REGIONAL #127:   Regional #127 had the highest density of 21st century teams thus far in the tournament, with seven of the eight entries from the current millennium, and I have to admit that there are fewer teams from recent years that I find as memorable as those from the distant past.  There were two representatives from the Diamondbacks, one of the few remaining franchises that has never won a regional, and also two from the Pirates, including the 1930 team that a few years earlier had been swept by the Yanks in the 1927 Series.  There was also the 2020 Red Sox, only the second pandemic year squad to play in the tournament, and a couple of fairly recent entries from the Blue Jays and the Rockies.  Because none of these teams were very familiar to me, I felt like predicting a winner would be akin to flipping a coin, but to maintain tradition I had to choose someone, so I went with the 2007 version of the Diamondbacks over the Red Sox in the finals.  The ELO rankings disagreed completely, as they seemed to recall that the Blue Jays had made the ALCS and were really the only good team in this group, and predicted those Jays over the old-school Pirates in the finals.

First round action

The 93-loss 2016 Diamondbacks and the 93-loss 2008 Orioles were teams that were bad in highly similar ways, in that each boasted a couple of strong hitters and neither had much gas in the starting rotation.  The top of their rotations pitted Dback Zack Greinke (13-7,4.37) against Jeremy Guthrie (10-12, 3.63), and Greinke is not helped by SS-4 Chris Owings 2-base error in the 2nd that sets up an RBI single from Kevin Millar to give Baltimore a 1-0 lead.  In the 4th, another Arizona error, this one by the usually reliable 1B-1 Paul Goldschmidt, sets up another run, and meanwhile the Dbacks don’t even get a hit off Guthrie until the 5th inning.  The O’s finally get an earned run in the 8th when Aubrey Huff belts a solo shot, and entering the 9th with a three run lead, they contemplate going to their closer, but decide to stick with Guthrie, who is pitching a gem.  Guthrie thanks them by striking out the side in the 9th to lock down the 3-0 win, icing on the cake of his 3-hit shutout. 

Two interesting teams from two unusual seasons, one pandemic shortened and one with crazy hitting, faced off in this first round game.  The 80-74 1930 Pirates had a top of the order consisting of three straight Hall of Famers, all of whom hit in the .360s, but after that things dropped off considerably and their starting pitching was a mess.  The 2020 Red Sox went 24-36 and finished last in the AL East, although they competed for the division in both the prior and the succeeding year, suggesting that the bad performance was a low sample size anomaly.  Only the second pandemic-season team to play, Boston had the low-AB/IP wonders but also had very little flexibility in setting lineups or the rotation because of tournament usage guidelines.  Thus, the Red Sox had to start Martin Perez (4-5, 4.50) as their highest IP starter, although he was probably their best anyway; the Pirates got to “choose” Larry French (17-18, 4.36), who allowed 325 hits in 275 innings and was still the Bucs best pitcher.  The Pirates waste no time exploiting Perez’s faults in the top of the 1st, with back to back doubles by George Grantham and Adam Comorosky–both off Perez’s card–give Pittsburgh a 2-0 lead.  It’s deja vu all over again in the 2nd, when back to back doubles, again both off Perez, give the Pirates another run and Lloyd Waner an RBI.  In the 3rd, Comorosky gets another RBI double, this time off his own card, and the Pirates are up 4-0.  Two more runs on a Grantham RBI single and a run-allowing error by Sox 1B-3 Michael Chavis and it’s goodbye Perez, hello Nick Pivetta who finally pitches a scoreless inning.  Heartened, the Red Sox get on the board in the bottom of the 5th on a solo shot from Jackie Bradley, although Pittsburgh responds with a run scoring on a Pie Traynor grounder in the 6th that makes it 7-1. Grantham continues his hot hand with a 2-run double in the 8th, and when Ryan Brasier comes in to pitch the 9th for Boston all hell breaks loose, with the Waner brothers getting back-to-back doubles, both off the pitcher’s card once again, and the inning only ending when Gus Suhr hits a bases loaded double, again off Brasier’s card, but 1-17 Comorosky is out trying to score from first.  The Sox trot out a succession of low-AB wonders as pinch hitters in the bottom of the 9th, but French sets them down in order and the Pirates move on with a 13-1 blowout in which they rapped 20 hits.

I had blindly picked the 2007 Diamondbacks to win the regional, not knowing that they won 90 games and the NL West, and that they had a shot at the pennant but got swept in the NLCS.  However, setting their lineup I didn’t find it particularly impressive; there were five guys hitting under .255 and their rotation wasn’t very deep, as Randy Johnson was still there, but with only 57 IP he wasn’t even eligible to start.  However, at the top of their rotation was Brandon Webb (18-10, 3.01), runner-up in the Cy Young voting, and he also had the advantage of going against the 2001 Pirates, a 100-loss team that finished last in the NL Central.  The Pirates’ best option on the mound was swingman Dave Williams (3-7, 3.71), but Tony Clark greets him with a 2-run homer in the bottom of the 1st; two innings later he does the exact same thing with the same 3-10 roll, and the crowd at Chase Field is going wild.  When Dbacks DH Conor Jackson leads off the 4th with a long HR, the Pirates figure that their relief core may as well see some action in the tournament while they can, and Josias Manzanillo gets first crack.  He tosses a few scoreless innings, and the Pirate come alive in the 6th with back-to-back solo HRs from Craig Wilson and Aramis Ramirez, and suddenly it’s 5-2 and looking like it might get interesting.  However, Webb quickly makes it boring once again, only allowing one hit over the last three innings and the game ends with that tally, with the Dbacks still having one chance alive for their first regional win.

I must admit that I don’t always pay that much attention to contemporary baseball, particularly if my favorite teams are down, so it somehow escaped my notice that the 2016 Blue Jays actually made the ALCS as a wild card team that won 89 games, and that in fact the Jays team from the prior year that won the AL East was the best Toronto team of all time according to the ELO ranks.  The Jays presented a nice balance of pitching, defense, and hitting that contrasted with the rather one-dimensional 2019 Rockies, who in typical Colorado fashion would need to win high-scoring games towards the back end of their rotation.  It was a bit hard to imagine scoring a lot of runs against the Jays’ J.A. Happ (20-4, 3.18), but the Rockies #1 starter Jon Gray (11-8, 3.84) didn’t look too bad for a Coors-based pitcher.  The Jays jump to a quick lead in the top of the 1st on a 2-run homer by Edwin Encarnacion, although in the bottom of the inning a solo shot by Trevor Story narrows the gap to 2-1.  The Rockies begin to mount a threat in the 2nd inning, but Daniel Murphy lines into a triple play to the disbelief of the Coors crowd.  They get a little payback in the top of the 3rd when Darwin Barney misses Gray’s HR 1-14 split and gets stranded at second, and when #9 Rockies hitter Tony Wolters smacks an RBI double in the bottom of the inning, things are all tied up.  In the top of the 4th, Michael Saunders is cut down at the plate trying to score on a Troy Tulowitzki single, but the Rockies meet a similar fate in the 5th when Ryan McMahon is nailed trying to score, so the score remains tied through five.  Toronto gets a setback when Happ is injured on the first at-bat of the 6th, so the Jays test their bullpen with Joaquin Benoit getting the call.  Benoit ends the 6th successfully, but in the 7th things come unraveled for him after an Encarnacion error, and a Raimel Tapia RBI single and a Story sac fly give the Rockies a two run lead.  That proves to be all that Gray needs, as he finishes out a 6-hitter and the Rockies upset the regional favorite to move on to the semifinals with a 4-2 win.

