REGIONAL #236:  Although the program that I wrote to select teams for these regionals is supposed to be random, it often seems like I’ll get brackets full of bad teams punctuated by ones that have several very good squads, and this draw seemed to be one of the latter.  There were two pennant winners, the ‘99 Braves and ‘97 Indians, that were both great teams, and another Braves team from last year that didn’t win the pennant but maybe should have and did so two years prior.   Entries from the Jays, Nationals, Padres, and Red Sox were all likely to be pretty strong as well, and then there was a steroid era Cubs team that probably had a bulked up Sammy Sosa going for it.  I figured the ‘99 Braves would take the top half of the bracket, while in the bottom the first round matchup between the Indians and the 2023 Braves would be crucial; my thought was Indians might get by one Braves team, but by the time they hit their #3 starting pitcher the other Braves team would have the advantage and take the regional.  The ELO rankings predicted an all-Braves final and described the two Atlanta teams as being among the 75 best in history, with a virtual tie in their ratings.  

First round action

The Zoom game of the week featured Eaglesfly in charge of his hometown 2023 Blue Jays, only fitting since he had led the prior year’s team to the semifinals in the previous regional before my solitaire managing doomed them.  This team won 89 games and made the postseason as a wild card but were quickly eliminated; Bo Bichette led off as an MVP vote-getter and Kevin Gausman (12-9, 3.16) finished 3rd in the Cy Young ballots, leading the AL in strikeouts.  They faced the 88-74 2001 Cubs, managed by the Tall Tactician who like the performance-enhanced card of one Sammy Sosa whose 64 homers got him MVP runner-up, and Kerry Wood (12-6, 3.36) was tough to hit despite some control issues.  However, one of the big weaknesses of the Cubs was their fielding, and that became evident quickly as two Cubs errors in the bottom of the 1st led to one run on no hits, and the Jays take the early edge.  Gausman allows some hits early but the Cubs can’t capitalize, while the Jays don’t manage a hit off Wood until the 5th inning.  Gausman again gets out of jams in the 6th and the 7th, and Wood doesn’t allow another hit until the bottom of the 8th, but it’s a long one as Brandon Belt belts a solo homer to provide an insurance run for a 2-0 lead entering the 9th.  The Cubs get a runner into scoring position with two out in the top of the 9th, and Eaglesfly signals to the bullpen for closer Jordan Romano, who gets the one-out save as the Jays only manage three hits but pull out a 2-0 win; Sosa goes 0-4 with every one of his rolls on the pitcher’s card, so he and his supplements head back to the storage drawers without even a run to show for their efforts.

The first of two arguably great Atlanta teams entered in this regional, the 1999 Braves won 103 games and the NL only to be swept in the Series; they had NL MVP Chipper Jones anchoring the lineup and Kevin Millwood (18-7, 2.69) came in 3rd in the Cy Young votes with a better season than any of the high profile Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz triumvirate.  However, they faced a good 2015 Nationals team that underperformed at 83-79 but had their own NL MVP in Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer (14-12, 2.79) was 5th place for the Cy Young; however, the supporting cast for these stars was not quite up to that of the Braves.  The Atlanta MVP makes the first noise as Chipper smacks a 2-run homer in the top of the 1st to interrupt Scherzer’s striking out the side, while Harper does double in the bottom of the inning but Millwood strands him at second.  However, Nats 2B Danny Espinoza leads off the 2nd with a homer, Jason Werth goes back to back, and then Ian Desmond misses a HR 1-14 split on Millwood that would have been three in a row.  It doesn’t matter much as Michael Taylor then rips an RBI single past 1B-4 Ryan Klesko and Taylor ultimately scores on a single by Yuniel Escobar and the Nats vault to a 4-2 lead after two innings.  In the top of the 3rd, Chipper finds Scherzer’s solid homer result for a solo shot that gives him two for the game, and the lead narrows to a run.  Denard Span rolls a solo shot by converting Millwood’s HR split in the 4th, and then Harper misses that same split but doubles and scores on an RBI single from Espinoza that leaves Danny one triple short of a cycle.  With things getting desperate, the Braves yank the ineffective Millwood and try closer John Rocker, who hopefully did not take the bus to the game.  Rocker walks the bases loaded but whiffs Ian Desmond to end the inning with Washington now up 6-3.  In the 5th, Michael Taylor races home on a Span double, but Andruw Jones homers to lead off the top of the 6th and gets the run back, although Javy Lopez hits into a DP and in the process gets injured for the rest of the tournament.  However, in the 7th the Braves have definitely solved Scherzer and an RBI single from Brian Jordan is followed by a 2-out 2-run double from the red hot Chipper, and don’t look now but the game is tied.  Deciding that Scherzer is toast, the Nats move to Matt Thornton, but injury replacement Randall Simon rips a liner to RF-2 Harper who can’t get to it and then misplays it once he does, and Jones scores; Klesko then rolls a double off Thornton’s card for another run and by the time the Nats record the third out the Braves lead 9-7.  Now with a lead, the Braves try to preserve some use for Rocker if they reach the finals and bring in Mike Remlinger in the bottom of the 7th, and he does the job nicely.  In the 9th, he gets two outs and then in an effort to preserve him for later rounds, the Braves give the ball to Rudy Seanez to try to get the final out, PH Clint Robinson rolls a SI 1-11 but can’t make the split and the Braves survive a scare with a 9-7 win, with more than half of their hits and runs coming in one inning.  

