REGIONAL #247:  This bracket would see the final team from the 90s enter the tournament, although probably not a very good one; the main attraction I noted was the pennant-winning 2023 Diamondbacks, although they won as a wild card team and as such might be vulnerable.  However, many of the other teams looked pretty bad, with as an example last year’s White Sox working their way towards this season’s historical level of terribleness, and last year’s Angels giving Ohtani a reason to seek greener pastures.  As such, I figured the Dbacks to be able to handle the competition, guessing that perhaps those 90s Padres might be good enough to make the finals against a weak bottom of the bracket.  The ELO ratings confirmed that the Dbacks weren’t among the best teams in baseball despite making the Series, and that the Dodgers entry was really the only quality team in a bad group, predicted to best the Padres in the final.

First round action

The 2014 Dodgers were the top ranked squad in this bracket, winning 94 games and the NL West and, while the offense wasn’t bad with Adrian Gonzalez, Yasiel Puig and Dee Gordon all receiving MVP votes, their biggest asset won both the MVP and the Cy Young in one Clayton Kershaw (21-3, 1.77).   It wasn’t clear that they would need him against the 2018 Phillies, whose 80-82 record was better than was suggested by a terrible ELO rating, but Aaron Nola (17-6, 2.37) came in 3rd for the Cy Young and was a potential equalizer.  The Phils start out rough as C-3 Wilson Ramon drops a popup to lead off the game to put speedy Dee Gordon on, and Gordon swipes second and scores on a Hanley Ramirez double for a quick lead in the top of the 1st.  However, SS-4 Ramirez quickly returns the favor in the bottom of the inning as a Cesar Hernandez single goes under his glove and Hernandez scores when Ramirez then makes a 2-base error on a Rhys Hoskins grounder.  In the 5th, back to back RBI doubles from Juan Uribe and Andre Ethier give LA a 3-1 lead,  In the top of the 9th, the Dodgers lose LF Matt Kemp for the rest of the regional, but Kershaw hangs on to the lead in the bottom of the inning to close out a 5-hitter and the Dodgers move to the semis with the 3-1 victory.  

The 2023 Diamondbacks went 84-78, which was good enough to make the postseason as a wild card, where they got hot and blew through the playoffs to capture the NL pennant.  Corbin Carroll was Rookie of the Year and came in 5th for the NL MVP, while Zac Gallen (17-9, 3.47) finished 3rd for the Cy Young award atop a very shallow rotation, bolstered by a strong pen and solid team defense.  They faced the 2023 Angels, who went 73-89 with their best hitter and their best pitcher both being Shohei Ohtani (10-5, 3.14) who earned the AL MVP for his efforts, although their only other real weapon in Mike Trout would be relegated to later inning duties due to injury-related AB limitations.  The game is still scoreless entering the 6th so Trout gets to come in with the game still on the line, but Gallen strikes him out, while Ohtani strikes out the side in the bottom of the inning and the scoreless tie continues into the 7th.  It quickly ends as Brandon Drury leads off the 7th by converting his HR split, and a few batters later CJ Cron swats an RBI double to chase Gallen and Kevin Ginkel comes in to retire the side, but the Angels lead 2-0 and Ohtani is cruising.  Carroll gets on in the bottom of the inning, but the AA stealer is caught stealing for the second time of the game, and from there Ohtani has it under control to finish out a 4-hit shutout, and the Angels defeat the pennant winners 2-0 to advance. 