The survivors

The only 20th century team in the regional, the 1930 Pirates were now the top-ranked squad remaining after the first round, and they appeared to deserve that status given that in the first round they outscored the other three semifinalists combined.  Of course, it’s pretty easy to score runs when you roll a remarkable seven doubles on opposing pitchers’ cards, so it remained to be determined whether these Pirate hitters can be successful rolling on their own cards.  However, with the 2008 Orioles putting Daniel Cabrera (8-10, 5.25) on the mound as their best option, rolling on the pitcher’s card could still be a good thing, although the Bucs’ Erv Brame (17-10, 4.70) was not without his own issues.  The Pirates put up two runs in the bottom of the 1st on RBI from Pie Traynor and Gus Suhr for a quick lead, but Brame gets a rude welcome to the 21st century from a 3-run Melvin Mora homer in the 4th that puts the Orioles on top.  Meanwhile, Cabrera doesn’t allow a hit until Rollie Hemsley leads off the top of the 8th with a double, and at that point the O’s don’t want to take any chances and summon their best reliever, Jim Johnson, to pitch to the top of the Pirates order with their three HOFers.  One Waner goes down; another Waner goes down; but then Traynor walks, Grantham pushes a single past 1B-3 Aubrey Huff, and the bases are loaded for Adam Comorosky, who clears them with a double, Suhr singles him home, and suddenly the Bucs lead 6-3 going into the 9th.  Brame then just needs to get through the bottom of the O’s order, and he does so in order, and the Pirates march to the finals with the 6-3 comeback win in which all eight of their hits came in only two innings.

Although the semifinal matchup between the 90-win 2007 Diamondbacks and the 91-loss 2019 Rockies might sound lopsided, it was interesting to me that their ELO rankings weren’t as far apart as I expected.   Motivations for the Dbacks were numerous; aside from the franchise never having won a regional, these Dbacks won the NL West but were prevented from winning a pennant when they were swept in the NLCS by none other than the Rockies.  The lack of rotation depth for both teams was in play, as both Arizona’s Micah Owings (8-8, 4.30) and Colorado’s German Marquez (12-5, 4.76) had some frightening areas on their cards.  Things don’t begin well for the Dbacks when their second batter, LF Eric Byrnes, gets injured for 10 games in the top of the 1st, and then in the bottom of the inning their 1B-3 Tony Clark boots a David Dahl grounder with two out that allows a run to score.  In the 4th, AZ’s Mark Reynolds misses a HR 1-6 split and gets stranded at second, but in the top of the 5th a Chris Snyder double is converted into a run on an RBI single from Stephen Drew, although Drew is nailed at the plate (1-16) trying to score on an Orlando Hudson double, so the score remains tied and it’s becoming clear that Lady Luck isn’t visiting Arizona today.  The Dbacks finally mount a threat in the 8th when Carlos Quentin smacks a leadoff double, and the Rockies bring in their best (by far) reliever in Scott Oberg in response.  However, Jeff Salazar, in for injured Byrnes, nails another double and Arizona has their first lead of the game.  They bring out closer Jose Valverde for the bottom of the 9th, but Dahl gets a one-out double, pinch-hitter Sam Hilliard singles and Dahl beats the throw, and the game heads to extra innings.  Oberg shut the Dbacks down in order in the top of the 10th, while in the bottom Valverde has to face Nolan Arenado with two out and the winning run on second.  The pitch–Arenado rolls Valverde’s HR 1-15 split, converts, and it’s a walkoff homer in extra innings as the Rockies move to the finals with a comeback 4-2 win.  In this season, Valverde led the NL in saves and came in 6th in the Cy Young voting, but here he earns the blown save and the loss in a terrible relief appearance as he single-handedly sends the Diamondbacks back into storage.

The regional final was between the #2 seeded 1930 Pirates and the #6 seed 2019 Rockies, who had already knocked off #1 and #3 and were going for the trifecta.  For that to happen, they were going to need a decent outing from frightening starter Antonio Senzatela (11-11, 6.71) because their top reliever was burnt and the alternatives were mostly scarier than Senzatela.  Mind you, the Pirates starter, Ray Kremer (20-12, 5.02), had his own problems, particularly the 366 hits he allowed in 276 innings, so most folks weren’t exactly expecting a 1-0 game, which is the score after the top of the 1st following a two-out RBI single by red hot Adam Comorosky gives the Bucs a lead.  The Rockies tie it immediately in the bottom of the inning when Trevor Story misses a HR 1-14/DO split but scores on a Nolan Arenado single.  Paul Waner leads off the 3rd with a homer off Senzatela’s card, and they add another run in the 4th on a Lloyd Waner RBI single.  However, in the 5th Rockies 2B Ryan McMahon hits a solo HR off Kremer’s card to narrow the Pittsburgh lead to 3-2, and with a tight game entering the 6th Senzatela is on an extremely short leash.  However, he rips off three straight hitless innings and only leaves after allowing a single to Paul Waner in the 9th, when Jairo Diaz comes in and both worsens and escapes the jam.  So the game enters the bottom of the 9th with the Rockies down a run, and Kremer comes through to finish up a 7-hitter and the Pirates survive three errors (two by Lloyd Waner) to take the unexpectedly well-pitched game and the regional crown with a 3-2 win.  Comorosky, who had a .900 OPS and led the NL in triples with 23, contributed seven RBI over the three games and he earns regional MVP honors.

Interesting card of Regional #127:  When I started playing Strat back in the late 60s/early 70s, my neighborhood buddies and I had various draft leagues in which we could pick from any players in our combined collections, which at the time mainly consisted of some Old Timer teams, the original Hall of Fame series (now known as Series “A”, but this was before there was a “B”), and some then-contemporary teams.  I remember 3rd base always being a difficult spot to fill, and I often went with the HOF card of this guy, shown below.  Playing the 1930 Pirates reminded me of old Pie, and aesthetically I think I like his 1930 card even better than the 1929 one Strat chose for his HOF edition.  Reminiscing about those childhood drafts got me to thinking about how much the available options have changed since then.  For yucks, I went to Baseballegg.com to see where Pie ranked on their list of greatest third basemen of all time, and he is currently #69.  I was struck by how many of the top 3B listed on that site came along after our early leagues–Schmidt, Boggs, Brett, Beltre, Chipper Jones–and in the unlikely event that there are any 10 year olds out there having a similar draft today, I doubt they would give Traynor a second glance.  But back in the day, Pie was a top option, and he did something most of the 68 ranked ahead of him couldn’t do–lead his team to a regional win in this tournament.

REGIONAL #126:  This grouping features the pennant-winning 2003 Yankees, who have the challenge of facing an Indians team in the first round that had won a pennant the prior season.   However, another entrant to keep an eye on was a Rays team that was bracketed on either side by versions that had done very well in this tournament, including winning the prior regional.  The teams in the bottom half of the bracket were more of a crap shoot, and other than what I suspected was a bad Senators team I thought any of the remaining three could end up in the finals.  I decided that the Indians would best the oldest team in the bracket, the 1938 Tigers, in the finals.  The ELO rankings agreed that my selected teams were pretty good, but chose the pennant-winning Yankees over a dark-horse Twins team for the regional crown.

First round action

I expected that setting the lineup for the 2018 Rays would feel very familiar after the 2017 team just won the previous regional, but I was mistaken–this was a remarkably different team, and I believe that C Wilson Ramos was the only player in the starting lineup for both teams.  They still won 90 games, and although their starting pitching depth was non-existent, their rotation was fronted by Blake Snell (21-5, 1.89), who won the AL Cy Young Award as well as the Regional #125 final.  They faced the 1995 Giants, who went 67-77 in that strike-shortened year; they were a team with some bruisers with the bat but not much in the rotation, with Mark Leiter (10-12, 3.82) getting the nod as their ace.  In the 2nd, Ramos drops a popup that would have been the third out, setting up an RBI single for Kirt Manwaring that gives the Giants the early lead.  From that point on, Snell is in command–but so is Leiter.  The Giants threaten in the 8th with runners on 1st and 2nd with one out, but Giants SS Royce Clayton turns a critical DP and the threat is ended.  In the 9th, Leiter retires the 2-3-4 hitters of the Rays in order, finishing up a 4-hit shutout and a 1-0 upset win for the Giants.  Snell only allows 5 hits himself, and no earned runs, but the Rays make 2 errors–twice as many as they did in the three games of the prior regional–and Tampa’s hopes for two regional titles in a row end quickly.

