, 2.67) with no Bobby Thomson-like incidents.  He would face the 76-86 1996 Cubs, whose Sammy Sosa and Ryne Sandberg combined to hit as many homers as the entire Dodger lineup, but Steve Trachsel (13-9, 3.03) had a fair share of longballs on his card as well.  The Cubs break the stalemate in the top of the 5th with a 2-run single from Scott Servais, and then in the 5th a 2-out error by Dodger 2b-2 Eddie Miksis is followed by a 3-base error from their RF-4 Dixie Walker, and the Cubs lead grows to 4-0.  In the 8th, Luis Gonzalez adds an RBI single and defensive replacement Rey Sanchez follows that with a HR off Branca’s card and it looks like the favorites are going down hard.  A squib RBI single from Tyler Houston adds to the damage, and Trachsel finishes up the 5-hit shutout as the Cubs roll over the top seed with an 8-0 laugher.

The 2003 Diamondbacks were a couple of season past their first pennant, but they still had much of that squad intact and they were good for an 84-78 record and the #4 seed in this bracket.  Although their famous pitching tandem of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson were still around, their top starter was Brandon Webb (10-9, 2.84) who would be making his 4th start of the tournament, sporting a 1-2 record in his previous efforts.  He would try to even up his record against the 79-83 1997 Tigers, who got career years out of Bobby Higginson and Tony Clark, but their rotation after Justin Thompson (15-11, 3.02) was pretty gruesome.  In the bottom of the 2nd, the normally sure-handed DBack CF-2 Steve Finley misplays a single by Clark, and that sets up a sac fly by free-swinging Melvin Nieves for a Tiger lead.  Meanwhile the Dbacks don’t register a hit against Thompson until a Carlos Baerga single in the 5th, but that leads nowhere, and although they load the bases in the 6th they again fail to capitalize.  However, in the 8th Finley makes up for his fielding miscue with a solo HR off Thompson’s card.  The Tigers respond in the bottom of the inning with Brian Hunter drawing a walk and stealing second, so the Dbacks head to the pen for closer Matt Mantei, but he can’t prevent Higginson from stroking a 2-out RBI single and the Tigers regain the lead heading into the 9th.  That puts it in Thompson’s hands, and he closes out a 6-hitter and the Tigers squeak by to the semifinals with the 2-1 win.

The survivors

The Yankees DL

The 1959 Yankees and the 1997 Angels both survived the first round winning with identical 3-1 scores, notching only a total of nine hits between them, and both were hoping for better offensive performance as the opposition dug deeper into their rotation.  Although the Yanks would be missing the bat of Bill Skowron, they felt good about the prospects of sending out Whitey Ford (16-10, 3.04) against Angels spot starter Shigetoshi Hasegawa (3-7, 3.93).  In the bottom of the 1st, Hector Lopez, stepping into the cleanup spot vacated by Skowron’s injury, cracks a 2-run homer, but a spate of Ford wildness in the 3rd loads the bases to set up a 2-out 2-run single by Tim Salmon that ties it up.  Unfortunately, in the bottom of the inning the Yanks watch their tournament aspirations go up in smoke as Mickey Mantle is carted off the field with a 7 game injury, “replaced” in the lineup by Marvelous Marv Throneberry.  The Angels smell blood and get a run in the 4th on a Gary Disarcina RBI single that scores Garret Anderson.  Both pitchers then hold until Gil McDougald leads off the bottom of the 7th with a triple, leading the Angels to summon closer Troy Percival in the hopes of recording some strikeouts.  The Angels bring the infield in, and Bobby Richardson hits a grounder, McDougald breaks for home, and he’s out on the fielder’s choice.  Percival then whiffs Kubek and Throneberry, and it’s crisis averted.   Percival then gets two quick outs in the 8th, but then Elston Howard wakes up the depressed Yankee Stadium crowd with a long bomb that ties the game heading into the 9th, with Percival now burnt for the regional.  However, the crowd quickly relapses as Disarcina converts Ford’s HR 1-5/flyB for a 2-run shot in the top of the 9th.  So, to begin the bottom of the 9th it’s once again the Angels’ no name reliever (aka Pep Harris) looking for his second straight save.  He gets two quick outs, but then SS-2 Disarcina drops a Kubek grounder, Throneberry draws a walk, and up comes Hector Lopez, who already has two homers in the regional, as the winning run.  But he grounds out harmlessly and the Angels survive and advance to the finals with the 5-3 win over the game but battered Yankees.  

Two near-contemporaries that were upset winners in round one, the 1996 Cubs and Jaime Navarro (15-12, 3.92) would face the 1997 Tigers with Willie Blair (16-8, 4.17) for the right to vie for the regional title.  In the bottom of the 3rd, Deivi Cruz bounces a double past Cubs LF-3 Luis Gonzalez, and he scores on a Tony Clark single to put the Tigers ahead, but the Cubs tie it up in the 5th on a Mark Grace RBI single.  In the 6th, Brian Hunter draws a leadoff walk, steals second, and scores when RF-2 Sammy Sosa can’t get to a Bobby Higginson single, and the Tigers regain the lead.  However, as is often the case in a semifinal game neither team will surrender, and in the top of the 7th Scott Servais hits a solo shot off Blair’s card, and two singles later the Tigers summon closer Todd Jones from the pen hoping for something better.  He whiffs PH Brant Brown, walks Sosa to load the bases, and then strikes out Ryne Sandberg and the game remains tied.  When Cruz leads off the bottom of the 8th with a double, the Cubs decide to move to their pen and Turk Wendell comes in; he whiffs Hunter but then Damion Easley knocks a base hit and 1-14 Cruz beats the throw to put the Tigers back on top.  Hoping to preserve Jones for the final, the Tigers bring in Doug Brocail to close in the 9th, but that proves unwise when an error by 2B-3 Easley is followed by two singles, with one by Brown driving in a game-tying run.  Brocail then gets Sosa to ground into a DP, and when Wendell retires the Tigers in the bottom of the inning we head to extra frames.  Both pens hold, but when Brocail is burnt for the regional in the 13th the Tigers are forced to go to the nether regions of their bullpen, with AJ Sager the least terrible option.  His first pitch to Jose Hernandez is a 5-9, HR 1-18/TR, and he misses the split with a 19 but the inherited runner Rey Sanchez scores.  The next batter, Servais, also rolls a hit on Sager’s card, Hernandez scores, and the Cubs take a two run lead into the bottom of the 13th, with Larry Casian assigned the job of closing out the game.  He rips through a succession of Detroit pinch hitters, and the Cubs come from behind three different times to take the 5-3 13-inning battle to reach the finals.

It’s an all-90s final with the #4 seeded 1997 Angels against the #5 seed 1996 Cubs representing the middle of the pack of the regional.  As is typical of middle of the pack teams, the #3 starters for these squads were worrisome, with Anaheim’s Ken Hill (9-12, 4.55) pretty bad and the Cubs’ Frank Castillo (7-16, 5.28) even worse, and both teams had seriously stretched their pens during the semifinals.  Sure enough, in the top of the 1st Castillo walks the first batter and then allows a solid 6-9 homer roll to Darin Erstad.  Then, in the 2nd Castillo allows a single off his card to Garret Anderson, and that’s followed by another 6-9 roll for Chad Kreuter and things are getting ugly quickly.  However, Castillo then responds with three hitless innings, and the Cubs begin chipping away with a 2-run homer from Luis Gonzalez in the bottom of the 5th.  In the 6th, Grace leads off with a single, Tyler Houston doubles past LF-3 Anderson, and then runners on 2nd and 3rd and first base open, the Angels elect to pitch to the cold Sammy Sosa, who warms to the occasion with a 3-run moon shot that sends the Cubs into the lead and their yuppie scum fans into a frenzy.  When Tony Phillips singles to lead off the top of the 8th, the Cubs decide not to risk any more longballs off Castillo and he departs to considerable applause, with Terry Adams charged with closing things out.  He whiffs Erstad, but promptly gets injured on the next batter, which is something the Cubs definitely did not plan on and Kent Bottenfield gets pressed into emergency service and he retires Salmon to maintain the one-run lead.  Things stay that way heading into the 9th, where Bottenfield gets two quick outs, but then PH Jack Howell raps a single and Rickey Henderson pinch runs representing the tying run.  Kreuter then hits a grounder to 2B-2 Sandberg, but he muffs it and the tying run is now in scoring position, and PH Luis Alicea steps to the plate.  But he hits a soft liner to Jose Hernandez at third, and the Cubs take home their 8th regional crown with the 5-4 comeback win.

Interesting card of Regional #188:  Does anyone else think this card might have shortchanged Melvin by a few strikeouts?  I realize that in the current era, 157 strikeouts doesn’t even place a batter on the leaderboard in that category anymore, but still, accumulating those in only 300+ ABs is an impressive amount of whiffing.  Of course, Nieves had big shoes to fill as a Tigers right fielder, attempting to follow in the footsteps of the immortal Rob Deer.  Perhaps he did so a little too well, as Nieves only played one more season in the majors before being demoted to the minors, where he spent nearly 10 seasons unsuccessfully learning to make contact.  Sadly, Nieves was arrested in 2022 in Puerto Rico after taking the congregation in a Mormon church hostage and threatening to kill them; police eventually subdued him with a Taser.  News reports did not indicate whether he fired on the police, but if so, it’s safe to guess that he missed.

REGIONAL #187:  The team that caught my eye in this draw was the ‘65 Cardinals, who had won the Series the previous year and would win it again two years later.  I also figured that entries from the Astros and Dodgers could be contenders, and although the Reds had two representatives in the bracket I didn’t think that either of them would be formidable.  My hunch was that the Cards would best the Angels for the top half of the group, but their mid-60s offense would come up short against the greater depth of the more modern Dodgers in the final.  The ELO rankings saw things pretty much the same way, although indicating that the Dodgers’ path to the finals might be challenging.  