The 2023 White Sox were warming up for an historically terrible 2024 season with a merely dreadful 101-loss season that was still bad enough to earn them the bottom seed in this largely dismal group of teams.   Luis Robert headed the offense, receiving some sympathy support for the MVP award, and Mike Clevinger (9-9, 3.77) was the best option in the rotation.   Nonetheless, they had a chance to advance because they drew the #7 seeded 2018 Marlins, who lost 98 games and didn’t help themselves by trading away their primary 1B at the end of the season; Jose Urena (9-12, 3.96) would get the starting assignment for Miami while also being on the Sox roster.  Efforts to give away tickets to this one proved unsuccessful as the locals would rather be eaten by sharks than watch these two teams play.  That meant that they missed the soon-to-be-traded Eloy Jimenez hit a three-run homer of Urena’s card in the top of the 1st for a quick lead for the Sox, and in the 2nd an RBI double from terrible free agent pickup Andrew Benintendi followed by a 2-run homer from Robert and Urena hits the beach as Drew Steckenrider gets his turn on the mound.  At that point, Tim Anderson rolls his injury but to the chagrin of Sox fans everywhere, he shakes it off and stays in the game. Yoan Moncada adds another RBI single in the 3rd, while in the 4th Anderson once again hits his injury and this time he’s out for the regional, giving the Sox a chance to play another terrible SS in Zach Remillard.  In the 7th, new Marlins pitcher Adam Conley is greeted with back to back homers by DH Jake Burger and Jimenez, his second blast of the game, and Clevenger coasts in finishing a 6-hit shutout as the Sox look like world beaters in dispatching the Marlins by a 9-0 margin.  

The last team of the 90s to enter the tournament, the 1991 Padres were the #2 seed in this rather weak regional with an 84-78 record with Tony Gwynn getting some MVP support and Greg Harris (9-5, 2.23) sporting a formidable card.  They drew the 2021 Tigers for the first round, with a 77-85 record and few bright spots, although Jeimer Candelario did lead the AL in doubles and Casey Mize (7-9, 3.71) was a respectable option on the mound.  Robbie Grossman leads off the top of the 1st by converting Harris’s HR split for a quick Detroit lead, but both pitchers then take control and it remains 1-0 Tigers after five.  At this point the Tigers attempt to shore up their weak defense with some replacements, while the Padres look at their bench in a vain attempt to find somebody who can hit.  Detroit only gets one more hit through the 8th inning, but when Harris walks two with two out, the Padres turn to Larry Andersen to try to keep them in striking distance and he ends the threat.  In the bottom of the inning, an error by 3B-2 Candelario and a squib single by Bip Roberts brings up Gwynn with the tying run in scoring position, and the Tigers make a trip to the mound but Mize insists on preserving his shutout.  Sure enough, Gwynn raps a comebacker to P-2 Mize, who converts the DP.  In the 9th, Andersen gets knocked for three singles, the last driving in a run for Harold Castro, and Mize takes a 2-0 lead into the bottom of the 9th.  However, Fred McGriff sends his first pitch 400+ feet into the stands and it’s a one run game, and Spencer Turnbull comes in to try to hold that lead.  He retires three straight and the Tigers hang on for the 2-1 upset and a trip to the semifinals.

The survivors

The 2014 Dodgers and the 2023 Angels have a freeway faceoff, having reached these semifinals on the basis of two pitchers who both won MVP awards.  However, those guys were now spent and the Dodgers clearly had the better second starter in Zack Greinke (17-6, 2.71), who was 7th in the Cy Young votes, against the Angels’ Reid Detmers (4-10, 4.48), although the Dodgers were still without the services of injured LF Matt Kemp.  The Dodgers get a 2 out RBI double from Adrian Gonzalez in the top of the 1st that could have scored two if AA stealer Dee Gordon hadn’t been caught stealing for the third time in the regional.  An RBI single in the bottom of the 2nd by Hunter Renfroe ties the game, but they lose SS Zach Neto to injury for the tournament to lead off the 3rd.  In the 6th, Yasiel Puig finds and converts Detmer’s HR split for a solo shot and a Dodger lead,   Greinke whiffs Mike Trout to start the bottom of the 8th, but a hard single by CJ Cron and the Dodgers summon closer Kenley Jansen and he induces a DP ball from Mike Moustakas to quickly end the inning.  However, 3B-2 Juan Uribe begins the bottom of the 9th with an error and the top of the order is up; Jansen gets two quick outs, the second a whiff of Ohtani, but then he delivers one down the pike to Brandon Drury, and he crushes it into the stands for a walk off two run homer and the Angels pull off the miracle 3-2 comeback to advance to the regional final.  