The 2003 Yankees won 101 games and the AL pennant, and the ELO ranks had them in the top 150 teams of all time, but the Yankees teams of the Jeter era just have not fared well in this tournament, and so I had predicted that they wouldn’t get past their first round opponent, the 1998 Indians.  However, after setting the lineups I wasn’t so sure anymore–the entire Yankee lineup was over .400 SLG%, they had the best starting rotation that money and PEDs could provide, and if they got a lead there was Mariano Rivera to ensure that they kept it.  Even so, the Indians had a pretty imposing heart of the order with four consecutive .500+ SLG% bruisers, although their starter Bartolo Colon (14-9, 3.71) had both a larger ERA and waistline than Mike Mussina (17-8, 3.40).  Jeter doesn’t take kindly to my slight, manufacturing a run by drawing a leadoff walk, taking the extra base on a Matsui single, and scoring on a Jason Giambi sac fly to give the Yanks a lead in the top of the 1st, and in the 2nd they add two more on a Raul Mondesi homer to go up 3-0.  A solo shot by Alphonso Soriano in the 3rd makes it 4-0, and when the Yanks begin the 4th with two walks and a Jeter RBI single, it is obviously time for a Colon-ectomy, and in desperation the Indians summon closer Mike Jackson who ends the inning without further damage.  Jackson finally holds the Yanks scoreless in the top of the 5th, courtesy of an acrobatic play by SS-1 Omar Vizquel, and in the bottom of the inning the Indians get on the board when Sandy Alomar Jr. convert’s Mussina’s HR split for a solo shot.  In the 6th, David Justice hits an RBI single and the Indians then load up the bases, so the Yanks yank Mussina and Jose Contreras comes in to induce a DP ball from Alomar that keeps the score at 5-2.  In the 8th, NY brings in Jeff Nelson to set up, but he allows a run on a Joey Cora fielder’s choice and the score narrows to 5-3, and it stays that way into the bottom of the 9th, when closer Rivera comes in to face the top of the Indians order.  They go down 1-2-3, and Rivera preserves the 5-3 win for the Yankees and a date with the Giants in the semifinals.   

In my initial scan of the regional entries, I seemed to have underestimated the 2010 Twins and overestimated the 2003 Brewers.  The Twins won 94 games and the AL Central, and had a pretty solid balance of hitting, pitching, and defense; the Brewers lost 94 games and had to hope that Richie Sexson could hit enough homers to compensate for a bad steroid-era pitching staff.  Minnesota’s Francisco Liriano (14-10, 3.62) and Ben Sheets (11-13, 4.45) for the Brewers provided the pitching matchup, and the Brewers draw first blood when Scott Podsednik singles, steals second, and scores on a Sexson single in the 1st.  The Brewers threaten again in the 4th, loading the bases but Twins C Joe Mauer hangs onto a Podsednik two-strike foul tip for the third out.  When Wes Helms doubles in the 6th, the Twins decide that with their offense struggling they can’t afford to let the game get away from them, and bring in closer Brian Fuentes, and he records two straight strikeouts to end the threat.  Then it’s the Brewers turn in the 7th to summon their closer, Dan Kolb, when the Twins get runners on 1st and 3rd with two out, even though Sheets is still tossing a shutout.  That move doesn’t work as well for the Brewers, as Michael Cuddyer raps a hard single off Kolb’s card (a roll that was an out on Sheets, by the way) and the game is tied.  The Twins do nothing in the 8th except lose CF Denard Span to a tournament-ending injury, but the Brewers are similarly stymied and the score remains knotted 1-1 after 9 innings.  Kolb retires the Twins in order in the top of the 10th, and Minnesota has to dig deeper in their pen in the bottom of the inning, turning to Jesse Crain to face Richie Sexson.  Sexson puts it into the beer garden at Miller Park for a walk-off 2-1 win that keeps the Brewers’ hopes alive for their first regional win–although closer Kolb is now toast for the rest of the regional with some really bad starting pitching on deck.

The 1938 Tigers had a great top of the order, led by Hank Greenberg’s 58 HR season, but the back end and the starting rotation were less impressive, resulting in an 84-70 record good for 4th place in the AL.  They were comfortable favorites over the 1954 Senators, who nonetheless were not as bad as I expected from a team with “last in the American League” as part of their motto; they went 66-88 to finish 6th, not last, and as might be expected given that they played in cavernous Griffith Stadium, they had limited power but an excellent starting rotation, with Johnny Schmitz (11-8, 2.92) drawing the first round start against Detroit’s Tommy Bridges (13-9, 4.59).   The Senators strike first in the 3rd when Jim Busby scores on a Mickey Vernon sac fly, and the Tigers’ effort to retaliate in the bottom of the inning is cut short when Chet Morgan (1-14) is cut down trying to score on a Dixie Walker double.  In the 6th, Roy Sievers, who had gotten on courtesy of a Mark Christman (3B-2) error, scores on a Pete Runnels grounder and it’s now 2-0.  A walk and a single to start the 7th finishes Bridges’ day, with Al Benton coming in to retire the side without incident.  However, Detroit never can solve Schmitz, who finishes up the game with a 2-0 shutout–with Jim Busby’s 4 hits equaling the entire output of the Tigers. 

The survivors

Pfizer player of the game

The regional favorite 2003 Yankees selected Roger Clemens (17-9, 3.91), now that he was back from picking up his wife’s prescriptions, to start their semifinal matchup against the 1996 Giants and William Vanlandingham (6-3, 3.67), whose name was longer than his career.  The juices were running high in the top of the 1st inning when Barry Bonds crushed a Clemens offering for a two-run blast, but the Giants get a dose of their own medicine in the bottom of the 1st when Jason Giambi nails a 3-run homer to put the Yankees up 3-2, and it’s looking like I’m going to run out of steroids puns before this game is over.  In the 5th, Royce Clayton misses Clemens’ HR 1-15/DO split, but next batter Kirt Manwaring raps a hard single also off Clemens card, and Matt Williams drives Manwaring in to put the Giants back on top 4-3.  Once again, Giambi makes short work of that lead with a 2-run homer in the bottom of the inning and the Yanks move back in front.  However, when Glenallen Hill leads off the 6th with a double, NY decides to pull Clemens and turn the game over to their bullpen, and Contreras retires the Giants without damage.  The Yanks bring in Jeff Nelson in the 8th to set up, but once again that doesn’t go well as Matt Williams slams his first pitch into the leftfield stands–although the Giants botch a chance to take the lead back when Hill (1-14) is nailed trying to score on a Deion Sanders single.  Hill then doubles down on his goat-hood by misplaying an Alfonso Soriano single that puts Soriano in position to score on Nick Johnson single, and the Yanks reclaim the lead going into the 9th and out comes Mariano Rivera for the save opportunity.  He puts the Giants down in order, and the Yankees head to the finals with a 6-5 win that involved five lead changes.

The second semifinal featured a pair of upset winners from the first round, with the 1954 Senators finding themselves in the unlikely position of being favored over the 2003 Brewers.  Certainly, the pitching matchup favored Washington, with the Nats’ Dean Stone (12-10, 3.22) a far better option than Milwaukee’s Matt Kinney (10-13, 5.19), but it’s the Brewers who score first in the top of the 1st with a Geoff Jenkins double driving in Podsednik.  However, in the 5th Kinney allows three straight squib singles to start the inning, and then Brewer 2B-3 Keith Ginter boots a grounder from the late Wayne Terwilliger to tie the game; with the bases still loaded, Tom Umphlett hits into a DP but a run scores and the Senators move to a 2-1 lead.  That lead is short lived, as Richie Sexson belts a solo shot in the top of the 6th to tie things up.  The Brewers get men on 2nd and 3rd with one out in the 7th, but Stone pitches out of the jam, and in the bottom of the inning Terwilliger converts Stone’s HR 1-2 split and puts the Senators up 3-2, with Milwaukee having few options in the pen with their best reliever burnt.  Again, that lead doesn’t last long when Jenkins hits a solo shot in the 8th and later Brady Clark follows with a 2-run double that makes it 5-3, and things just get worse for the Senators in the bottom of the inning when their best run producer, Mickey Vernon, leaves the game with a serious injury.  From there, it’s just Kinney hanging on and the Brewers head to the finals with the 5-3 win despite managing only 5 hits off Stone.   