First round action

The 1965 Cardinals slumped to an 80-81 record after winning the Series the previous season, and although they had some weapons at the top of the order, aside from Bob Gibson (20-12, 3.07) it looked like they would need to make use of a pretty solid bullpen.   The 76-86 1976 Rangers looked like a mid-60s team in that they were largely punchless, but they had some workhorses in the rotation with Gaylord Perry (15-14, 3.24) constituting an interesting (and contrasting) matchup with Gibson.  In the top of the 3rd, Lou Brock finds and converts Perry’s HR 1-9 split for a 2-out 2-run shot and an early lead.  That lead extends in the 4th when the Cards record another run on an error by 1B-4 Mike Hargrove, and then 3B-4 Roy Howell can’t get to a Mike Shannon single that brings in two more to make it 5-0 St. Louis.  The Cards put in their ‘67 DP combo of Maxvill and Javier for defensive purposes in the 6th, but Hargrove finds Gibson’s HR result for a 2-run shot that narrows the lead.  From there, both HOF pitchers are in control and the game wraps up with a 5-2 Cardinals win, Gibson earning the win with a 5-hitter and Perry the loss despite allowing only four hits.  

The 1984 Angels lineup was populated by a bunch of free agents who had made their name elsewhere, but Gene Autry’s money only resulted in an 81-81 record; however, they did have a solid homegrown product in Mike Witt (15-11, 3.47) on the mound for the first round start.  They were slight favorites over an 89-loss 2005 Reds team that had a primary weapons in Griffey Jr. and Adam Dunn’s 40 homers, although everybody in the starting lineup had a SLG% over .400; but there was not much in the rotation with Aaron Harang (11-13, 3.83) by far the best option.  The Angels move to an early lead when Fred Lynn launches a 2-run homer in the bottom of the 1st, and Witt starts out dominant, not allowing a baserunner until a Felipe Lopez single in the 4th.  However, Witt’s second time through the Reds order proves to be more troublesome, and a 2-out 2-run single by Edwin Encarnacion ties the game in the top of the 5th.  The Angels quickly respond in the bottom of the inning, and an RBI single by Lynn, a run-scoring fielder's choice on a Brian Downing grounder, and a 2-base error by Reds RF-2 Austin Kearns and it’s 5-2 Angels after five.  The Reds punch back in the 6th, with Adam Dunn converting a DO 1-3/flyB to drive in a run, but he’s nailed trying to score (1-12+2) on a Jason LaRue single for the third out.  Kearns leads off the 7th with a double and then PH Ryan Freel knocks him in with another double, and with the lead down to one the Angels are at Witt’s end and reluctantly summon their only decent reliever, Doug Corbett.  But he allows a single to Sean Casey, the fleet Freel flies home, and the game is tied. The rattled Corbett then delivers a hanging curve to Felipe Lopez, who deposits it somewhere by the base of the big A for a 2-run shot and a Reds lead.  That doesn’t last long, as Doug Decinces blasts a 2-run homer in the bottom of the inning that ties the game and the Reds summon THEIR only decent reliever, Brian Shackelford, and he survives some fielding lapses without further damage.  Doubles from LaRue and Kearns give the Reds a one run lead in the top of the 8th, and they load up on defensive replacements after having committed three errors already in the game.  It comes down to the bottom of the 9th, and Shackelford gets two quick outs to face Reggie Jackson.  With chants of “Reggie!” ringing loud, it’s a 2-7 roll, HR 1-7/flyB.  The split die comes to rest on a 16, and Mr. October and his teammates head back to the storage drawers as the Reds pull off the see-saw 8-7 victory.    

The 1995 Astros were the #2 seed in the group, going 76-68 in that strike-shortened season aided by some Killer B’s and they still managed to get 30 starts out of Shane Reynolds (10-11, 3.47).  They had the good fortune to be matched against the 2021 Pirates, a 101-loss team consisting of some of the ugliest cardstock this side of a recycling center; other than Bryan Reynolds, I doubted that anyone in the lineup could start for another team in this bracket, and Tyler Anderson (5-8, 4.35) was the best option in a shallow rotation that would likely need the seemingly endless supply of bad relievers who were carded for this team.  Of course, no sooner do I disparage the Pirates lineup than Anthony Alford finds and converts Reynolds’ HR 1-9 split for a 2-run shot in the bottom of the 1st.  The Astros get one of those runs back on a Dave Magadan fielder’s choice in the 2nd, but in the 3rd Alford gets another RBI as B. Reynolds races home on Alford’s 2-out single.  Wilmer Difo (who was apparently NOT the Green Goblin in the Spiderman movies) leads off the top of the 6th with a triple, and after a mound conference Houston leaves Reynolds in hoping for the strikeout.  However, Ke’Bryan Hayes singles to drive in the run, and Reynolds is gone as Todd Jones comes in just in time for Jacob Stallings to roll his HR split–it’s a miss, but Hayes scores on the resulting double and the Pirates are now up by five.  They get a scare in the 7th when their best hitter Reynolds goes down with an injury, but reports indicate that he’ll be ready to go for the second round.  A couple of singles in the 8th and the Pirates move to wild Kyle Crick out of the pen, but he escapes the inning unscathed after walking the bases full, and then sets Houston down in order as the Pirates, in classic #8 seed style, respond to my insults by rolling to a 6-1 upset win.

The 2013 Dodgers were the top seed in the regional courtesy of 92 wins and the NL West pennant, and they were two games away from a Series appearance.  Although their lineup was solid with a formidable 1.040 OPS from SS Hanley Ramirez (if he could stay healthy), their real strength was their pitching staff, anchored by Cy Young winning Clayton Kershaw (16-9, 1.83).  However, the 1996 Reds didn’t look like pushovers despite a mediocre 81-81 season, with a stellar DP combination in Barry Larkin and Bret Boone, although after John Smiley (13-14, 3.64) their rotation mainly elicited frowns.  In the top of the 1st, Yasiel Puig hits a solo shot clear out of Cinergy Field, almost beaning Reds owner Marge Schott who was banned from entering the stadium at the time.  From there both pitchers are in fine form, but when Smiley allows a leadoff hit in the 7th the Reds confer but let him try to work his way out of the inning.  He gets one out but then Juan Uribe finds and converts Smiley’s HR result for a 2-run shot and it’s time for closer Jeff Brantley.  Things do not go well for Brantley in the 8th, as after a Puig RBI single, Adrian Gonzalez rolls Brantley’s HR 1-14/flyB result and pops a 14 on the split die for a 3-run blast and Reds fans head for the exits, from which they get to witness Andre Ethier miss the same split later in the inning.  Making up that deficit against Kershaw ain’t gonna happen, and he ends with a 3-hit shutout as the Dodgers cruise to the semis with the 7-0 victory.  

The survivors

The #3 seeded 1965 Cardinals were facing life after Bob Gibson, but even with Tracy Stallard (11-8, 3.39) they had to be considered as substantial favorites over the #7 seed 2005 Reds with Brandon Claussen (10-11, 4.21) on the mound and their best reliever burnt.  And Claussen is quickly in a pickle as Lou Brock begins the game by finding a solid homer on the pitcher’s card, and they get another run in the 2nd when Ken Boyer races home on a 2-out Dick Groat single.  However, the Cards suffer a blow when their best hitter, DH Bob Skinner, is knocked out of the regional with an injury.  Boyer avenges his fallen comrade with a solo homer in the 4th, but Adam Dunn gets the first hit off Stallard, a solid pitcher’s card homer that wakes up the home crowd.  However, in the 5th LF-4 Dunn waves helplessly at a single by injury replacement Tito Francona that scores Lou Brock, and Bill White follows that with a 2-run homer that puts Claussen back in the jar and gets David Weathers for relief.  RBI singles from White and Tim McCarver extend the lead in the 7th, and Stallard doesn’t allow any more hits until there are two out in the bottom of the 9th as he closes out a 3-hitter and the Cards head to the finals with the easy 8-1 win.

This semifinal matchup was the Zoom game of the week, with loyal Pennsylvanian TT gamely taking the helm of the terrible #8 seed 2021 Pirates.  He faced me as manager of the top seeded 2013 Dodgers, although I only assumed that role because nobody else in the Zoom gathering liked the Dodgers either.  The starting pitchers were as lopsided as the rest of the lineup, with LA’s Zack Greinke (15-4, 2.63) against the Bucs’ Wil Crowe, (4-8, 5.48), whose prolific gopher ball tendencies were actually exceeded by the other remaining starters in the rotation.  However, it didn’t take long for the Dodgers to find one of Crowe’s homer nests, in the form of AJ Ellis in the bottom of the 2nd for a 3-run shot.  Andre Ethier hits a giant solo shot in the 4th, and Pirates fans are rooting for Crowe to let up his 5th run so that he can be pulled for a reliever, and that occurs in the bottom of the 5th with an RBI single by Ellis that brings in Pittsburgh reliever Chasen Schrieve.  Juan Uribe crushes one of his offerings for a 3-run blast in the 6th, and so the Bucs try Sam Howard to begin the 8th.  Three walks, an error, and a passed ball later, and Pittsburgh thinks that they’ve inadvertently pitched Moe Howard instead, so they summon closer David Bednar, who promptly allows a bases-loaded triple to Carl Crawford to send Howard off with a line of ⅓ IP, 0 hits, and 5 runs allowed. Adrian Gonzalez adds a homer to Bednar’s mistakes, and in the meantime the only offense Pittsburgh can muster is a converted split HR off Greinke’s card by #9 hitter Kevin Newman.  Greinke closes out a 5-hitter and the Dodgers roll to the finals with a 16-1 demolition of the hapless Pirates.  The 16 runs ties for third highest total in the tournament thus far, falling short of the 18 runs put up by the 1950 Red Sox in the finals of Regional #40.

