REGIONAL #252:  This batch of remnants was more diverse than many of the recent regionals, with three 20th century teams including the final entry from the 1950s.  That entry just so happened to be a pennant winning Yankees team, but I thought they might have some competition here.  The two different colored Sox teams from 1982 were both within range of post-season appearances, while the Rays and Reds from 2023 I suspected were also good squads.  It might be wishful thinking, but I picked the ‘57 Yanks to go all the way, and I figured the White Sox jinx would spell a loss to the Red Sox, enabling Boston to make the finals but lose to their hated rivals.  The ELO ratings portrayed this as a strong bracket with 6 top 1000 teams, including Cardinals and Mets squads that the Yanks would need to get past to reach the finals.  Those ratings also picked the Bronx Bombers to win, but suggested that the 2023 Rays could give them a run for their money in the finals. 

First round action

The Yankees of the 1950s were more successful in real life than they’ve been in this tournament, but the pennant-winning 1957 Yankees were seeking to duplicate the success of the lone regional winner from that vintage, the ‘58 squad.  This version won 98 games but fell one game short in the Series; Mickey Mantle was the league MVP with Gil McDougald finishing 5th, while Tony Kubek was Rookie of the Year.  Three of their pitchers also received MVP votes, and although Bob Turley (13-6, 2.71) was not one of them, he arguably had the best card on the staff.  They faced a powerful 2022 Cardinals team who won 93 games and the NL Central, who also had an MVP winner in Paul Goldschmidt, with Nolan Arenado finishing 3rd in that voting, and Miles Mikolas (12-13, 3.29) was a capable round one starter.  Tommy Edman misses his HR split in the top of the 2nd and Turley strands him at second, and the Yanks take the lead when Bobby Richardson races home on a 2-out single by Mantle in the 3rd.  Hank Bauer extends the lead by finding and converting Mikolas’s HR split to lead off the bottom of the 4th, and a few batters later the unlikely Bobby Richardson does the same for a 2-run blast and the Cards are in a 4-0 hole.  They pull out the stops and insert closer Ryan Helsley to begin the 6th to try to keep it close, but an error by C-2 Yadier Molina and a squib single from Richardson sets up a two out RBI single from Kubek.  However, in the top of the 7th Turley loses control, with three walks loading the bases for Goldschmidt with two away, and Goldschmidt puts it into the monuments for a grand slam and suddenly it’s a one run game.  Albert Pujols then goes back to back to tie it, stunning the Yankee Stadium crowd.  Then, Brendan Donovan leads off the top of the 9th converting Turley’s HR result for the first Cardinal lead of the game, and they seek to preserve some eligibility for Helsey by inserting Zack Thompson to try to earn the save against the heart of the Yankee order.  Mantle draws a walk to lead things off, but Thompson retires Skowron and Bauer to bring up Yogi Berra.  He rolls a 6-5, HR 1-9/flyB, and the game is going to be over one way or another depending upon the split die.  The split is a 3, it’s a two-run shot into the stands for a walkoff and Yogi is mobbed at the plate as the Yankees survive the 7-6 comeback win.  

The 2008 Mets went 89-73, with David Wright and Carlos Delgado finishing in the top 10 on the MVP ballots and Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes also getting votes.  However, after Johan Santana (16-7, 2.53), 3rd for the Cy Young, the rotation dropped off quickly, although Santana would certainly pose a challenge for a middling 82-80 2023 Reds team.  For the Reds, TJ Friedl received one lone MVP vote while Elly de la Cruz got one vote for Rookie of the Year, but the rotation was bad with spot starter Andrew Abbott (8-6, 3.87) the only respectable option.   A two out single by Reyes drives in a run in the bottom of the 3rd, and then Wright doubles him home to put the Mets up 2-0.  In the 5th Abbott yields a bases-loaded walk to Ryan Church to put the Reds deeper in the hole, but a 2-out RBI single by Hunter Renfroe gets Cincinnati on the board.  However, with two outs the Mets get back to back errors from 3B-2 Wright and C-3 Brian Schneider, and Spender Steer singles a run home while a walk to Friedl loads the bases for Matt McLain.  The Mets sense the game getting away from Santana and so closer Billy Wagner is called upon in this clutch situation, but McLain laces a double to put the Reds ahead while Renfroe follows with another double and the Reds bat around with two outs to take a 6-3 lead.  Now handed a lead, Abbott no-hits the Mets the rest of the way, striking out the side in the bottom of the 9th to put an exclamation point on the 6-3 upset victory.