The regional final featured two teams from the same season for the first time since Regional #60, and the first that I could remember since I began tracking ELO ratings to match the #1 regional seed with the #8 seed in the finals.  That #1 seed was the 2003 Yankees, the first pennant winner to appear in a regional final since the 1951 version of the Yankees lost to a #6 seed in Regional #117.  They faced the 94-loss 2003 Brewers, who sent Doug Davis (7-8, 4.03) to face Andy Pettitte (21-8, 4.02); Pettitte finished sixth in the Cy Young balloting but it is some indication of the strength of the Yankees rotation that he was their #3 starter in this tournament.  The underdog Brewers eke out a lead in the bottom of the 3rd when Eddie Perez misses Pettite’s HR 1-10/DO split, but scores on a Scott Podsednik single that makes it 1-0 Milwaukee.  The Yanks tie it in the 5th when Geoff Jenkins misplays a Raul Mondesi single, setting up an RBI single from Bernie Williams, but the Brewers push back out in front in the bottom of the inning when Perez scores again, this time on a Royce Clayton single.  In the 6th, it’s Jason Giambi’s turn to miss a HR 1-10/DO split, but he scores by converting a running 1-10 split on an Alfonso Soriano single that ties the game again, but in the bottom of the inning Brewer PH Brooks Kieschnick slams a 2-run homer and the Brewers now lead 4-2.  In the 8th, Davis walks the bases loaded with one out, but Nick Johnson hits into an inning-ending DP and the Brewers still cling to their lead, although with their closer Kolb unavailable after his lengthy first-round stint.  However, Kolb isn’t needed as Davis closes out the Yanks, assisted by Aaron Boone hitting into NY’s third DP of the game in the 9th, and the Brewers clinch the first regional win for that franchise with a 4-2 upset victory.  

Interesting card of Regional #126:  This regional had some great candidates for this feature. There was Hank Greenberg’s monster 1938 card, with more HR chances than the Babe, but the Tigers were shut out in the first round and I had already featured a Greenberg card in Regional #94.  Matt Williams had a monster card for the 1995 Giants, with 23 homers in only 283 ABs courtesy of a strike-shortened season.  However, I decided to go with the card(s) of someone considerably lower profile than those two:  Brooks Kieschnick.  There are a few things that make him interesting.  First, with all the (well-deserved) attention paid to Shohei Ohtani this year for his exploits as both a position player and a pitcher, Brooks would like us to remember that this wasn’t the first time since the Babe that occurred.  Second, Kieschnick’s cards.  His pitching card is hardly great–that 6-7 solid double is kind of eye-catching–but in that terrible Brewer bullpen, he was probably in the top half of their options.  However, that hitting card is pretty unique.  How many Basic Strat cards can you think of that had five COMPLETE home run results in one column–no splits here, just solid dingers.  I’m betting Ohtani’s 2021 MVP card won’t.  In the season represented by this card, Kieschnick became the first player in major league history to hit home runs as a pitcher, designated hitter, and pinch hitter in the same season.  Ultimately he didn’t have much of a career, totalling only 306 ABs and 96 IP over six seasons in the majors, but he still managed to deliver the pinch-hit blast that gave the Brewers their first regional win in the tournament.    

IN MEMORIAM:  As 2021 draws to a close, I want to acknowledge the loss of this team of players during the past year.  Most if not all have made at least one appearance in my tournament and in countless other projects in the many years that I've been playing Strat.   One of the things I love about the game is that I can always dive into the storage drawers and pull out these players in their prime, with their abilities preserved as if in amber, in the form of cardstock and dice rolls.

REGIONAL #125:   At first glance, the draw for this regional looked to me like a moldering mound of mediocrity, and I was hard pressed to remember much of anything about any of these teams.  I knew that the Mets had been pennant-winners four years prior, and that the Rays would do so within a few years, but those two were facing off in the first round and beyond that it was pretty much a blind guess.   Because the Rays had never won a regional (with the 2019 team losing in the finals of Regional #114), I decided to pull for them and predicted they would defeat the Indians in the finals.   The ELO ranks suggested that I severely underestimated the Mets, ranking them as a very good team that was predicted to take the regional over the Indians.

First round action

On looking at the initial draw for the regional, I had guessed that the 1990 Mets had declined significantly from their ‘86 champions, but no–they won 91 games and still boasted a formidable pitching staff.  In fact, it seemed to me that the Mets‘ #4 starter was better than the #1 of their opponents, the 2017 Rays, and so the matchup of NY’s Frank Viola (20-12, 2.67, third place in Cy Young votes) against Tampa’s Chris Archer (10-12, 4.07) was predictably lopsided.  And it looks like it’s going to be ugly when Kevin McReynolds finds Archer’s HR result in the top of the 1st for a three-run blast to quickly put the Mets in front.  The Rays try to stage a rally in the 2nd and load the bases with nobody out, but Adeiny Hechavarria manages to hit his LOMAX, triple play, rally over, and to make matters worse I also have to type his name out.  However, the Rays are not discouraged, and in the 3rd inning they managed to hit Viola’s 6-4 HR 1-7 results THREE times, and convert it all three times, for homers by Logan Morrison, Corey Dickerson, and Wilson Ramos that put the Rays on top 5-3.  Mets manager Bud Harrelson demands a dice inspection, but no foreign substances are detected, and NY now has to try to dig out of a hole that their ace has gotten them into.  They try to let Viola work out his issues, but when Colby Rasmus hits a 2-run homer in the 5th (at least off his own card), Frank is gone and John Franco, who has an out at 6-4, is summoned to try to pick up the pieces.  The Mets get two walks and an RBI single from Tim Teufel to send Archer to the showers in favor of Tommy Hunter, and he ends the rally with the Rays still up 7-4.  The Rays get a run off a 2-out RBI single by Ramos in the bottom of the 7th, although Hechavarria again leaves the bases loaded.  A Rasmus fielder’s choice in the 8th makes it 9-4, and the Rays bring in Steve Cishek for the 9th to set down the Mets in order as the Rays knock out the regional favorite in convincing fashion.

When two bad teams meet in this tournament, somebody is going to advance, so the 94-loss 1999 Expos and 93-loss 2019 Pirates could take heart from that guarantee.   The Expos at least had a big season from Vlad Guerrero, while the Pirates had some decent relievers; the two starters had very similar cards, with neither Montreal’s Dustin Hermanson (9-14, 4.20) and Pirate Joe Musgrove (11-12, 4.44) making a dominating #1 starter.  The first inning goes as one might expect, with the Expos hitting into an inning-ending DP with runners on 1st and 3rd in the top of the inning, and the Pirates DH Jose Osuna leaving runners on 2nd and 3rd in the bottom of the inning, while getting injured in the process.  In the 4th, the Expos rap four hits and the Pirates commit their 3rd error of the game and Montreal takes a 3-0 lead.  Although Musgrove allows only one more hit, the Pirates are dominated by Hermanson, who ends with a 3-hit shutout and the Expos move on with a 3-0 win, one in which they only mustered six hits themselves.