The regional final matching the #1 seeded 2013 Dodgers against the #3 seed 1965 Cardinals was accurately predicted by both me and the ELO rankings, a fairly rare occurrence, with neither team really having been challenged in the first two rounds.  The Cards had outscored their opponents 13-3, which looked good until compared to the Dodgers’ differential of 23 to 1.  Ray Washburn (9-11, 3.63) was on the mound for the Cards, facing Hyun-Jin Ryu (14-8, 3.00), and the already limited Cardinal offense was further weakened by the injury to their DH Bob Skinner.  Both pitchers are in control the first time through the lineups, but in the bottom of the 5th the Dodgers begin the inning with five straight hits, and by the time Yasiel Puig contributes a base clearing double the Dodgers claim a 6-0 lead.  The Cards try to reassert themselves quickly, with Lou Brock leading off the 6th with a single, stealing second, and then heading for home on a Curt Flood base hit–but the 1-17 Brock runs into a split roll of 19 and Ryu escapes the inning with no damage.  Dodger PH Scott Van Slyke misses a HR 1-2/DO split on Washburn to begin the bottom of the inning, and Washburn is pulled for Don Dennis, who retires the side without incident.  The Cards finally get on the board in the 7th on an RBI double from Phil Gagliano, but the Dodgers respond in the bottom of the inning with RBI singles from Andre Ethier and AJ Ellis to provide additional padding.  The Cards try to make it interesting as DH substitute Tito Francona contributes a 2-out, 2-run single in the 8th, but in the 9th they can only muster a pinch hit from Bob Uecker, and Ryu closes out the 8-3 win to give the Dodgers the 10th regional win for their franchise.  A strong all-around team, these Dodgers have the makeup to last for a while in this tournament, even though they could not do so in the 2013 NLCS.

Interesting card of Regional #187:  A counterargument to the belief that they don’t make pitchers like they used to, this card represents the 2013 Cy Young winner who in this tournament started off the regional winners with a 3-hit CG shutout in round one–a pretty nice parallel to the 4-hit CG shutout he actually pitched on 2013 Opening Day.  Mind you, this card is from 10 years ago; this season, he is as of this writing leading the league in wins and has a WHIP under 1.00.  He’s been an imposing force on the mound since his high school days in Dallas, where he was backed up at shortstop by his teammate Matthew Stafford, who ended up playing for a different team in Los Angeles.  According to a recent graphic I saw, Kershaw currently has the lowest career ERA in history of any pitcher in MLB history with more than 1300 IP.  Can you name who is in second place on that list?

REGIONAL #186:   In this draw, it seemed to me that almost any of the teams could compete for the regional.  There were two Expos entries, one from the year just before they were notoriously shortchanged by the season-ending strike.  There were the Rays right after their pandemic pennant, who I remembered as having been somewhat disappointing, and a Red Sox team a few seasons before they were finally able to overcome the Curse of the Babe.  There were the Tigers two seasons after an AL pennant, and the Marlins three years after an NL crown, although for that franchise it might as well have been a century given how quickly they tended to be disassembled, so I suspected that they might be the worst of this bunch.  Throw in an Angels team three years before their first pennant and an A’s team about to enter the Moneyball era, and picking a winner seemed like a crapshoot.  I decided to go with the ‘93 version of the Expos, although their first round matchup with the Red Sox might lead to a quick exit; I went with the Tigers in the top half of the bracket but figured their rotation would decline by the time they reached the finals.  The season-ending ELO score for the 2021 Rays far outpaced the rest of the teams and suggested that despite their ALDS loss, they were hardly a disappointment; those rankings suggested that they would get their revenge against the Red Sox, the franchise that beat them in that series, in the finals here.

First round action

The 2008 Tigers lost 88 games and finished last in the AL Central, which might have been the result of having a team comprised largely of DHs; Armando Galarraga (13-7, 3.73) had a nice WHIP but had troubles with the gopher ball, with nearly twice as many HR chances on his card as Andres Galarraga, the first baseman on the opposing 1986 Expos.  The Expos were ELO underdogs to the Tigers, but I wasn’t so sure as Montreal went 78-83 with Tim Raines and a career year from Hubie Brooks leading the offense, and Floyd Youmans (13-12, 3.53) headed a solid rotation.  However, the Tigers flex their muscle in the top of the 1st as Miguel Cabrera misses a HR split but Carlos Guillen races home on the resulting double, and Maggio Ordonez singles in Miggy to make it 2-0 Detroit.  They get another run in the 3rd when Youmans’ wildness loads the bases and then Miggy scores on a wild pitch, but the Expos get the run back in the bottom of the inning on a Tim Wallach sac fly.  Expos DH Wallace Johnson finds and converts Galarraga’s 5-7 HR 1-5/flyB split to lead off the bottom of the 4th, and then both Mike Fitzgerald and Raines convert Galarraga’s 6-7 DO 1-10/flyB to tie the game, although Andre Dawson misses that 5-7 HR split to end the inning.  Entering the 6th, the Tigers summon a bevy of replacements and when Youmans issues his 8th walk to one of them leading off the inning, Floyd is sent to the dark side of the moon and Bob McClure gets the ball.  However, the Expos learn that there are worse things than a walk, as McClure allows a double, a 2-run single to Guillen, and a 2-run homer to Ordonez and suddenly it’s 7-3 Tigers.  Johnson leads off the bottom of the inning by missing that 5-7 HR split, but Mike Fitzgerald follows with a 6-5 roll that leaves no doubt, a solid HR result and the Tigers need to disArmando although their pen is terrible but Freddy Dolsi manages to end the inning without further damage.  The Expos load the bases in the 8th and score a run when Tigers SS-2 Ramon Santiago turns a DP ball into a single, but then Dawson grounds into a DP to kill the rally, so it’s a two run game heading into the 9th.  The Expos get the tying run aboard in the bottom of the 9th, but Dolsi manages to hold on in his last inning of eligibility for the regional and the Tigers advance with a 7-5 victory.

In a first round Battle for Florida, the regional top seed 2021 Rays were big favorites over the 2007 Marlins.   The Rays won 100 games and the AL East, and boasted three 30+ HR bats, solid defense, and a deep bullpen, although Shane McClanahan’s (10-6, 3.43) card didn’t look quite as good as his stats.  However, the 91-loss Marlins looked to have a puncher’s chance, with eight guys in the lineup with SLG% over .450, but their starting pitching was atrocious, with Dontrelle Willis (10-15, 5.17) representing one of the worst round one starters I’d seen in quite a while.  The Jays get on the board with back to back doubles from Wander Franco and Joey Wendle to lead off the bottom of the 2nd, and later in the inning a sac fly from Randy Arozarena precedes a 3-run homer by Brandon Lowe and it’s 5-0 Tampa after two.  A couple of Rays baserunners in the 3rd and Willis is gone for Lee Gardner, who comes in and promptly allows an RBI single to Arozarena and then a 3-run shot to Ji-man Choi and it’s looking like a blowout.  The Marlins get a run on a squib RBI single from Josh Willingham in the 4th, and then McClanahan is victimized by errors from 3B-2 Wendle and 1B-2 Choi in the 8th to provide the Marlins with another.  But Choi atones in the bottom of the inning with his second homer of the game, and a tiring McClanahan hangs on in the 9th to cement the 11-2 complete game win, striking out 12 Marlins in the process.  

The 1993 Expos had virtually no overlap with the 1986 team that had been eliminated earlier in the regional, as this version won 94 games to finish second in the NL East boasting lots of team speed, Larry Walker coming into this own, and an impressive if somewhat walk-prone card from starter Jeff Fassero (12-5, 2.29).  Fassero and his Expos teammate Mike Lansing were also on the opposing team, the 85-win 2000 Red Sox, but the start for Boston was going to Pedro Martinez (18-6, 1.74), the Cy Young winner and by himself sufficient to make the Red Sox the slight ELO favorite here.  True to form, Fassero walks three batters in the bottom of the 1st but somehow escapes with no damage.  In the bottom of the 4th, Brian Daubach leads off by adding injury (for four games) to insult (he doesn’t have his name on his card), and the Expos come alive in the 6th with a 3-run homer from Marquis Grissom that renders Fenway Park eerily quiet.  Fassero is dominating until the 8th, when an RBI single gets under the glove of SS-4 Wil Cordero and with nobody out and two aboard les Expos summon a supercard of their own in closer John Wetteland.  But the Red Sox get another run on a Jason Varitek fielder’s choice and the game enters the 9th with Montreal clinging to the one-run lead.  Martinez holds serve in the top of the inning and it comes down to Wetteland vs. the top of the Boston order in the bottom of the 9th.  He whiffs Trot Nixon, but Carl Everett singles (missing a TR 1-10 with an 11) and he advances to third on a Garciaparra hit.  The infield comes in for Dante Bichette, who hits a gbA but there is no DP as Nomar heads to second, representing the winning run with two away and injury replacement Israel Alcantara at the plate.  Wetteland delivers; it’s a 1-5, single on Alcantara, Everett scores and Garciaparra, 1-16 with two out, is waved home, the split is a 3 and the Red Sox walk off a come from behind 4-3 win, Martinez getting the win allowing only 5 hits while striking out 13.  The Red Sox themselves only manage 7 hits, with five of them coming in the last two innings.

The 1997 A’s featured the final season of the Bash Brothers, with McGwire dealt to the Cards mid-season but sporting a formidable card nonetheless.  However, it wasn’t enough to keep the A’s from losing 97 games, mainly because of a laughably bad starting rotation with swingman Mike Oquist (4-6, 5.02) actually looking better than all other options.   The 1999 Angels were from a few years later, and they lost 92 games but had at least one okay starting pitcher:  Chuck Finley (12-11, 4.43), a guy with eight previous starts in this tournament, going 4-4 in those opportunities.  However, Finley falls apart in the top of the 2nd, allowing 3 hits and 4 walks and the A’s put up a 4-0 early lead.  The A’s do lose SS Rafael Bournigal to injury in the 4th, and in the 6th RF Matt Stairs goes down for 7 games and the A’s are looking for potential replacements in the stands in case they run out of players.  The Angels get two singles to start off the bottom of the 8th and the A’s eye their bullpen, but there is only one non-terrible option there and Oakland figures they will likely be needed in later rounds, so they give the ball back to Oquist and he responds by striking out the side to end the threat.  He then sets Anaheim down in order in the 9th and completes the 7-hit shutout to propel the A’s to the semifinals; Finley has another hard luck outing as he allows only four hits, but they were bunched with several walks and his tournament record drops under .500.