Another quality matchup in this regional between a pennant-winning 1997 Indians team, and a better-ranked 2023 Braves team that didn’t win a pennant but perhaps should have.  The Braves won 104 games and everyone in the lineup had a SLG% over .400 with more than half over .500, including NL MVP Ronald Acuna, Matt Olson who finished 4th and Austin Riley who polled 7th for MVP; the cherry on top was 20-game winner Spencer Strider (20-5, 3.86) who perhaps deserved better than his 4th place finish in the Cy Young voting.  The Indians won the AL Central with 86 wins and took the pennant but were defeated by the Marlins in an epic Series; they had some offensive weapons of their own with David Justice and Jim Thome finishing in the top 10 for MVP, but their rotation was lackluster with Charles Nagy (15-11, 4.28) probably the best option.  When Michael Harris leads off the top of the 1st with a monumental home run for the Braves, a collective “uh-oh” goes up from the Cleveland crowd, and it gets louder later in the inning when Riley clouts a 2-run shot off Nagy’s HR split.  The Braves load the bases in the 3rd with nobody out, and one run scores on a Riley grounder, which leaves two runners on base that trot home on an Ozzie Albies homer and the dazed Indians signal for the entire bullpen to begin warming up.  But Nagy seems to recover his form a bit, and Manny Ramirez shows why he probably deserved an MVP vote or two with a 3-run blast in the 4th, Marquis Grissom finds Strider’s HR split for a 2-run shot, and suddenly we have a ballgame.  But Eddie Rosario swats a 2-run homer in the 6th to extend the Atlanta lead and Nagy is gone for Paul Assenmacher, who takes his turn getting beat around in the 7th with a solo Olson homer and another run scoring on an Albies grounder that makes it 11-5.  Brian Giles records an RBI single for the Indians in the 7th and Tony Fernandez adds another in the 8th as Cleveland tries to sneak back into the game, but in the top of the 9th Riley singles in a run for his 4th RBI of the game, Albies hits a sac fly for his 5th RBI, and although Omar Vizquel leads off the bottom of the 9th with a double, he goes nowhere as Strider finishes out a rather ugly complete game 13-7 win, although he does strike out 12 in the process, and the Indians meet the fate of so many other pennant winners with a trip back to storage after the first round.  