The 1971 Angels had a very strong pitching staff, with Andy Messersmith (20-13, 2.69) setting himself up nicely for the advent of free agency; however, their anemic hitting resulted in a  mediocre 76-86 season.  There was certainly no hitting shortage on the 1996 Orioles, a team loaded with steroid-era crushers but with a starting rotation that suffered accordingly.  These Orioles went 88-74, lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, and I seriously underestimated them in my initial impressions, confusing them with the dismal version of the Orioles that lost 20+ games in a row some years earlier.  However, the Angels tag Mike Mussina (19-11, 4.81) quickly in the top of the 1st with a Mickey Rivers single, a Roger Repoz double, and a sac fly by Ken McMullen and Messersmith has a 1-0 lead to work with.  However, in the 3rd, Sandy Alomar drops a grounder that sets up a Bobby Bonilla RBI single that ties the game; in the Orioles dugout, Sandy’s son Roberto is cringing in embarrassment.  The Angels reclaim the lead when a Rivers fielder’s choice scores Ken Berry in the 5th, but that lead only lasts until the bottom of the 6th when BJ Surhoff crushes a solo shot to tie it again.  In the 8th, McMullen misses a HR 1-9/DO split, but scores on Jim Spencer’s double and the Angels retake the lead; the O’s bring in Jesse Orosco to prevent any more damage, and he does so.  It then comes down to Messersmith trying to hold on in the 9th; he gets two quick outs, but then 3B-2 Ken McMullen makes his second error of the game, Todd Zeile walks, and the Orioles bring in 40 year old Eddie Murray to pinch hit with the tying and winning run both on base.  The roll, SI* 1-4, no luck for Eddie on the split, and the Angels hang on for the 3-2 upset win as Messersmith completes the 4-hitter against the powerful O’s lineup.

The 93-win 2005 Indians looked pretty solid–they had some pop in the lineup, a couple of good starters, and a very good bullpen if those starters got into trouble.  On the other hand, their opposition, the 79-83 2012 Pirates, had Andrew McKutchen and not a whole lot else, although they did sport a large collection of terrible individualized pitchers’ hitting cards that I apparently purchased that season.  Even so, Pirate starter AJ Burnett (16-10, 3.51) was a decent option to go against Cleveland’s Cliff Lee (18-5, 3.79), who came 4th in the Cy Young balloting.  Apparently the Pirates aren’t too impressed with Lee’s accolades, as in the top of the 1st there is a Neil Walker leadoff triple, a 2-base error courtesy of Indians’ SS-4 Jhonny Peralta, and a 3-run homer by Alex Presley and Pittsburgh leads 4-0 before the Indians have batted.  Cleveland produces a run in the 3rd on an RBI single by Coco Crisp past Pirates 1B-3 Gaby Sanchez, and Lee holds serve until the 8th, when he’s pulled for Matt Miller after allowing a double to Presley.   Meanwhile, Burnett keeps the Pirates off the board until the bottom of the 8th, when a Victor Martinez RBI single makes it 4-2, but the Pirates are uneasy about their relief options and let Burnett try to close things out.   His job gets easier when the Pirates score three more in the top of the 9th, assisted by two Cleveland errors (including Peralta’s second of the game) and a bases-loaded single by McCutchen.  Burnett loads the bases up for the Pirates in the bottom of the 9th to make things interesting; Crisp hits a sac fly, Hafner walks to reload the bases, and Grady Sizemore comes up as the tying run.  But Burnett retires him on a lazy fly to seal the 7-3 win and send the Pirates to the semis.  

The survivors

With the elimination of the three best teams in the regional in the first round, the 80-82 2017 Rays found themselves as the favorite among the remainders, which is only appropriate since they had defeated the top seed in their previous game.  They were sending Alex Cobb (12-10, 3.66) to the mound against Mike Thurman (7-11, 4.05) and the 1999 Expos, and Tampa asserts itself quickly in the top of the 1st with an RBI single from Steven Souza.  The Expos tie it in the 3rd when Chris Widger doubles and eventually scores on a DP ball, and take the lead in the 4th on a Rondell White RBI double.  However, in the 5th Thurman falls apart, and the Rays bat around with most of the action on Thurman’s card; when the dust settles, the Rays lead 6-2 and the Expos are trying Steve Kline on the mound.  The Expos then seem to be abandoning ship, as both Marty Martinez and Vlad Guerrero suffer injuries in the bottom of the inning and leave the game.   From there, Cobb is adequate, the Rays continue to punish Kline and Urbina, and Tampa waltzes to the 8-2 win that puts them in the finals seeking the first regional win for the Rays franchise.

Almost a trio

Two underdog first round winners match up in the semifinal between the 1971 Angels and the 2012 Pirates, with Clyde Wright (16-17, 2.99) for the Halos against Wandy Rodriguez (12-13, 3.76).  Sandy Alomar (2B-2) makes his 3rd error of the regional in the bottom of the 1st, which sets up a 2-run HR by Garrett Jones; in the 3rd, Wright walks the first two batters and then allows a 3-run shot by Pedro Alvarez and the Angels are looking for divine intervention.  When McCutchen converts Wright’s HR 1-4/flyB split for a solo shot in the 4th, that is interpreted as a sign that it’s Rickey Clark’s turn on the mound, but Jones nails his first pitch for another HR, and in the 6th Jones misses Clark’s HR split trying for #3 but still gets an RBI double that makes it 8-0 Bucs.  A McCutchen sac fly extends the lead in the 8th, and Rodriguez enters the 9th trying to hang onto his shutout.  An error and an X-chart single put two men on quickly, but Wandy bears down to retire three straight to lock down the 4-hit shutout and send the Pirates to the regional final.  

The 2017 Rays were in good position to win their first regional title, being slight favorites in this final game over the 2012 Pirates.  Befitting two mediocre teams, their #3 starters were fairly underwhelming as the Rays’ Blake Snell (5-7, 4.04) was matched against James McDonald (12-8, 4.21), but both bullpens were fully rested and the teams were injury-free, so there would be no excuses.  The Rays opened the top of the 1st like a team on a mission, with two leadoff hits off X-chart shortcomings, followed by a Corey Dickerson blast, and that’s just the beginning as the Rays bat around, Evan Longoria adds another 3-run homer, and by the time the inning ends it’s 7-0 Rays with the Pirates still waiting to swing a bat.  When Dickerson adds a solo shot off McDonald’s card in the 2nd, the Pirates decide it’s time to try Kyle McPherson on the mound, who gets out of the inning.  Heartened, the Pirates cut the lead in the bottom of the 2nd on a 2-run homer from Michael McKenry, and in the 4th DH Rod Barajas adds another 2-run shot to narrow things to 8-4 and create a little discomfort in the Rays dugout.  Colby Rasmus leads off the 5th for the Rays with a longball for a little more padding, but the Pirates get the run right back on a McKenry sac fly and it’s now 9-5.  Two walks to start the 7th and Snell is gone in favor of Tommy Hunter, who walks the bases loaded but gets out of the jam unscathed.  Not taking any chance with a shot at the regional, the Rays bring in relief ace Steve Cishek to begin the bottom of the 9th, and he mows through the heart of the Pirates order in order to preserve the 9-5 win and give the Rays their first regional win in franchise history.  The Rays award the regional MVP to Corey Dickerson based on his 3 homers and 6 RBI in the three games, but special mention should be made of the Rays defense, which only made one error in three games and aside from 2B-4 Brad Miller (with defensive replacement “2” Danny Espinosa getting action in all three games), continuously bailed out the Rays rather shaky rotation.

Interesting card of Regional #125:  Trivia time:  who is the only player in baseball history to have a 50 HR season and a 50 SB season in the same decade?  Answer:  this guy.  In the eight years of his career prior to the season represented by this card, Brady Anderson averaged nine homers a season.  Somehow, in 1996 at age 32 he suddenly hit 50; he never hit half as many again. Of all players to have hit at least 50 home runs in a season, he finished his career with the fewest total homers with 210, and although he was a decent player with good defense and speed, he never had another season remotely like 1996 before or after.  So how did he do it?  Was it the sideburns?  A far more common assumption was PEDs, but he never had a positive test nor was he named in the Mitchell report. We may never know, but it is safe to say that this is one of the biggest “outlier” seasons for a player in baseball history–even if he couldn’t help his team get past the first round.