The survivors

This semifinal paired the top-seeded 2021 Rays against the #4 seed 2008 Tigers, who had a pretty decent ELO ranking for a last place team.  Furthermore, Detroit had Justin Verlander (11-17, 4.84) who, while not having the kind of year he’d have later in his career, still looked better than the Rays’ Ryan Yarbrough (9-7, 5.11).  But it’s the Rays who get first strike in the 2nd, as an error by Tigers C-3 Brandon Inge sets up a squib RBI single by Kevin Kiermaier to make it 1-0, and Choi is Ji-Man for the Rays leading off the 3rd with a homer to extend the lead.  However, Verlander seems to regain his composure and when Yarbrough allows runners on 1st and 3rd in the 6th with one away, the Rays decide to take advantage of their deep pen and summon Tyler Glasnow, who whiffs Gary Sheffield and Inge to eradicate the threat.  In the bottom of the inning, the Rays get back to back doubles from Mike Zunino and Nelson Cruz, both off Verlander’s card, and Wander Franco then singles in Cruz and the Tigers are regretting having burned their only decent reliever in round one.  Although Verlander again recovers, the Rays bring in Drew Rasmussen for the final two innings and he completes the 4-hit shutout as the Rays use only a small part of their dominating relief corps in wrapping up the 4-0 win and the trip to the regional final.

The Zoom game of the week was the semifinal matching the 2000 Red Sox, managed by StratFan Rick, and the 1997 A’s, reluctantly guided by nacster who had reservations about their beyond terrible pitching staff, to say nothing about injuries benching two of their regulars.  Although Boston’s Rolando Arrojo (10-11, 5.63) was not one to instill confidence in Red Sox fans, he still looked better than the A’s Dave Telghelder (4-6, 6.06), with both having serious issues with the gopher ball.  Things start out quietly enough, but the Red Sox start finding Telghelder’s numerous weaknesses in the 3rd, with Dante Bichette and Nomar Garciaparra driving in runs to stake Boston to a 2-0 lead.    In the 4th Troy O’Leary and the underpowered Manny Alexander deliver solo shots to extend the margin, and nac pulls the plug on Telghelder in the 5th after he allows his requisite fifth run, but the bullpen is not the answer and the hits keep coming.  Alexander, who had four homers during the entire 2000 season, hits his second solo shot of the game in the 7th, but the A’s finally strike back in the bottom of the inning with a solo shot by McGwire that actually comes off the card of Arrojo, but Jose Canseco then suffers a tournament-ending injury to become the third Oakland player to head to the infirmary.  When Big Mac takes Arrojo downtown a second time in the bottom of the 9th, the Red Sox opt to summon closer Derek Lowe, who wraps up the comfortable 8-3 victory to send the Red Sox into the finals.

The regional final matched the top seed in the 2021 Rays against the #2 seeded 2000 Red Sox, just as the ELO rankings had predicted.   For the top two teams in the group, neither had a #3 starter that merited much enthusiasm, as the Rays Josh Fleming (10-8, 5.09) and Boston’s Jeff Fassero (8-8, 4.78) were both hoping to survive long enough the reach more capable bullpens.  The Rays lose Ji-Man Choi, who had been a major force in first two rounds, to injury in the top of the 1st, but in the 3rd the Rays get RBI singles from Arozarena and injury replacement Yandy Diaz, and then Brandon Lowe brings both of them home with a three-run blast that sends Fassero to the showers after only 1+ innings pitched.  Rich Garces ends the inning, but Tampa has a commanding 5-0 lead until the bottom of the inning, when the Red Sox show why they’re in the final by rapping five hits, with Troy O’Leary and Manny Alexander driving in runs before Dante Bichette rips a two out, two run single with the bases loaded to make it a one-run game.  The Rays respond with another run in the 3rd on a two-out RBI single by Manuel Margot, but when Nomar leads off the bottom of the inning with a homer, the Rays yank Fleming for Ryan Thompson who retires the side without incident.  So it’s now up to the bullpens as neither starter could go beyond two innings, and the Rays find a couple of hits on Garces in the 4th and score on a Nelson Cruz RBI single and a run-scoring error by Red Sox injury replacement 1B-4 Alcantara.  However, in the bottom of the 5th Carl Everett leads off with a homer and after a Nomar walk, Alcantara atones with a 2–run homer and the game is knotted at eight apiece.  In the top of the 7th, a dropped grounder by 3B-3 Manny Alexander allows a Rays run to score, and Boston reliever Rod Beck ends the inning by getting injured for the rest of the tournament.  So Red Sox closer Derek Lowe comes in for the 8th, and he’s shelled for four hits by the relentless Tampa offense and the Rays add three runs to their lead.  Then, in the 9th Mike Zunino and Nelson Cruz lead off the inning with back to back homers; two hits later, .206 hitting defensive replacement Brett Phillips raps a 3-run shot and Lowe exits after allowing 9 hits and 8 runs in one inning pitched.  Rheal Cormier comes in and allows solo shots to Arozarena and Brandon Lowe, his second blast of the game, and Red Sox fans are streaming out to try to catch the next T home.  JP Feyereisen then sets Boston down quietly in the bottom of the 9th and the Rays take the regional with a crushing 19-8 win, completing a 3-game run in which they scored 34 runs.  This is the 3rd regional win for the relatively young franchise, joining 2010 and 2017; the dominating offense and stifling bullpen of this version suggests that despite their suspect starting pitching, they may continue to be a threat in later rounds.  

Interesting card of Regional #186: My first National League Strat cards that I acquired as a kid was the 1968 season, and of course Bob Gibson’s card is forever etched in my memory as the pinnacle of pitching accomplishment.  However, I have to say that this performance, which barely was victorious in the first round in this regional, rivals Gibby’s.  Although Gibson’s 1.12 ERA was a mark for the ages, he did it in a season where the league average was ERA 2.99.  On the other hand, Pedro’s 1.74 ERA in 2000 was put together at the height of the steroid era, with a league average of 4.91; that’s 35% of the league mean, even better than Gibson’s 37%, and his opponents’ on-base percentage (.213) was the lowest in 100 years.  I don’t usually include the back sides of the card in this feature because this tournament is all-Basic and I find the SADV versions in particular to be cluttered and not aesthetically pleasing; however, I’ll make an exception here (although you’ll have to turn your monitor sideways to read it) as this one is pretty nice-looking–especially against lefties.  

REGIONAL #185:  After drawing this group, I spotted a number of teams that I thought would be bad and one that I knew would be good–the pennant-winning 2006 Cardinals.  As for the remainder, it seemed like a mixed bag, with another Cards team that featured Stan the Man perhaps having some potential, a late-80s Yankee team that was probably decent, a ‘67 Dodger team that I remembered as a good pitch/no hit bunch, and a 90’s Phillies squad from a few years after an NL pennant.  I figured that if the 2006 version of the Cards could escape the bottom of bracket, they would emerge on top, while guessing that the success of Yankee teams in the last regional would carry the ‘89 version to the finals but no further.  The ELO rankings indicated that pretty much every team in this group other than the ‘06 Cards were bad to terrible, and even those Cards were only ranked as the 7th best team in baseball that season despite winning the NL.  Still, the rankings indicated an all-St. Louis final, with the pennant winners listed as prohibitive favorites over the 1959 version.

First round action

For a team at the height of the steroid era, the lineup for the 93-loss 2000 Pirates tailed off pretty fast after the first four or five batters, and the pitching staff had little to offer past an adequate Kris Benson (10-12, 3.85).  Fortunately for them, they would be facing a 1989 Yankees team that didn’t look much better, having lost 87 games with few weapons beyond Don Mattingly, and swingman Clay Parker (4-5, 3.67) being the only starter with a WHIP below 1.5.  The Yankees continue their hot hitting from the previous regional in the bottom of the 1st, with Steve Sax drawing a leadoff walk and Roberto Kelly then wrapping one around the foul pole for a quick lead.  Mattingly then goes back to back and the Yankees lead 3-0 after one.  In the 2nd, Mel Hall contributes a 2-out, 2-run single with the bases loaded, and then Jesse Barfield clears the rest of the bases with a homer off Benson’s split, and it’s 8-0 and Benson leaves the game sporting a 43.11 ERA for the regional.  Closer Mike Williams doesn’t fare much better, as in the 3rd Kelly nails a solo shot for his second homer of the game, and a Barfield single gives him his 4th RBI of the game and the Yanks are in double digits.  The Pirates finally get on the board in the 6th with RBI hits from Wil Cordero and Kevin Young, but NY strikes back in the 7th against reliever Scott Sauerbeck as Steve Sax knocks in a run with a double and Kelly continues his onslaught with a 2-run single to make it 13-2.  Pittsburgh recoups those runs with RBI doubles from Young and Aramis Ramirez in the 8th, but the Yanks stick with the tiring Parker and he manages to close out the 13-5 blowout to send the Yankees to the second round.  

The 1959 Cardinals were a mediocre 71-83, with Stan Musial having a down year which limited their weapons in the lineup; Larry Jackson (14-13, 3.30) would get the round one start.  Fortunately for him, it would be against a terrible 2012 Astros team that lost 107 games that had a small young second baseman named Jose Altuve accompanied by eight minor leaguers; Lucas Harrell (11-11, 3.76) must have been pretty good to reach a .500 record with this outfit.  When Altuve gets injured on the first roll of the game, it’s looking pretty bleak, but in the 3rd the Astros take a 2-0 lead on a Brian Bogusevic RBI single and a Matt Dominguez fielder’s choice that scores a run.  That lead proves short-lived when Cards DH George Crowe crushes a moon shot with two aboard in the bottom of the inning, and Crowe picks up another RBI in the 5th on a fielder’s choice to push the lead to 4-2.  Houston’s Scott Moore takes a break from playing guitar for Elvis to hit a solo shot in the top of the 6th to make it a one-run game, but the Cards respond with two more in the bottom of the inning with Alex Grammas contributing a key RBI single from the #9 position in the lineup.  When the Astros get runners on 2nd and 3rd in the 8th on two hits off Jackson’s card, St. Louis decides to try young fireballer Bob Gibson in relief, but Houston does pick up a run on a sac fly by Moore to bring the game within two.  But Gibson holds serve in the 9th to earn the save and the Cards send Houston back to the drawers with the 6-4 win.