The 1982 White Sox were a season away from their “winning ugly” division-winning team, although they did win 87 games and many of the pieces of their success were here, with Harold Baines getting MVP support and Lamarr Hoyt (19-15, 3.53) having a decent season before taking the Cy Young the next year.  However, they faced both my White Sox jinx as well as a higher-rated 1982 Red Sox who won 89 games in the same year and league; the Bosox had Dwight Evans, Jim Rice, and Carney Lansford with MVP votes, as did reliever Bob Stanley with 168 relief innings.   That was understandable given their rotation, as although John Tudor (13-10, 3.63) wasn’t terrible by any means, the bottom of their rotation was.  In the top of the 1st, Rudy Law leads off with a single and promptly steals second, but then the next batter Tony Bernazard gets injured and the rally dies along with him.  Boston takes advantage in the 2nd with an RBI double from Dave Stapleton followed by a 2-run single by Rick Miller and the Red Sox lead 3-0 after two.  In the 4th, Rich Gedman converts Hoyt’s HR 1-6/flyB split for a two run shot and Boston is breaking the game open; two more singles and Hoyt is gone for Kevin Hickey, who gets the final out.  In the 6th, injury replacement Jim Morrison tries to light a fire with a two-out, two-run homer that makes it 5-2, and in the 8th Aurelio Rodriguez adds a solo shot that narrows the Chisox deficit to two.  In the 9th, Tudor gets the first two outs but then a walk to Greg Luzinski and a Baines single puts the go ahead run at the plate, so Stanley is summoned to try to get the final out, and he does so to earn a one-out save that sends to Red Sox on to round two with a 5-3 win.  

The second-seeded 2023 Rays won 99 games but didn’t make it past the wildcard round in the postseason; Yandy Diaz finished 6th in MVP voting, and Tyler Glasnow (10-7, 3.53) was a strikeout machine.  The 2021 Marlins lost 95 games and were the bottom seed in the bracket, although Trevor Rogers (7-8, 2.64) was the Rookie of the Year runner-up and had a mean strikeout pitch himself, so this one promised a lot of whiffs.  Jesus Aguilar puts the Marlins on the board in the bottom of the 4th with an RBI double on a missed HR split, but he scores nonetheless on a 2-out Starling Marte single.  The Rays look to come back in the top of the 5th getting men on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out, but they fail to plate anything, including missing a SI* 1-14 split in the failure.  Jorge Alfaro then leads off the bottom of the inning converting Glasnow’s HR split, and the Marlins go all in to begin the 6th trying to shore up their terrible defense with five defensive replacements.  Rogers again gets out of a 2nd & 3rd jam in the 7th with two straight strikeouts, and in the bottom of the inning a Glasnow error and a Jon Berti single leads Tampa to insert closer Pete Fairbanks, who quickly puts out the fire.  But Jazz Chisholm adds to the Miami lead with an RBI double in the 8th, but Rogers doesn’t need the padding as he wraps up a 6-hit shutout to lead the Marlins to the 4-0 upset win.  

The survivors

The semifinal game between the pennant-winning 1957 Yankees and the .500 2023 Reds had a bit of a mismatch look about it, but my impression during this tournament is that the walk-prone pitching staffs of the 40s and 50s have tended to suffer against the power and depth of contemporary squads.  Unfortunately for the Reds, NY’s Bobby Shantz (11-5, 2.45) had excellent control, while Graham Ashcraft (7-9, 4.76) of the Reds could make up for the power differential between the eras.  And Ashcroft begins the top of the 1st with two straight walks off his card, and then Moose Skowron nails Ashcroft’s solid 5-5 HR result for a three run shot and the Yankees have a solid lead before most of the Reds fans have found their seats.  Reds #9 hitter Kevin Newman narrows the gap by finding and converting Shantz’s HR split for a solo shot in the 3rd, but Yogi Berra immediately gets it back by leading off the 4th with a blast for his second homer of the regional.  Bobby Richardson adds a sac fly later in the inning to make it 5-1 Yanks, but TJ Friedl pokes an RBI single in the 6th to pull the Reds within three.   The New York defense takes a hit when SS-2 Gil McDougald is knocked out of the game with an injury in the 7th, but Shantz is in command and holds off the Reds for the 5-2 win and a trip to the finals, with the good news that McDougald will be ready to go for that game.  