REGIONAL #124:  This group promised to be a fun one, with an interesting collection of teams to play.  There was the World Champion 1985 Royals, an outcome that Cardinals fans still swear was due solely to a call by Don Denkinger (conveniently forgetting John Tudor’s meltdown in Game 7).  There was another version of the “Once Upon a Time in Queens” Mets, this one the season immediately after the infamous Bill Buckner boot.  The sole entrant from the 21st century was a Rockies team from the height of the steroid era, who should be good for some offense.  Finally, there was a ‘72 Tigers team that probably represented the last gasps of their great 1968 champs.  Figuring that the umps were on their side, I picked the Royals over the Rockies in the finals.  I was surprised to discover that the ELO ranks considered the ‘85 Royals to be only the 7th best team in baseball that season, with the ‘89 version of the Royals that was also in the regional being ranked almost as highly.  The ELO favorite was the Mets, picked to beat the ‘89 Royals for the regional crown.  

First round action

Although the ELO ranks indicated that the World Champion 1985 Royals were only the 7th best team that season, they won 91 games and the AL West, they had a strong starting rotation and their lineup looked pretty good with strong years from George Brett and Steve “Bye-Bye” Balboni.  Now, when I looked up the ELO rank for the 70-83 1927 White Sox (which I only look up after I make my regional predictions), I discovered that their ranking was considerably better than I had guessed, as I figured they were in the midst of the post-Dead Sox tailspin that began 40 years in the wilderness. After setting their lineup, I decided I was right and the ELO ranks were wrong, as the Sox had no power at all, porous defense, and aside from a couple of good starters not much of a pitching staff.  One of those good starters was HOFer Ted Lyons (22-14, 2.84), but it was even hard to consider that an advantage over the Royals Cy Young Award winner Bret Saberhagen (20-6, 2.87).  However, things don’t always play out as they look on cardstock, and the Sox score two in the 3rd on a Bill Barrett double and an RBI single from Adam Metzler, although Barrett (1-15) is cut down at the plate trying to add to the lead.   Those runs look like they may be sufficient the way Lyons is pitching, but in the bottom of the 7th Jorge Orta delivers a pinch-hit RBI single that narrows the gap to 2-1.   In the 8th Barrett hits his second double of the game and Metzler delivers another RBI single to extend the Chicago lead, but the Royals get the run back in the bottom of the inning on a Balboni sac fly and it’s 3-2 heading into the 9th.   Saberhagen does his job, and it comes down to Ted Lyons in the bottom of the 9th.  I then make two straight bad PH decisions.  First, I bring in Pat Sheridan to hit for Omar Moreno, and roll an out on Sheridan that was a hit on Moreno.   I then opt NOT to PH John Wathan for Buddy Biancalana, liking the walks on Buddy’s card, but no–out on Buddy, double for Wathan.  Lyons then retires Willie Wilson without any help from my bad managing, and the Sox take the upset win over the pennant winner, 3-2, with both pitchers tossing six-hitters.

After setting the lineups for the 1987 Mets and the 1959 Phillies, I had a feeling that the Mets bench–which had three .300 hitters just counting guys whose last name started with “M”-- could probably beat the Philly starters.  I suppose after their ‘86 Series win, going 92-60 to finish second in the NL West was a disappointment in Queens, but make no mistake–this was a formidable team that merited their status as a ELO favorite.  In contrast, the 64-90 Phillies finished last in the NL and were the #8 seed in the regional, but they had a couple of good starters and in RF they had Dave Philley, for whom it was hard to determine whether he was playing for the name on the front or the back of his uniform.  It would be Doc Gooden (15-7, 3.21), who wasn’t quite as sharp as he had been in years past, against Gene Conley (12-7, 3.00), who probably had a better card.   Even so, the Mets begin the game with three straight hits against Conley and jump out to a 2-0 lead.  However, at that point Conley stops allowing hits, and by the 5th inning the Phils come alive and put together a two out rally that includes a 2-run single by Richie Ashburn and a bases-loaded error by Keith Hernandez (shades of Bill Buckner?) that hands the Phillies a 3-2 lead.  A fight immediately breaks out in the Mets dugout, which is more fight than they show on the field, as Conley keeps the Mets hitless after allowing 3 straight to start the game to close out the unexpected 3-2 win. 

With a pennant-winning Royals team and the bracket favorite Mets team having gone down to upsets in the previous two games, it was only fitting that both would have a chance to atone for those embarrassments when the 1989 Royals faced the 1977 Mets.  The Royals won 92 games and had an ELO rank that was almost as good as their pennant winners from four years earlier; although Brett wasn’t quite the same player he was in 1985, the Royals replaced Bye-Bye with Bo, they had a better bullpen, and there was one constant:  Bret Saberhagen (23-6, 2.16), who again won the Cy Young Award just as he did in ‘85, and he was eager to avenge his defeat in the previous game.  On the other hand, the Mets had only Lee Mazzilli in common with the good team from a decade later that had lost the previous game; they lost 98 games and their best starter was 20-game LOSER Jerry Koosman (8-20, 3.49).   And Bo, who knows the tournament after having a big Regional #119, makes his presence known early with a 2-run homer in the 1st inning.  The Mets strike back quickly in the top of the 2nd when Dave Kingman rips a single that Willie Wilson misplays, allowing John Milner to score to make it 2-1.  The Royals want to keep the Mets out of striking distance, and in the 3rd they get two runs from a Jim Eisenreich RBI single and a fielder’s choice from Brett.  From that point on, Koosman only allows one more hit, but the Mets can’t sustain anything against Saberhagen, who isn’t very dominating but manages to scatter nine hits and finish out the 4-1 complete game win.

Combine the mile-high altitude of Coors Field with the peak of the steroid era and you get an offensive juggernaut with terrible pitching:  the 2000 Rockies whose 82-80 record reflected their near perfect balance between being winners and losers.  It wasn’t just the power, it was the batting average that amazed me:  they had 10 carded players hitting over .300, led by Todd Helton’s epic .372.  Trouble is, the best pitcher they could muster was Julian Taverez (11-5, 4.43), with most of their rotation having ERAs well in excess of 5.00.  They faced an 86-win 1972 Tigers team that won the AL East and had many of the parts of their earlier champs still in place, including names like Kaline, Cash, and Freehan, and they had big-boned Mickey Lolich (22-14, 2.50), third in the Cy Young voting, as a much better option than Taverez.   However, both pitchers start out strong, and in the 4th the Tigers are dealt a big blow when Bill Freehan is injured for the remainder of the tournament with a “20” roll.  Lolich is clearly rattled by losing his batterymate, and Jeff Cirillo takes advantage in the 5th with a 2-run double to put the Rockies on top.  The Tigers begin to stir in the bottom of the 7th, when PH Frank Howard lofts a deep fly to Larry Walker in RF which Walker drops, and then the original ARod, Aurelio Rodriguez, doubles in the run, and Taverez exits in favor of the Rockies best reliever, Mike Myers.  Myers gets the needed outs, and it’s 2-1 Rockies entering the 8th.  In the 8th, Kaline misses a HR 1-12 split and gets stranded at second, and Myers is scary in the 9th, slashing the Tigers down 1-2-3 to earn the save in the 2-1 win.   The vaunted Rockies hitters manage only 6 hits against Lolich but still manage to survive and move on.

The survivors

A semifinal matchup between the 1927 White Sox and the 1959 Phillies was hardly the one I expected, as both of these teams upset what I considered to be far superior squads in the first round.   Both survivors did so on the arms of two outstanding starters, and both still had good options for their #2 pitchers, with the redundantly monikered Tommy Thomas (19-16, 2.97) going for the Sox and Jim Owens (12-12, 3.22) on the mound for the Phils.  Things start out rough for Thomas in the bottom of the 1st when leadoff hitter Richie Ashburn triples, followed by a Dave Philley double, but Philley is later cut down trying to score and the Phils only leave the inning with a 1-0 lead.  However, in the 5th the Phils give up the lead with some bad fielding by RF Wally Post and a triple by Bill Barrett and it’s 2-1 Sox.   Owens only allows one more hit in the game, but the Phillies can’t get anything going against Thomas, and that’s how things end, with the Sox taking a 2-1 victory and squeaking into the finals with two tightly pitched wins.