In a matchup of two 2006 NL teams, the overwhelming favorite was the pennant winning and World Series champion 2006 Cardinals–all despite a mediocre 83-78 record that was good enough to take the NL Central.  With Albert Pujols as the MVP runner up and Chris Carpenter (15-8, 3.09) third in the Cy Young votes, they looked miles better than the 2006 Pirates, who lost 95 games and were ELO ranked as the worst team in the league.  The Pirates’ main weapons were Jason Bay and Freddy Sanchez, whose .344 average led the league, but their rotation was dismal with Zach Duke (10-15, 4.47) drawing the short straw for the round one start.  In the top of the 2nd Cards 2B-3 Ron Belliard makes two errors to load the bases full of Pirates, but then he manages to turn an X-chart DP to get Carpenter out of the inning unscathed.  The Cards then pour it on in the bottom of the inning, with doubles from Scott Rolen, Preston Wilson, and Belliard being capped off by an RBI single from David Eckstein, and the inning doesn’t end until the 1-17 Eckstein is cut down trying to take third on a Jim Edmonds two out single.  However, disaster strikes the Cards when Pujols leads off the 3rd with a two game injury, with Scott Spezio called upon to fill his spot.  Edmonds squibs an RBI single in the 4th to make it 4-0 St. Louis, and they add another run in the 5th when a two-out wild pitch gets past Pirate C-4 Ronny Paulino.  When Scott Rolen cracks an RBI double past CF-3 Jose Bautista in the 6th, the Pirates finally realize that Duke’s a hazard, and bring in closer Mike Gonzalez who records the final out with the Pirates now down 6-0.  Pittsburgh finally gets on the board in the 7th when Xavier Nady finds and converts Carpenter’s HR split for a solo shot, but Carpenter survives Belliard’s third error of the game without further damage.  Edmonds gives Cards fans a scare in the 8th when he’s hurt, but he stays in the game, and the Pirates end the game in the 9th hitting into their 4th DP of the game as the Cards waltz to a 6-1 win–although they must try to get through their semifinal matchup without their biggest bat.    

For the Zoom game of the week, it would be Philly fan TT at the helm of the 1996 Phillies, a bad 95-loss squad who would eventually drive Curt Schilling (9-10, 3.19) out of town with limited run support and gruesome fielding.   Although Eaglesfly had no particular dog in this fight, he volunteered to manage the 1967 Dodgers, who took the retirement of Sandy Koufax hard by going from winning the pennant to finishing 8th in the NL with 89 losses in this season.  Although they had little offense, the Dodgers still had the arms as Bill Singer (12-8, 2.64) fronted a strong rotation.  Things began ominously for the Phils in the bottom of the 1st as terrible CF-4 Ricky Otero watched first a Willie Davis double and then a Jim Lefevre triple bounce by him, giving the Dodgers a lead before most LA fans had arrived at the stadium.  Schilling’s subsequent tantrum in the dugout seems to work, as the Phillies begin to catch a few balls, but Singer keeps setting them down with machine-like efficiency.  The game remains scoreless until the bottom of the 6th, when 2B-2 Mickey Morandini drops a Ron Fairly grounder and Schilling becomes unglued, loading the bases against the punchless bottom of the LA order to bring up leadoff man Willie Davis, who clears them with a triple and Schilling has to be physically removed from the game by Lenny Dykstra, who was nominated for the job by his teammates.  By the time reliever Ken Ryan records out number three, the Dodgers lead 6-0 and Eaglesfly is leading the fans in a chant of “game over”.  In the 8th, Davis comes up needing a homer to complete a cycle; he thrills the fans with a long foul but strikes out to fall short.  The Phils try to muster a threat in the top of the 9th, and Singer is showing some signs of fatigue; the game comes down to Pete Incaviglia with two away and a man on second, and Inky strokes a single to break the shutout, but Singer records the final out and the Dodgers move on to round two, cruising to a 6-1 win.

The survivors

This semifinal matched two teams who produced identical composite ELO scores 30 years apart, the 1959 Cardinals and the 1989 Yankees.  Unfortunately for them, those scores were pretty mediocre and so were their #2 starters, with swingman Greg Cadaret (5-5, 4.05) being the Yankees’ best option to go against Vinegar Bend Mizell (13-10, 4.21).  The Yanks jump out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the 1st when a Mel Hall fielder’s choice scores Steve Sax, and they score two more in the second courtesy of two doubles allowed by Cards CF-3 Gino Cimoli.  In the 5th Hall finds and converts Mizell’s HR split for a solo shot that pushes the lead to 4-0, but Stan Musial matches that in the bottom of the inning with a towering shot that is only the 2nd hit of the game for St. Louis.  Two quick hits to lead off the 6th and the Cards have had enough vinegar and hope Lindy McDaniel can provide a different taste, and he almost escapes the inning but Roberto Kelly strokes a 2-out, 2-run single to add to the New York lead.  Jesse Barfield adds a long 2-run homer in the 7th, and two more runs are plated in the 8th following a 2-base error from the hapless Cimoli.  Cadaret gives a run back in the bottom of the inning with a 2-base error of his own, and the Cards get one more in the bottom of the 9th with a two-out double from Joe Cunningham, but a tiring Cadaret holds on to whiff DH George Crowe and the Yanks put up double digits for the second game in a row with a 10-3 win and an appearance in the regional final.

For this semifinal, both the 2006 Cardinals and the 1969 Dodgers would be without their top home run hitters, and although the Cards had more secondary weapons than the Dodgers, the latter boasted a much better rotation, with Don Drysdale (13-16, 2.74) having a considerably better card than the Cards’ Jeff Suppan (12-7, 4.12).  The Cards are dealt another injury blow when the second batter of the game, Jim Edmonds, is knocked out for three games, but the next batter, DH Chris Duncan, delivers a colossal solo HR to soften the blow with a quick lead.  Scott Spiezio leads off the 2nd by converting a HR 1-5 split, Yadier Molina adds an RBI single past Dodger 2B-3 Ron Hunt, and another run scores on an error by SS-3 Dick Schofield and the St. Louis lead is 4-0.   However, the Dodgers figure out Suppan the second time through their lineup, as in the 4th Lou Johnson singles in fleet Willie Davis, another run scores on a 2-base error by Cards SS-2 David Eckstein, and Ron Hunt contributes a 2-out, 2-run single and the game is tied after four and it’s looking like another epic semifinal battle is on.   When Len Gabrielson opens the 6th with a leadoff triple, the Cards yank Suppan for Adam Wainwright who comes through with flying colors, stranding Gabrielson at third to preserve the tie.  Meanwhile, Drysdale is now looking sharp, but after fanning the first two Cards in the 7th, Scott Rolen celebrates his HOF election with a 2-out solo shot that puts St. Louis back on top.  Ron Perranoski comes in to relieve Drysdale in the 8th, and he does the job but it’s up to Wainwright to try to hold the lead in the bottom of the 9th.  A leadoff single by John Roseboro and he’s pulled for a pinch-runner; Hunt singles him to third, and Ron Fairly delivers a sac fly and the game is tied with one out and the winning run aboard.  But Eckstein turns a highlight reel DP and we head to extra innings.  Perranoski handles the top of the 10th, and with Wainwright now burnt the Cards still won’t call upon their rather terrible closer Isringhausen, instead going to Braden Looper.  However, Looper’s first pitch to Willie Davis gets knocked into the corner for a triple, and the winning run is 90 feet away and the Cards figure that Izzy’s walks and gopher balls no longer matter, so Looper is gone, Isringhausen is in as is the infield, the outfield, and everybody else.  True to form, Izzy walks Wes Parker, but then personally handles a grounder to retire Lou Johnson while holding the runner on third.  With one away, it’s yet another grounder to P-2 Isringhausen, and again he fields it flawlessly and holds Davis at third, so it’s now two out with Gabrielson up.  He grounds out, and Izzy pulls out a miraculous inning and keeps the Cards in the game.  The top of the 11th will be Perranoski’s last inning for a while, and he gets two out but then a 2-base error by LF-2 Johnson puts injury replacement So Taguchi in scoring position; Perranoski walks Duncan, and then Rolen misses a HR 1-10 split, but Taguchi scores although Duncan (1-14) is out at the plate to end the inning.  Thus, the game now rests on Isringhausen’s shoulders once again, and he gets two quick outs but Fairly singles to get aboard.  PH Bob Bailey steps to the plate, misses a TR 1-2 split but the single moves Bailey to third, 90 feet away from tying the game once again.  It’s the top of the order, Willie Davis….but he grounds out and the Cards hang on to the 6-5 win and a trip to the finals.

It was time for a Zoom regional final, with TT assuming responsibility for the top-seed 2006 Cardinals in a matchup against the #4 seeded 1989 Yankees, with Eaglesfly volunteering to manage the underdog Bombers.  One thing that both managers had in common was the angst experienced when the starting pitchers had to be selected; the Yanks tapped Andy Hawkins (15-15, 4.80) while the Cardinals somehow managed to win the World Series with Jeff Weaver (8-14, 5.76) occupying the third slot in the rotation.  Although the Cards had lost Jim Edmonds to injury in the previous game, they were getting the big bat of Albert Pujols back in the lineup, and it was looking like they would need all the bats they could get when Weaver’s first roll in the top of the 1st is a 4-4 solid HR result from weak-hitting Steve Sax and the Yanks jump out in front.  Roberto Kelly follows with a hit, but C-1 Yadier Molina guns down the AA Kelly trying to steal and Weaver escapes the rest of the inning.  However, a 2-run single from Sax in the 3rd extends the New York lead, but when Pujols is intentionally walked to get to Cards DH Chris Duncan, Duncan makes them pay with a 3-run shot that ties the game.   The game remains knotted through five, and at that point Weaver is pulled, with Braden Looper being called upon after a brief and unsuccessful appearance in the semifinal.   But Looper is perfect for two innings, and meanwhile the Yankees pound Hawkins and Lee Guetterman for five hit and four runs in the bottom of the 6th, with Duncan contributing a 2-run double and the Cards surge to a 7-3 lead.  However, Looper is burnt after two innings, so in the 8th it’s time for closer Jason Isringhausen’s frightening card that nonetheless won their semifinal game.  Not so this time, as Izzy lasts just 2/3rds of an inning, alternating walks and HR splits and not escaping the latter as Kelly smacks a 3-run blast and Mattingly then goes back-to-back and the game is tied.  It remains that way through nine, with the Cards repeatedly getting runners into scoring position and leaving them on base with a chance to put the game away.  In the 10th, Mel Hall strokes a solo shot to put the Yanks ahead; however, the Yanks have now burned reliever Dave Righetti and are moving to the manure-filled section of the bullpen.  In the bottom of the 10th, Juan Encarnacion drives in a run to tie the game once again, but Cards leave the bases loaded and fail to put the game away.  In the 11th St. Louis reliever Brad Thompson, recorded as Brian by official scorer Nacster, is in his final inning of eligibility but retires the side with no damage, and so now it’s up to Yankee reliever Lance McCullers, who allows a couple of hits and walks Pujols to load the bases with one out for DH Duncan–who already sports five RBI in the game.  McCullers delivers, it’s on his card….and it’s a walk-off walk, RBI number six for Duncan and a 9-8 win for the Cardinals, who managed to pull off the victory despite stranding 17 runners in the game.  It’s the 10th regional win for the Cardinals franchise, with the 2006 team joining 2004 to provide the beginnings of a mini-dynasty.