The 1995 Red Sox held some sentimental attachment for me, as I’d spent a sabbatical across the Charles in ‘95 and ‘96 and took my oldest son to a bunch of games at Fenway, and to this day he remains a Red Sox fan.  They were a solid team that went 86-56 in a strike shortened year to win the AL East, but they were quickly eliminated in the postseason.  They had the AL MVP in Mo Vaughn and John Valentin finished 9th in that vote, while Tim Wakefield (16-8, 2.95) finished 3rd for the Cy Young, although the rotation was shallow and the defense atrocious in spots.  Although teams to which I have an attachment are usually doomed in this tournament, the Red Sox had the good fortune to draw the #8 seed, the 2002 Padres, who lost 96 games.  The Padres had Ryan Klesko, who had already made an appearance earlier in this regional with the Braves, as their main offensive weapon and Brian Lawrence (12-12, 3.69) sat atop a rotation that would sorely need Trevor Hoffman out of the bullpen.  But sure enough, the jinx rapidly becomes evident in the top of the 1st when Padres leadoff hitter Ramon Vazquez converts a TR 1-7 split, Wakefield walks Mark Kotsay, and then Klesko converts a HR 1-2 split and it’s 3-0 with nobody out.  Tom Lampkin adds an RBI single before the inning is out and it’s looking like there won’t be a third straight regional title for the Red Sox.  Bubba Trammell extends the lead with a long solo homer in the 3rd, and Kotsay picks up an RBI in the 4th by converting a DO 1-4/flyB, but bad SD defense sets up a 2-out 2-run double by Luis Alicea in the bottom of the inning to cut the Padres lead to 6-2.  Vaughn adds a sac fly in the 7th to make it a three run game, and Wakefield finds his knuckler and finishes the game with five hitless innings, but the damage is already done and the Padres move on with the 6-3 upset.

The survivors

The 1999 Braves and John Smoltz (11-8, 3.19) attempt to continue their march to the regional title as the nominal favorite, but an unexpectedly taxed bullpen and without the big bat of injured catcher Javy Lopez.   Once again they would face a quality opponent, this time the 2023 Blue Jays who were at full strength with Chris Bassitt (16-8, 3.60), who led the AL in wins and finished 10th in Cy Young votes.  The Braves load the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the 2nd, but Bassitt hounds the next two batters with strikeouts and escapes the jam with no damage.  But the Braves are relentless, as in the 3rd they score on a Chipper Jones single and a Brian Hunter RBI double; then with two outs 1B-4 Vlad Guerrero Jr. drops one to let in another run, and 2B-2 Cavan Biggio lets an RBI single go by him as it’s some bad fielding by the nepo babies to provide Atlanta with a 4-0 lead.  An RBI single for Ryan Klesko in the 7th releases the Bassitt and closer Jordan Romano is brought in, but he walks defensive replacement Walt Weiss with the bases loaded and then allows a single to Eddie Perez that scores another, but 1-11+2 Brian Hunter is cut down at the plate trying for more.  Smoltz, however, needs no more as he finishes up the 7-0 whitewashing, the second game in a row where the Jays were 3-hit meaning that they can’t hit any better for me than they could for Eaglesfly in round one.  Meanwhile, these Braves will sit back and watch the second semifinal game where their modern counterparts will attempt to make it an all-Atlanta final. 

The bottom-seeded 2002 Padres had managed to survive and advance, but now they faced a top 75 team of all time in the 2023 Braves who had Bryce Elder (12-4, 3.81) going against SD’s Brett Tomko (10-10, 4.49), with both bullpens fully rested.  Sean Murphy puts the Braves on top with a 2-out RBI triple in the 2nd, but they get bad news when 3B Austin Riley is hurt for the tournament in the 4th, with remarkably little depth at the position for a contemporary team.  Meanwhile, a Tom Lampkin single ties the game in the bottom of the 4th, but the Braves push back ahead on a 2-out RBI single from Matt Olson in the 6th.  However, in the bottom of the inning it’s Phil Nevin with a 2-run homer that gives the Padres their first lead of the game, and a nervous Atlanta summons Jesse Chavez from the pen who ends the inning.  Tomko is cruising until two away in the 8th, when Marcell Ozuna crushes a long solo homer to tie things up again and it’s time for Trevor Hoffman to come in, and although he allows two hits he strikes out injury replacement Nicky Lopez to keep the tie intact.  He then blows through the Braves in the top of the 9th to give the Padres a chance at a walk-off, but Chavez holds on and sends the game to extra innings.  Neither team can do anything in the 10th, but in the top of the 11th Ronald Acuna walks, steals second, and scores on a 2-out Ozzie Albies single, so it’s up to closer Raisel Iglesias to try to hold the lead in the bottom of the inning.  He does so, and these Braves survive to move on to an all-Atlanta final.  