The semifinal between the 1989 Royals and the 2000 Rockies contrasted pitching-rich KC with the formidable mile-high lineup of Colorado, and rather predictably the matchup of Mark Gubicza (15-11, 3.04) against Brian Bohanon (12-10, 4.68) favored the Royals.   However, the Rockies begin with a 5-hit onslaught in the bottom of the 1st and take a 3-0 lead that could have been worse but Todd Hollandsworth (1-16) is cut down at the plate trying to score on a Neifi Perez double to end the rally.  Hollandsworth atones somewhat in the 3rd with an RBI double, his third RBI of the game, and it’s now 4-0 and the Royals are struggling with rally-killing GIDPs from Brett and Bo Jackson.  The Rockies threaten again in the 8th; Jeff Frye (1-14) gets cut down trying to score on a Jeff Cirillo single, but the Royals bring in closer Jeff Montgomery who allows a single to Shumpert and the Rockies finally get a running split and Shumpert (1-17) scores to make it 5-0 heading into the 9th.  The Royals get a couple of baserunners but once again Bohanon gets the outs when he needs them, finishing up the 7-hit shutout to send the Rockies to the finals with a 5-0 win.

The regional final between the #5 seed 2000 Rockies and #6 seeded 1927 White Sox highlighted why neither of these teams did that well during their seasons–a rough back part of the starting rotation.  Still, the Sox had to feel better about Sarge Connally (10-15, 4.09) than the Rockies did about Pedro Astacio (12-9, 5.27), who did manage to mix in some strikeouts amidst all the home runs he allowed.  However, the Rockies now had a fully rested bullpen courtesy of Bohanan’s gem in the semifinals and they were ready to go to it at a moment’s notice.  The Rockies go up 1-0 in the bottom of the 1st on a Jeffrey Hammonds RBI single, but they leave the bases loaded as Connally bears down to get the last out.  However, a clutch 2-out double in the top of the 3rd by Adam Metzler scores two and the Sox take the lead.  Astacio pitches well, but the Rockies can’t seem to score so in the 7th Colorado brings in Gabe White to try to keep the game within a run.  White gets through the 7th, but in the 8th Bill Barrett brings one home on a fielder’s choice and it’s now 3-1 Sox and the Rockies only have six outs remaining.   And Connally records those outs without incident, his teammates carry him off the field after his 7-hit performance, and the 1927 White Sox join 1954, 1961, 1978, and 2011 as south side regional winners.  The Sox name Bill Barrett as their regional MVP, as he consistently managed to get on base, scoring almost half of the meager eight runs the Sox managed to score during the regional, and driving nearly the other half, with an RBI in each of the three games from the leadoff spot.

Interesting card of Regional #124:  It seems like these great cards that I feature rarely do very much in the regional games, and this one was no exception, as Helton and his teammates just didn’t live up to their gaudy batting averages.  Even so, it’s hard to argue against Helton’s card being the best in the regional.  Yes, it was the height of the steroid era, and yes, it was done in the thin atmosphere of Coors Field, but this was a season for the ages.  Consider this:  Helton led the league in batting average; he led in RBI; he led in hits, doubles, OBP, SLG%, and of course OPS.  The only triple crown category he didn’t lead the league in was homers, but 42 of those is nothing to sneeze at.  However, Helton came in 5TH in the league MVP voting!  He finished behind Jeff Kent, Barry Bonds, Mike Piazza, and Jim Edmonds.  However, Helton played more games than any of those four, and he did better in virtually every offensive category than any of them, with the exception that Bonds hit more homers and drew more walks.  The only category that Kent, the winner, led Helton was in SBs, 12 to 5.  It is true that the other four played for teams that all made the postseason, but if you ask me who had the best Strat card in the 2000 NL, it was the Toddfather.

REGIONAL #123:   For the second regional in a row, this one had a trio of teams from the same franchise, and these three Tigers were hoping they would fare better than the three Reds teams that were all eliminated in the first round in the prior bracket.   It seemed to me that all of the Detroit squads would likely be decent, but the teams that caught my eye were a Brewers team that would win the AL the following year, and versions of the Giants and Red Sox that were both two years away from a pennant.   I picked a 2011 Red Sox vs. 1960 Giants final, putting my money on the more modern team which has been the trend in five of the six most recent regionals.    The ELO ranks agreed that the Red Sox were the favorites, but tapped the 2011 version of the Tigers as the runners-up, which would be some consolation as both other Detroit teams had terrible rankings.  

First round action

The first and by far the best of the three Tigers representatives in the regional, the 2011 Tigers won 97 games, the AL Central, and came within two games in the ALCS of the pennant.  Known for their Big 2 of Verlander and Scherzer, with Miguel Cabrera having a big year, their biggest weakness was a porous defense.  They faced the 2017 Marlins, who only won 77 games and were known for one thing only–RF Giancarlo Stanton, the NL MVP who bashed 59 homers.  The pitching matchup looked a bit lopsided, with Verlander (24-5, 2.40), who won both the Cy Young Award and the AL MVP, against Jose Urena (14-7, 3.82) who was by far the Marlins best starter.  Stanton wins the first confrontation between the MVPs, converting a DO 1-3/flyB off Verlander’s card in the bottom of the 1st to give the Marlins a 1-0 lead.  In the top of the 3rd, Austin Jackson gets the first hit off Urena, and it’s Urena’s solid 6-5 HR result to tie the game.  Verlander whiffs Stanton in their second meeting, and in their third Stanton reaches on an error by Jhonny Peralta, but gets stranded and the score remains deadlocked at 1-1.  Stanton singles in his 4th AB in the 8th, but goes nowhere and the game enters the 9th still tied, with both starting pitchers going strong.  Urena retires the side in the top of the 9th successfully, so it’s up to Verlander, who strikes out Justin Bour to begin the inning.  Catcher JT Realmuto then steps up, converts a HR 1-11 on his own card, and Miami gets the walk-off homer to prevail against the MVP with an upset 2-1 victory.

The 1960 Giants had many of the key pieces in place that would make them a dominant team throughout the 60s, such as Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, although after those three the lineup dropped off considerably and the team was barely over .500 at 79-75.  They still compared favorably to the 60-94 1953 Tigers, whose combination of bad defense and pitching spelled trouble.  The Tigers figured that swingman Ralph Branca (4-7, 4.15) was their best option although he was still not over 1951;  the Giants had much better choices and went with Mike McCormick (15-12, 2.70).   Neither team can get a hit until the 4th, with the Giants managing a run on the Tigers second 2-base error of the game followed by a Felipe Alou single.  The Tigers 4th error of the game, in the 7th, sets up a Cepeda RBI single, and McCormick is cruising.  However, when the Tigers get two straight singles with one out in the top of the 9th, the Giants decide to replace McCormick with young phenom Juan Marichal.  Marichal promptly walks Bob Nieman to load the bases, and then faces CF Jim Delsing with the infield back hoping for the game-ending DP.  Instead, Delsing converts a HR 1-10 on his card for a grand slam that puts a further chill on the Candlestick Park crowd.  Branca is thus armed with a 4-2 lead heading into the bottom of the 9th, but he allows two straight singles and he now faces the meat of the Giants order–their Big 3.  However, with a truly frightening bullpen (such as Dick Weik and his 13.97 ERA), the Tigers stick with Branca, and Cepeda doubles to score both runners and the game is tied with nobody out.  Next up, Willie Mays–another double, Cepeda scores, and the Giants record the second straight walk-off win in the regional by a 5-4 margin.  Marichal gets credit for the win despite a 26.87 ERA in his brief appearance.  