Interesting card of Regional #185:  The 2006 Cards won the World Series and were heavy favorites in this regional, but they lost their MVP candidate Albert Pujols to injury in the first round and their outstanding CF Jim Edmonds in the second round.  Nevertheless, they prevailed, with large thanks due to their rookie DH, Chris Duncan, who had two homers and eight RBI in the bracket, with six (including the walk-off winner) in the final.  In this season, Duncan set the franchise record for home runs by a left-handed rookie, and he looked primed for a promising career.  In researching Duncan I learned that his father was Dave Duncan, who I remembered as having the most pathetic card for a hitter in the original 1967 American League set that was the first Strat cards that I ever purchased as a kid.  Certainly this card for the younger Duncan fell a long way from the tree; with him batting behind Pujols, they represented a one-two punch that might carry this squad a long way in this tournament.  Unfortunately, the promising career was not to be; he never really managed a complete season, battling neck and arm injuries and playing his last game in 2009.  In 2012, Duncan was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a form of cancer that manifested in a brain tumor, and he ultimately succumbed to the disease in 2019; he was only 38 years old.  The Endless Single Elimination Tournament hopes to honor his memory by enshrining Chris Duncan as the unequivocal MVP of Regional #185.

REGIONAL #184:  This seemed to be the Bracket of the Yankees, with three entries from three distinctly different pinstripe eras.  The one that caught my eye was the 1948 team that was about to reel off a string of pennants, but the two other entries would evolve into dynasties later in their respective decades.  There were also two Brewers teams, one AL and one NL, but neither evoked memories of greatness for me, and a Twins squad a few years after their 1991 pennant-winner that crashed and burned in the first round two regionals prior.  Just based on the 50% base rate, I figured that some squad from New York would win, so I guessed it would be the ‘48 Yanks over their ‘93 version in the finals.  The ELO rankings predicted the same outcome, although it had the Mets as the overall #2 seed setting up a potential Subway Showdown in the semifinals.

First round action

The #2 seeded 2006 Mets won 97 games and the NL East, with a powerhouse lineup in which everyone had a SLG% over .400 and seven of nine had double digit homers; however, their rotation was mostly past their prime, with Tom Glavine (15-7, 3.82) being the best preserved specimen.  The 1976 Brewers lost 95 games and had an okay rotation fronted by Jim Slaton (14-15, 3.44), but offensively people were either too young, like Robin Yount, or too old, like Hank Aaron, to be very effective.  However, the Brewers take a lead in the top of the 2nd with two 2-out doubles, the second by Von Joshua past Mets LF-3 Cliff Floyd to drive in the run.  In the 4th, Brewer George Scott converts a TR 1-3 and scores when Aaron grounds into a DP, and they get another in the 5th on three straight singles off Glavine’s card.  Meanwhile, the Mets can’t do anything with the junk that Slaton is serving up, and after five it’s Milwaukee 3, New York 0.  Glavine doesn’t allow another baserunner until the 8th, at which point he’s replaced by closer Billy Wagner, who shuts down the Brewers but it’s too late as Slaton wraps up a 3-hit shutout despite a 9th inning error by 1B-1 Scott; the Mets lose 3-0 and don’t record a hit after the second inning as Milwaukee advances.  

Although the organization of teams within a regional is random, for the 4th bracket in a row the #1 seed is matched against the bottom seed, with two out of three of those top seeds winning the matchup but in the prior regional it was the #8 seed that won it all.  This time it was the1948 Yankees, who won 94 games and although they only finished in 3rd place, the ELO ratings had them as the best team in baseball that season.  With a strong lineup boasting Jolting Joe, Tommy Henrich and Yogi Berra, and a deep rotation fronted by Vic Raschi (19-8, 3.84), this team seemed to have potential to go far in the tournament.  They faced the 1995 Twins, who went 56-88 in the strike-shortened season to finish in last place, and the shortfall of innings left few options in the rotation with Brad Radke (11-14, 5.32) representing a frightening round one starter.  In the top of the third Dimaggio goes deep for a 2-run shot to put the Yanks up, and they plate another in the 4th when Johnny Lindell scores on a Billy Johnson grounder, but they also lose 1B George McQuinn for the remainder of the regional to injury.  With the game still within reach, the Twins eye their bullpen when they hit the 6th inning but what they see probably damages their retinas, so they stick with Radke and he holds as the Twins score two in the bottom of the inning as two hits and a walk, all off Raschi’s card, set up a bases-loaded walk and a fielder's choice that narrows New York’s lead to 3-2.  In the 7th, Bobby Brown, in for the injured McQuinn, doubles and with two outs scores (barely) on a Rizzuto single to provide a bit of padding, and it quickly proves necessary as a 2-out RBI double by PH Matt Lawton brings the Twins back within one.  But Raschi snuffs out their hopes with a perfect 9th, striking out PH Pedro Munoz to seal the tight 4-3 win and move the Yanks on to the semifinals.

By the ELO ranks, the 1973 Yankees were the worst of the three Bronx Bombers squads in this regional, but they were not a bad team, going 80-82 with Bobby Murcer, DH prototype Ron Blomberg, and a couple of Alous leading the offense and Doc Medich (14-9, 2.91) fronting a decent staff.  They were slight underdogs to the 83-79 2012 Brewers, with Ryan Braun the MVP runner up and Yovani Gallardo (16-9, 3.86) on the mound.  In the top of the 1st, Murcer lives up to his hype as the next Mantle and crushes a 2-run homer to put the Yanks ahead, and Felipe Alou extends it in the 2nd with an RBI single.  In the 3rd, Blomberg smashes a solo shot, and after a few hits Matty Alou outdoes his brother with a 3-run homer off Gallaro and the rout is on and Gallardo is gone.  However, Medich loses control in the bottom of the inning, walking four batters, and a triple by Juan Segura and a sac fly from Aramis Ramirez and the score is narrowed to 7-3 New York.  In the 5th, Matty A. gets his 4th RBI of the game on a fielder’s choice, and Blomberg adds an RBI single off Brewer closer John Axford in the 7th.  When a Nori Aoki double puts men on 2nd and 3rd with one out in the bottom of the inning, the Yanks summon Sparky Lyle from the pen, and he whiffs Rickie Weeks and Braun to end that threat.  Graig Nettles pokes a solo homer in the 8th, and the Yanks then seek to save Lyle, bringing in elder statesman Sam McDowell, who closes out the 9-3 win and sends another Yankee team to the semifinals.

The Zoom game of the week featured two partisan managers, genuine Canadian Roy at the helm of the 2014 Blue Jays, and New York enthusiast Frank guiding the 1993 Yankees in a matchup that was pretty even according to the ELO ranks.  The Yanks were AL East runner ups with 88 wins, led by names like Boggs and Mattingly with a big year from catcher Mike Stanley; the Blue Jays won 83 games and had Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion as their biggest weapons.  The Yankees would start Jimmy Key (18-6, 3.00), who they had just that year acquired from Toronto and was 4th in the Cy Young voting, while the Jays countered with 39 year old knuckleballer RA Dickey (14-13, 3.71), who had emigrated from New York after a Cy Young award a few years earlier.   Dickey quickly starts showing his age, as after two outs in the bottom of the 1st nothing seems to be knuckling, and six hits, a two run single from Bernie Williams, and RBI knocks from Pat Kelly and #9 hitter Mike Gallego later, the Yankees lead 5-0 after one.  Stanley contributes a two-run double in the 2nd and it’s 7-0 and Dickey is gone after after 1.1 innings in which he allows seven earned runs, and suddenly the Yanks are facing the imposing card of Aaron Sanchez and his 1.09 ERA.  The Jays don’t get a baserunner until the 5th, but they take advantage of it as Brett Lawrie drives in the runner to put Toronto on the board.  At that point the Jays start feeling out the weaknesses on Key’s card, and in the 6th the Jays get two more on a Bautista double, another in the 7th courtesy of Melky Cabrera, and with two hard hits to open the 8th New York feels that it’s time to change the locks on Key and Paul Gibson comes in, but can’t prevent more damage.  After Marcus Strohman comes in and further tames the Yankee hitters, it’s now a one-run game heading into the 9th and NY summons their closer Steve Farr, who comes equipped with two sizable HR results, to try to hang on to the lead.  But he walks the first batter, PH Adam Lind, and then Jose Reyes follows with a double; with nobody out, Roy is faced with the dilemma of trying to score the tying run with the slow Lind (1-10) with nobody out, or playing for the big inning and the win.  He puts up the stop sign with the heart of the order coming up.  However, the next batter pops out and up steps Encarnacion, with Bautista on deck and the infield in.  Farr delivers, it’s a 3-12, nailing the dreaded LOMAX, and the Yankees are quite fortunate to thwart the comeback and move on with the 7-6 win–with three of the four semifinal teams wearing pinstripes.