This semifinal goes from bad (the 2021 Tigers) to worse (the 2023 White Sox) to determine which of these poor excuses for baseball teams will advance to the regional final to face yet another bad team.  For the Tigers, Tyler Alexander (2-4, 3.81) looked to provide an advantage over Dylan Cease (7-9, 4.58) of the Sox, who would be without injured SS Tim Anderson which would actually help their terrible defense.  The Sox rode the longball to the semifinals and they display it again in the top of the 1st with a long solo shot from Luis Robert giving them the early lead.  In the 2nd, Yoan Moncada and Yasmani Grandal both double on missed HR splits, and then injury replacement Zach Remillard hits Alexander’s solid 6-5 HR for a 2-run blast and the Sox push their lead to 4-0.  Victor Reyes wraps one around the foul pole in the bottom of the inning to cut the lead to 4-1, and then in the 3rd Jeimer Candelario smacks a 3-run blast and it’s all tied up.  Then, Derek Hill leads off the bottom of the 4th by converting Cease’s homer result and the Tigers move ahead, but a leadoff single off Alexander’s card in the 6th and the Tigers immediately head to the pen for Kyle Funkhouser, who quickly snuffs out the threat.  However, in the 7th two walks and a single under the glove of 2B-4 Willi Castro loads the bases for the Sox with nobody out, and with the infield in Remillard rolls the gbA++ for a 2-run single, and Andrew Benintendi adds a sac fly to put the Sox ahead again, 7-5.  But Niko Goodrum leads off the bottom of the inning by converting Cease’s HR 1-10 split and the Sox now look in their own bullpen, but see nothing but disaster.  Cease then walks the bases loaded and then as a P-2, drops a sure DP ball that would have ended the inning, and the game is tied with the bases still loaded.  The Sox can take no more and try Gregory Santos out of the pen, and he almost gets out of the jam but C-4 Yasmani Grandal lets a passed ball get by him and the Tigers now lead by a run.  They bring out Spencer Turnbull to pitch the 9th, trying to record his second straight save, and although he issues a walk, he strikes out Robert as the go-ahead run to end the game and the persistent Tigers earn a trip to the finals with the 8-7 win.

Two mediocrities face off in the regional finals, with the 2023 Angels having eliminated the top seed in the semifinals and the 2021 Tigers knocking off the #2 seed in the first round, and both produced comeback wins to get this far.  For the Angels, Griffin Canning (7-8, 4.32) had a pretty bad gopher ball problem, but not as bad as that of the Tigers’ Tarik Skubal (8-12, 4.34) so the wind could be blowing out in Comerica Park today.  The first blast comes in the bottom of the 1st as the Tigers Eric Haase converts his own HR 1-6 split and Detroit leads 2-0,  However, in the top of the 3rd Randall Grichuk counters with a three run homer of his own to put the Angels ahead, and a 2-out double in the 6th off Skubal’s card and the Tigers move to the wild Gregory Soto out of the pen who whiffs PH Mike Trout to do his job.  Although Canning is pitching well, the Angels bring in Jose Soriano to begin the 8th, and he makes it exciting in the 9th as Jonathan Schoop rolls his HR 1-7/flyB for the tying run, but the split is a 10 and Soriano earns the save and the Angels earn the regional crown with the 3-2 win, only the 6th for the franchise.  Surprisingly, it was neither MVP Ohtani or late inning sub Mike Trout who made the difference for the Angels; it was mainly their pitching, who allowed only four runs in the three games that allowed the rest of their lineup to poke out enough runs to squeak by.  

Interesting card of Regional #247:   There have been 11 pitchers who won both the Cy Young and the MVP award in the same season, with this card representing the most recent recipient of these twin accomplishments.  A few months before the 2014 season began, the 26-year old Kershaw signed what was the richest contract for a pitcher in baseball history at the time, a seven year extension for $215 million that seemed pretty risky given the inconsistency and injury-prone nature of most MLB starting pitching these days.  It worked out pretty well, as he immediately won his third Cy Young award (and his first MVP) and although he never won another, he finished in the top 10 in the Cy Young voting in five of those next seven seasons.  I guess I should say he hasn’t won another “so far”, because he’s still active, although he just went on the DL a few days ago with bone spurs after making only 7 starts for the Dodgers after missing most of the season before the All-Star break recovering from shoulder surgery.  It would be nice if he could recover and pitch in the postseason, as his performance in October has been pretty mixed, with a 14-14 record and a 4.49 ERA.  It would be good if he could make that a winning record if indeed this ends up being his final season.