This would be a high-profile regional final featuring two top 75 teams, both with nearly identical ELO ratings, both from Atlanta, both featuring the NL MVP, and both suffering key injuries to .500+ SLG% regulars on the way to this faceoff.  The 2023 Braves had to start Charlie Morton (14-12, 3.64) as their last 100+ IP starter, and although he wasn’t a bad option, his control problems could be an issue.  Meanwhile, the 1999 Braves had a choice between two Hall of Fame starters, but neither had one of their better years; Greg Maddux (19-9, 3.57) would get the start despite posting one of the worst WHIPs of his career by allowing nearly 11 hits per nine innings.  Both pitchers are in command early; Maddux gets lucky in the bottom of the 5th when Orlando Arcia (1-11+2) is nailed at the plate trying to score on a Michael Harris two-out single.  In the top of the 6th, the ‘99s get a walk from Andruw Jones and a double from Gerald Williams to put runners on 2nd and 3rd with one out; with runs being apparently tight, the 23s bring in the infield and Bret Boone promptly rolls the gbA++ for a 2-run single.  That lead lasts until the bottom of the inning when a 2-run blast by Ozzie Albies ties things up, but with the ice now broken injury replacement Eddie Perez pokes a 2-run shot of his own in the top of the 7th and the 99s regain the lead.  The celebration is quickly dampened when the next batter, RF Brian Jordan, is injured for 5 games, although Chipper Jones crushes a solo shot before the inning is out in honor of his fallen comrade and the 99s lead is 5-2.  But Eddie Rosario leads off the bottom of the inning with a long homer, Harris adds another solo shot, and the 99s decide to turn to controversial closer John Rocker to try to hold the one-run edge, and he whiffs Marcell Ozuna to end the inning.  In the top of the 8th, a walk and a Brian Hunter double puts two runners in scoring position, and both the infield and closer Raisel Iglesias come in; but defensive replacement SS Walt Weiss finds a solid triple at a 2-2 roll, and Weiss then scores when 2B-3 Albies drops a grounder from .205 hitting injury replacement Otis Nixon.  Rudy Seanez is then summoned by the 99s to pitch the 9th while preserving Rocker, and he does the job as the 1999 Braves best their more modern counterparts to take the regional with an 8-4 win.  They become the 7th Braves team but the first from their great 1990s run to capture a regional, although with two key long-term injuries, they face a challenging future in the tournament..

Interesting card of Regional #236:  With an all-Braves final where both versions featured the NL MVP, those being 1999 Chipper Jones and 2023 Ronald Acuna, you might think they would have priority over a guy who only came in second for NL MVP, and who played for a team that got shut out in round one while this player rolled every result on the pitcher’s card.  Still, how could I resist the formidable card of Slammin’ Sammy Sosa, the only player in baseball history to clear 60+ homers in a season three times–but he didn’t win the HR crown in any of those seasons.  Sammy was plucked out of the Rangers minor league system by White Sox GM Larry Hines; as a White Sox fan I remember Sammy’s early seasons with them as largely disappointing, but when Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf fired Hines, probably for making some competent trades for the first time in franchise history, Hines took the same job with the hated Cubs and almost immediately engineered a trade for Sosa, and the rest was history.  In the five-year period from 1998 through 2002 Sosa averaged 58 homers a year, by far the best in MLB history.  However, his career took a dive after 2004, perhaps because (a) his bats were closely monitored after one broke in a game to reveal that it had been corked, and (b) his PED test results were closely monitored after rumors indicated that he had tested positive.  At the end of the 2004 season, as the Cubs endured another late season collapse, Sosa requested out of the lineup and left the ballpark, spelling the end of his career on the North Side.  With those various checkmarks against him, his 10 years of eligibility for the Hall of Fame expired in 2022 when he peaked at only 18.5% of the vote; deserving or not, his name is on some of the best Strat cards in my collection–unlike certain other cards that shall remain nameless.