The survivors

A Zoom semifinal allowed nacster to try to guide the 1976 Brewers to their second straight upset, this time against the bracket favorite 1948 Yankees, managed by ColavitoFan who had led them to some success in his ‘48 replay.  However, although the game was played live, there was no signs of life in either team’s offense, as Bill Travers (15-16, 2.81) for the Brewers and wild Tommy Byrne (8-5, 3.30) for the Bombers were in complete control.  Aside from Von Joshua, Milwaukee was having trouble mustering any hits, leading Nac to disparage the Hall of Fame credentials of Hank Aaron and Robin Yount as neither was able to produce when needed.  But Travers was equally dominant, holding the Yanks to one hit in the first 6 innings and escaping the 7th on some sloppy New York baserunning.  And so the game proceeds through nine scoreless innings, with both starters still in the game and both holding the opposition to only three hits total.  Each starter begins their last inning in the 10th; Byrne escapes an error by C-4 Yogi Berra to send the game to the bottom of the 9th, where the Yanks come up with a base hit to put the winning run on base with two away.  That brings up the top of the order in the form of Snuffy Stirnweiss, with three homers total on the year–but he finds Travers’ solid 4-4 HR result for a walk-off shot and once again the Yanks are pushed by an upset-minded underdog, but they escape with a 2-0 win and head to what is guaranteed to be an all-Yankee final.  Worthy of note:  while researching following this game, I learned that Stirnweiss tragically died at age 39 while a passenger in a train accident.  His train was apparently traveling at twice the prescribed speed when it approached the drawbridge over Newark Bay, which was open, and the train was unable to stop in time, plunging into the water and killing 48 people including Stirnweiss.  We can only hope that he was looking down into the Zoom game and able to watch his ‘48 card nail that walkoff homer.

This semifinal matched two versions of the Bronx Bombers that were two decades apart, the 1973 Yankees against the 1993 Yankees.  The 73s trot out Mel Stottlemyre (16-16, 3.07) while the 93s would rely on the arm of Jim Abbott (11-14, 4.37), with both pens having seen some use in the first round.  In the top of the 3rd, Abbott suddenly can’t get anybody out, and Roy White knocks an RBI single under the glove of SS-3 Mike Gallego to load the bases for Bobby Murcer, who strokes a 2-run base hit and after a sac fly by Thurman Munson it’s 4-0 for the underdog 73s.  The 93s get on the board in the 4th courtesy of a Mike Stanley fielder’s choice, and in the 6th Stanley raps an RBI double past LF-3 Roy White to send Stottlemyre to the showers in favor of Lindy McDaniel, making his first appearance in the bracket.  Not only does McDaniel get the third out from Don Mattingly, but Mattingly also goes down to injury for the foreseeable future.  But a sac fly by Wade Boggs in the 7th makes it a one-run game, and when Bernie Williams leads off the 8th with a double the 73s are forced to go to Sparky Lyle to try to hang onto the lead.  He notches two whiffs and a scary flyout on a HR 1/flyB result, and the game heads to the 9th with the 73s still up by a run.  Abbott, who recovered nicely after early inning jitters, sets down the 73s, so it’s up to Lyle in the bottom of the 9th.  The 93s record two singles and with two out the winning run is on and Paul O’Neill is at the plate; the roll once again is the HR 1/flyB result on Lyle, the split is rolled….and it’s a 20, game over and the 73s head to the finals to face their 1948 brethren.  Lyle records the save, but he is now burnt for the regional and he may be sorely missed as the team goes deeper into their rotation.

The finals matched the top seeded 1948 Yankees against the #6 seed 1973 Yankees, and no matter who won it would be the 10th regional win for the franchise.  The 48s tapped Spec Shea (9-10, 3.41) for the start, while the 73s had Fritz Peterson (8-15, 3.95) on the hill.  The 73s quickly load the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the 1st, but Shea regains control and only allows a sac fly by Murcer but still pushes the 73 team to a 1-0 lead.  The 48s quickly tie it in the 2nd when Johnny Lindell scores, barely (16 on a 1-14+2 run), on a single from Charlie Keller.  Phil Rizzuto follows with a double and the Yanks press their luck with the 1-12 Keller attempting to score from first, but it’s the inevitable 20 and King Kong crashes to the ground for the third out.  The 73s regain the lead in the 5th when scrawny Gene Michael finds and converts Shea’s HR 1-9/flyB split to lead off the inning; in the 6th Berra doubles and 1-14 Lindell takes off for home, but as usual it’s a 20 and Lindell is nailed.  However, Billy Johnson leaves no room for split misfortunes with a solid single that scores Berra; the 73s don’t like what they’re seeing from Fritz and summon Fred Beene and his 1.68 ERA, and he dispatches the bottom of the order but the game is tied once again.   The game remains knotted until the bottom of the 8th, when Shea walks Ron Blomberg and then Thurman Munson puts one in the stands, and the part of the Yankee Stadium crowd sporting bell-bottoms and perms go wild while the remainder slam their fedoras to the ground.  That puts the game on Beene’s shoulders for his final inning of eligibility in the top of the 9th; he whiffs Keller but Rizzuto walks and Snuffy Stirnweiss singles under SS-3 Michael’s glove to put the tying run aboard with one out.  Bobby Brown pops out for the second out, and it’s up to Joltin Joe Dimaggio with the game on the line.  And Joe hits the hole, a 1-9 in an otherwise formidable one column, and the 1973 Yankees take the regional with the 4-2 upset win, despite getting outhit 10-5.

Interesting card of Regional #184:  The 1973 Yankees were only the 6th seed in this regional despite having a decent ELO ranking, but they managed to overcome the odds by pulling off three consecutive upsets, with important contributions from their designated hitter, primarily displaying a knack for getting on base when baserunners were needed.  This is only fitting, as Ron Blomberg was the FIRST designated hitter in baseball history almost exactly 50 years ago at the time of this writing (April 6, 1973), drawing a bases-loaded walk in his initial plate appearance in the top of the 1st against Luis Tiant to drive in a run.  Note that Blomberg was batting 6th, and if not for Tiant’s ineffectiveness in the top of the 1st, Boston’s Orlando Cepeda probably would have gone down in history as the first DH to bat in MLB history.  I distinctly remember Blomberg’s quality Strat cards in ‘73 and ‘74, but his career basically came to a crashing halt with season-ending injuries in both 1976 and 1977; in a typical move for the franchise, the White Sox overpaid to sign him to a contract for a comeback effort but he was never again the same hitter and he was waived after the 1978 season.  Even so, in this bracket he was able to do what Derek Jeter has yet to accomplish in this tournament:  lead the Yankees to a regional win.

REGIONAL #183:  I didn’t see any pennant winners in this group, although if my memory served me correctly there was an Astros team in here that got close.  There was a Royals team one season removed from a surprising regional winner in the bracket before last, but I doubted that lightning would strike twice for them.  In the bottom of the bracket there were Yankees and Phillies teams that I guessed would be okay, but the one that caught my eye was a pandemic-year Giants team that I was pretty sure had won a bunch of games both before and after that year.  I decided that there would be enough small-sample aberrations that would get the Giants to the final, but that the Astros would ultimately prevail by benefiting from fewer usage constraints.  The ELO rankings also went with the Astros as the class of the bunch, but indicated that I underestimated the pre-Splinter 1938 Red Sox, who were apparently not suffering as badly from the Curse of the Babe as I had assumed.

First round action

The top seeded 1991 Astros won 97 games and the NL Central, with a strong Biggio/Bagwell led lineup that fell short in the NL postseason.  For the third regional in a row, the top seed drew the bottom seed in the first round; here the victims looked to be 1950 Browns, a bad 96-loss team that couldn’t be very encouraged by the results of those previous mismatches.  On the mound, the Browns did have Ned Garver (13-18, 3.39), who received MVP votes, but so did the Astros’ Mike Hampton (22-4, 2.90), runner-up for the Cy Young who led the league in wins.  Hampton is tossing a one-hitter until the 5th, when an error by 2B-2 Biggio ignites a three-hit rally that scores two runs courtesy of a Ken Wood double; unfortunately for the Browns, their CF Ray Coleman ends the rally with a DP and a 5-game injury.  Hampton is then fine until yielding a leadoff single in the 9th, but Billy Wagner comes in to strike out the side and the Astros are down to their last outs with no answers against Garver thus far.  And they don’t find any in the 9th, as Garver retires the side in order and the lowly Browns pull off the 2-0 upset behind Garver’s four-hit masterpiece.  

The #7 seeded 1998 Royals were hoping to duplicate the feat of the 6th seeded ‘97 team that won the regional before last, but this version was no improvement losing 89 games with a feeble back half of the lineup in a peak steroid year and a dismal starting rotation with Jose Rosado (8-11, 4.69) getting the round one start having won the semifinal game in Regional #181.  They faced the 1989 Cubs, who won 93 games and the NL East but faltered in the NLCS; the Cubs arguably had four starters better than Rosado, with Greg Maddux (19-12, 2.95) placing third in the Cy Young ballots and a lineup with Sandberg, Dawson, Grace at it’s core.  However, in the top of the 2nd Jeff King slaps a double past RF-2 Dawson and Shane Mack scores him with a single off Maddux’ card, and then Mack comes in when Larry Sutton also finds a pitcher’s card single and the Royals jump out to a 2-0 lead.  They add another run in the 4th when Jeff Conine misses a HR 1-11 split but Mack scores on the resulting double, but the Cubs come alive in the 5th with a two out rally keyed by a Sandberg double and RBI singles from Grace, Salazar, Dunston and Damon Berryhill, and when the smoke clears the Cubs are leading 6-3 after five.  However, the celebration is cut short when Maddux is injured for 7 games on the first roll of the 6th inning, and the Cubs nervously trot out Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams to try to hang on for a few innings.  When Dawson leads off the bottom of the 7th with a double on a missed HR split, Rosado is out for closer Jeff Montgomery, but Dawson scores on a Dunston grounder and then defensive replacement Mitch Webster doubles in a run, scoring on a pinch hit by Lloyd McClendon that sets up a 2-run shot by Jerome Walton off Montgomery’s solid 6-9 gopher ball.  By the time Sandberg makes the third out, the Cubs are in double digits and they pull Williams, who allows no hits but three walks in his 1.2 innings, for mop up man Jeff Pico.  Pico proves to be too spicy for the Royals, and the Cubs move on with a convincing 11-3 victory, although if they should make it to the super-regionals they won’t have Maddux available for those games.  