The 2021 Marlins had already eliminated the #2 seed in the bracket to get to this semifinal, and now they faced the #3 seeded 1982 Red Sox and Dennis Eckersley, although the Marlins countered with a good Sandy Alcantara (9-15, 3.19) who would win the Cy Young the following year.  However, Jim Rice finds and converts Alcantara’s 6-5 HR split for a 2-run homer in the top of the 1st, and in the 6th Carney Lansford also converts that split for a two-out solo shot.  The Marlins respond with mass offensive substitutions, and that produces their first run in the bottom of the inning on a Lewin Diaz fielder’s choice.  When Alcantara issues a leadoff walk in the 8th, the Marlins go to closer Dylan Floro in a desperate move to stay in the tournament, and he wards off any damage.  However, it makes no difference as Eckersley rests the pen to finish out a 6-hitter and the Red Sox gain the finals with the 3-1 win. 

Archrivals from different eras face off with the top seeded 1957 Yankees taking on the #3 seed 1982 Red Sox in Fenway for the regional crown.  The pitching depth of the pennant-winning Yanks was evident with Tom Sturdivant (16-6, 2.54) better than most of the number one starters of other teams in this bracket, while the Red Sox were hoping that Chuck Rainey (7-5, 5.02) could last long enough to get the game to a rested bullpen.  He gets off to a rough start as Tony Kubek doubles off the pitcher’s card, and Mickey Mantle singles off Rainey to drive in Kubek for a quick lead in the top of the 1st; it doesn’t stop there as a Yogi Berra RBI single and an error by 1B-4 Wade Boggs score two more runs and the Yanks lead 3-0 before the Red Sox swing a bat.  The hits keep coming for the Yanks in the 2nd, and a 2-run double by Mantle (also off Rainey’s card) spells the end for the Boston starter after 1.3 innings, and in comes Bob Stanley for two straight strikeouts to try to keep the Red Sox hopes flickering.  Mantle raps his 4th RBI of the game in the 6th, a single off Stanley that wraps up his eligibility, so Luis Aponte comes in to pick up the pieces.  In the bottom of the inning Jim Rice is either injured or wants to beat the traffic, but either way it doesn’t help the odds of a Boston comeback.  The Yanks almost get another one in the 8th but this time a mad dash for home by Enos Slaughter doesn’t work and he’s out at the plate, but he does manage to score in the 9th on a sac fly from Bobby Richardson.  Meanwhile, Sturdivant is in control as he whiffs PH Tony Perez to complete a 5-hit shutout and the Yanks win easily 7-0 despite three errors committed by excellent fielders.  

Interesting card(s) of Regional #252:  A round one game in this bracket included the only two MVP winners in the group, and it’s interesting to compare the cards of two such winners nearly 70 years apart.  Mantle won his second straight MVP in 1957 at the age of 25, getting 69% of the votes compared to Ted Williams’ 62%; Mantle led the league in walks and runs scored while William led in batting average, SLG% and OBP, but Mantle’s team won the pennant–and this regional.  Goldschmidt was nearly a decade older at age 34, and he received a 90% share far outdistancing Manny Machado at 69%; Goldschmidt led the NL in SLG% and OPS, but was behind Mantle in both categories, and Goldschmidt’s team lost to Mantle’s Yanks in extra innings in the first round in this tournament.  Goldschmidt just finished his 14th season at age 36, which coincidentally was Mantle’s age during his final season; Goldschmidt finished 2024 with a .782 OPS, which was identical to Mantle’s in his final season, so you have to wonder how much Goldschmidt has left in the tank.  Mantle was a lock HOFer; does Goldschmidt have a shot?  With career marks well behind Mantle in virtually every major category, I’m guessing not–I’d put him in the Hall of Very Good, maybe suited for an appearance in a new Baseball Heroes set.