Although they wouldn’t see Ted Williams until the following season, the 1938 Red Sox were a much better team than I anticipated, finishing 2nd in the AL going 86-61 with big years from Hall of Famers Jimmie Foxx (the AL MVP) and player/manager Joe Cronin, and another HOFer on the mound in the form of Lefty Grove (14-4, 3.08).  They were big favorites over a 92-loss 1992 Phillies team that had limited weapons besides Darren Daulton and John Kruk, but Curt Schilling (14-11, 2.35) had the potential to be the great equalizer.  The Phils take the lead in the bottom of the 2nd when Kruk scores while Mariano Duncan is hitting into a double play, but the Red Sox tie it up in the 4th when Foxx barely beats the throw home attempting to score from first on a Cronin double.  The Phils find the hits on Grove’s card with unerring accuracy, but keep getting their baserunners wiped out on double play balls; in the top of the 6th Ben Chapman finally returns the favor, finding the only complete hit on Schilling’s card to lead off the inning, and Foxx follows with a colossal blast for two runs and the lead.  In the bottom of the 7th, PH Wally Backman gets on courtesy of an error by 3b-3 Pinky Higgins, and pinch runner Stan Javier is held, setting up a gbA++ single from Ruben Amaro and a subsequent score on a fielder’s choice from Mickey Morandini, so it’s a one run game entering the 8th.  In the 8th, Higgins misses Schilling’s HR 1-4/flyB split, but two batters later Doc Cramer hits it again and rolls the “4” split for a 2-run shot, and Schilling is so angry his sock starts bleeding.  In the 9th, Schilling gets two outs and then shows he’s rattled when he tosses a Ben Chapman grounder into the dugout for a two-base error; that means he has to face Foxx again, and once again Foxx sends it into the dark recesses of the Vet for another 2-run shot.  Grove sets down the Phils quietly in the 9th, striking out PH Wes Chamberlain for the final out of the 7-2 win.

The 2020 Giants went 29-31 in the pandemic season and had many of the hallmarks of the small-sample squads from that year–four guys in the heart of the lineup with .500+ SLG% and another two waiting on the bench, but problems in their IP-determined starting rotation beginning at the top with Johnny Cueto (2-3, 5.40).   They would be ELO underdogs to the 1987 Yankees, who won 89 games but only finished 4th in the AL East despite strong years from Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield, with Charles Hudson (11-7, 3.61) leading a solid if unspectacular staff.   Mauricio Dubon leads off the game with a double, missing Hudson’s HR split, but he scores regardless on a 2-out single from Alex Dickerson for a Giants lead.   Cueto surpasses the Giants’ wildest dreams by tossing five shutout innings, and from there he’s on a very short leash in this tight game as their pen is stocked with some low inning wonders.  Still, he hangs on until walking Willie Randolph to begin the bottom of the 8th, when SF summons Jarlin Garcia and his 0.49 ERA to try to preserve the one run lead and he puts a stake in the heart of the Yankees order.  In the top of the 9th, Brandon Crawford (1-11) is gunned down trying to score on a Longoria single, but PH Austin Slater follows up with a 2-run single to give the Giants some breathing room.  SF pulls Garcia for the bottom of the 9th to preserve his use, giving some work to Sam Selman, who gets two quick outs but then allows a double to PH Claudell Washington.  A single by Rick Cerone then breaks up the shutout, but PH Bobby Meacham grounds out to defensive replacement 2B Daniel Robertson and the Giants escape with the 3-1 win.

The survivors

The #8 seed 1950 Browns apparently took inspiration from the contemporaneous March Madness basketball tournament going on, as they had knocked off the top seed in round one and were looking to surprise the field further.  Now, they would face the #3 seeded 1989 Cubs, the second straight division winner that the Browns would run into.  The challenge for the Browns was made even larger with their leadoff man and CF Ray Coleman out indefinitely with an injury, and they had used their only good starting pitcher in round one, leaving Al Widmar (7-15, 4.76) to get the start.  Befitting a division winner, the Cubs had a much better rotation and Mike Bielecki (18-7, 3.14) was hoping to give the Cubs pen some rest after they had to cover for the injured Greg Maddux in the first round.  The Browns strike quickly in the top of the 1st with an RBI double from Sherm Lollar, and he plods home on a Les Moss single for a 2-0 St. Louis lead.  Their hopes for another 2-0 win end in the 4th inning, when Browns 2b-4 Owen Friend can’t get to a Luis Salazar grounder with men on 2nd and 3rd and the game is tied.  That tie is short-lived, as Tom Upton leads off the top of the 5th by finding and converting Bielecki’s HR 1-11 split, but the Cubs tie it once again in the 6th on an Andre Dawson fielder’s choice that scores a run.  That brings the game to the 9th inning still knotted; Lollar gets on to begin the top of the inning on an error by Cubs 3B-3 Salazar, and after a popout Roy Sievers gets a HR 1/DO, misses the split, and the Browns have to decide whether to send the 1-9 Lollar home with a terrible bottom of the order coming up.  They send him, and he’s out by a mile, and sure enough .225 hitter Ken Wood nails a solid double on his card that scores Sievers and the Browns now lead.  With first base open, the Cubs figure they may as well bring in Wild Thing Williams, who retires Friend but the game heads to the bottom of the 9th with the Cubs down by a run and the back end of the order coming up.  And Widmar sets them down in order, striking out PH Rick Wrona to wrap up the 4-3 win and send the underdog Browns to the regional final.  

The 2020 Giants would be ELO underdogs to the #2 seeded 1938 Red Sox, but the Giants had one advantage because it turned out that their best starting pitcher “had” to start this game because of pandemic-year innings restrictions–that being Kevin Gausman (3-3, 3.62).  For the Red Sox, Jim Bagby (15-11, 4.21) was a big drop-off from their Hall of Fame first round starter, and sure enough in the bottom of the 1st the Giants knock out four hits against Bagby, with a squib RBI single from Wilmer Flores and a run-scoring double by one of the Brandons (Crawford) that could have resulting in another, but Flores was nailed at the plate for the third out.  The Red Sox load the bases with two out in the 3rd to bring up MVP Jimmy Foxx, but SS-2 Crawford makes a defensive stop and Boston comes up empty.  An Alex Dickerson grounder makes it 3-0 in the bottom of the inning, but the Red Sox get the run back in the 4th on an RBI hit by Doc Cramer.  However, Mike Yastrzemski drives in a run on a triple from a missed HR split, and when the Red Sox bring the infield in to try to keep Yaz stranded it backfires as Dickerson rips a gbA++ single to score another, making it 5-1 after five.  Bagby then loads the bases for the other Brandon (Belt) in the 6th, and the Red Sox search the bullpen but find no clear answers there, so they leave Bagby in and Belt finds a double on Bagby’s card to score two more.  Boston can take no more, and Bagby exits having allowed 14 hits in favor of Bill Harris, who records the final out but it’s now 7-1 Giants.  The Red Sox mount a 2-out rally in the 9th, with Bobby Doerr driving in a run and scoring on a single from Ben Chapman, but the Giants stick with Gausman to rest their bullpen and he rewards them by striking out Foxx for the last out of the 7-3 win that puts the Giants in the finals.

The bracket final matched the bottom seed 1950 Browns against the #5 seed 2020 Giants, attempting to be the first pandemic-year squad to win a regional.  Typical of most bad teams, the Browns rotation was quite ugly in the back half, and Stubby Overmire (9-12, 4.19) was better than some other dreadful options, while because of innings limitations the Giants had no choice but to go with Tyler Anderson (4-3, 4.37) although they had a much stronger bullpen that was fully rested.  For the third straight game in the bracket, the Giants jump to the lead in the 1st with a 2-out, 2-run single by Wilmer Flores, but the Browns load the bases with two out in the top of the 2nd for Dick Kokos, who finds a double on Anderson’s card that clears the bases and for the first time in the regional the Giants find themselves behind.  The hole gets even deeper when Sherm Lollar singles home Kokos, and it’s now 4-2 in favor of the upstart Browns.  In the top of the 4th, Kokos converts Anderson’s HR 1-2 split for a two-run shot and with the future at stake the Giants immediately move to the pen for Jarlin Garcia and his 0.49 ERA.  He shuts down the Browns, and the Giants mount a comeback in the 5th with three consecutive RBI singles by Brandon Crawford, Donovan Solano and Evan Longoria and it’s a one-run game.  The Browns mount a threat in the top of the 6th when Lollar doubles, but Kokos (1-13) is cut down trying to score and Garcia ends his three-inning stint unscathed.  In the 8th, as if the Browns don’t have enough challenges, they lose their best hitter, 1B Don Lenhardt, to an 8-game injury, but to avenge his fallen mate in the next inning Ken Wood rolls his solid 3-3 HR for a 2-run blast to give Overmire a little padding for the bottom of the 9th.  He quickly shows that he needs it, loading the bases with nobody out, but the Giants can only convert one run on a Crawford fielders choice and the Browns, for only the second time in the history of that portion of the franchise, take the regional with an 8-6 win.  Not to dampen the celebration, but they will be heading for a future super-regional with two regulars injured and dismal prospects for a #4 starter, although they’ve managed to overcome remarkable odds thus far.

Interesting card of Regional #183:  When you’ve got a 96-loss bottom seed that wins the bracket, there usually aren’t a lot of cards on it destined for the Hall of Fame, and Ken Wood is no exception.  Still, Wood drove in key runs in all three games of the regional, and they all came off his own, rather weird card.  I really liked the die-cut (no SADV, sorry) past seasons that the game company released before going to the perforated cards after the 1987 season, as these cards had many of the classic hit patterns that were part of the early years of the company.  However, Wood’s card isn’t one of them–he’s got weird hits in weird places, and this is not a pattern that anyone has seen again since we started having the perforated cards with the predictable patterns.  When I was a kid, I would have NEVER wanted a card with this layout, as I liked the patterns of the greats:  give me a solid two column, or solid three column, thank you.  Well, I’m no kid anymore, and in this bracket I managed to roll unerringly on the good results on Wood’s card to help lead the worst team in the group (according to ELO rankings) to the crown.  It’s worth noting that in 1950 Wood actually received two points in the voting for AL MVP, which was good for 29th place, but he certainly merited consideration for MVP honors in this bracket.  Also worthy of note:  despite getting a 3e16 in ADV from Strat in RF, he did receive a -3 arm rating, something he apparently deserved because on Aug. 11, 1950, Wood threw out two runners at home plate–in the same inning.