With the Tigers zero for two in the prior regional games, the last Detroit entry in the bracket, the 1989 Tigers, didn’t look likely to get very far either, as with bad pitching and limited offensive punch it was hard to believe that this 103-loss outfit had been a great team earlier that decade.  The 1981 Brewers were largely the same team that would storm to the AL pennant the next season, finishing 62-47 in that strike year for the best record in the AL East and a brief postseason appearance.  However, they had yet to hire manager Harvey Kuenn, who they apparently scouted when he batted leadoff for the ‘53 Tigers that had lost the previous game.  It was Pete Vuckovich (14-4, 3.54) for the Brewers against Frank Tanana (10-14, 3.58), and Vuckocich suddenly lost control in the 3rd, walking the bases loaded and then giving up his first hit of the game to Lou Whitaker, which makes it 2-0 Tigers.  Vuckovich’s woes continue in the 4th, when he makes an error that sets up a three-run homer from Tigers #9 hitter Rick Schu, although the Brewers get on the board in the bottom of the 5th with a Gorman Thomas RBI single to make it 5-1.   Vuckovich then settles down, but the Brewers just can’t sustain a rally against Tanana, and the game ends at that 5-1 score as the Tigers finally get a win despite only managing 5 hits against Vuckovich.  

With all of the first round games being ELO-rank mismatches (but with upsets in 2 of 3 so far), the matchup between the 2011 Red Sox and the 1968 Senators was the most lopsided.  The Red Sox were the ELO regional favorite, winning 90 games and having a killer lineup, headed by DH David Ortiz, in which all nine had a SLG% over .400.   That was not going to be happening for a 1968 team, and certainly not for the last-place Senators, who lost 96 games and had exactly one position player with a SLG% over .400.  That one player was Frank Howard, who made Ortiz look like Little Papi by slugging 44 homers in the Year of the Pitcher.  It was the Nats’ Camilo Pascual (13-12, 2.69) against Josh Beckett (13-7, 2.89), and the Bosox put up a run in the top of the 1st when Ortiz hits into a DP, which kills the rally but scores Pedroia from third.  They add another when Kevin Youkilis leads off the 2nd with a homer, and two more in the 3rd on an Adrian Gonzalez RBI single and a Mike Epstein error make it 4-0.  Boston is starting to feel pretty cocky, but a 3-run homer by Ken McMullen in the bottom of the 3rd makes it a ballgame.  Pascual then holds the Sox scoreless in the top of the 4th, and in the bottom of the inning Epstein atones for his error, missing a HR 1-15 split on Beckett’s card but driving in two on the resulting double and the Senators lead 5-4.  Boston ties it in the 6th when Howard manages to turn a Carl Crawford flyball into a 3-base error, and Pedroia drives in Crawford with a single; however, Pedroia (1-16) is later cut down trying to score with a 17 roll.  The Red Sox lose RF Josh Reddick to injury in the 8th, and with things not going their way they bring in closer Jonathan Papelbon when Beckett walks the leadoff batter in the bottom of the inning.  He burns through the bottom of the Washington order, and when Pascual starts the 9th with a single to Crawford, the Nats have no comparable bullpen ace and stick with Camilo.  That works, courtesy of another Ortiz GIDP, and Papelbon again goes 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 9th and we head to extra innings.   Pascual gets in trouble immediately in the 10th with a single and a walk; injury replacement JD Drew then singles but Gonzalez is cut down at the plate trying to put the Sox ahead.  Papelbon again sets the Senators down in order, and we head to the 11th with Washington forced to bring in Denny Higgins out of the pen to relieve the burnt Pascual.  He allows 2 hits but the Sox can’t convert, so it’s Daniel Bard out of the bullpen to begin the bottom of the 11th.  Bard records two straight outs off his card on a HR 1-4/flyB split and a TR 1-8/flyB split, bringing up Del Unser, hitting .230 with 1 HR.  It’s that HR 1-4/flyB split again, split roll…1.  Game over, the third walk-off game in this regional, and the Senators get the big upset win in 11 innings, 6–5.  

The survivors

Gem interrupted

As the only favorite to win in round one of this regional, the 1960 Giants now donned the mantle of top gun in the semifinals, facing the 2017 Marlins and Giancarlo Stanton’s MVP bat.  However, the Marlins had a dreadfully shallow starting rotation and Dan Straily (10-9, 4.26) was the last non-terrible option they could muster against the Giants’ solid Sam Jones (18-14, 3.19).  The Giants take a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first on a two-out McCovey RBI single, and C Bob Schmidt adds a solo HR in the 2nd to extend the lead to 2-0.  In the 4th, the Marlins, who still haven’t had a baserunner, lose 2B leadoff hitter Dee Gordon to injury, and the Giants make it 5-0 in the 5th courtesy of RBI singles from Cepeda and Mays.  When Schmidt doubles in the 6th, the Marlins try out their bullpen, which heavily favors quantity over quality, with Kyle Barraclough managing to get out of the inning when Schmidt is cut down trying to score on a Jim Davenport single.  However, pitching to the last batter in the 7th, Jones is injured in the midst of tossing a 2-hitter, and the Giants have to turn to Stu Miller to try to finish things out.  He does so, contributing two hitless innings and the Giants move to the finals with a 5-0 shutout, although it appears that Jones would miss his start in the super-regionals if San Francisco were to get that far.

The second semifinal matched a 103-loss 1989 Tigers team against the 96-loss 1968 Senators, an improbable if not balanced pairing.  The Tigers were hoping that the Senators might confuse Paul Gibson (4-8, 4.64) with Bob, while Washington’s Joe Coleman (12-16, 3.27) enjoyed the benefits of the Year of the Pitcher.  The Senators take a 1-0 lead in the 2nd on a Bernie Allen sac fly, but that lead proves very short-lived when in the top of the 3rd a Pat Sheridan RBI single is followed by a 3-run homer from Fred Lynn.  The Nats immediately counterpunch in the bottom of the inning, with Ed Stroud converting a 2-run blast off Gibson’s card, and in the 5th Mike Epstein ties it with a clutch two-out RBI single.   However, in the 8th Coleman begins the inning by dropping a grounder, then issues two walks, but the Washington pen is bad and they let him pitch to Chet Lemon.  Lemon nails a bases-clearing double off Coleman’s card, and then Coleman walks another and, determined to get the ball over the plate, promptly grooves one to Mike Heath for a 3-run HR that makes it 10-4 Tigers.  The Senators yank Coleman at that point out of mercy, but by then it doesn’t matter as Gibson closes out the 10-4 win to send the Tigers into the finals as a considerable underdog.

With respect to the regional ELO seedings, the final between the 1960 Giants and the 1989 Tigers looked fairly balanced, pitting the #4 seed against #6, but this masked a large gulf between the actual rankings that had the Giants as a “good” team (one of the top 1000 ever) and the Tigers as “bad” one (not in the top 2000).  The Giants had a deep rotation, and with three decent options tapped Jack Sanford (12-14, 3.82); the Tigers had only two choices and had to go with a bad Doyle Alexander (6-18, 4.44) over an even worse Jack Morris.  And the Giants give Alexander a strong case of the Willies in the top of the 1st, with a Willie Mays triple followed by a Willie McCovey homer that makes it 3-0 Giants before Sanford has thrown a pitch.  However, these Tigers didn’t get this far for nothing, and their leadoff hitter Gary Pettis converts a SI 1-3, steals second, and then scores on a Chet Lemon single to signal that they don’t intend to go down without a fight.  However, at that point both starters get in a groove, until in the 8th Alexander allows a single and a walk and the Tigers call in Frank Williams from the pen to try to keep the game within reach.  Although Williams allows nobody on base, the Giants do get a run on a sac fly from yet another Willie, Kirkland, and the score is now 4-1.  Sanford is on cruise control until the bottom of the 9th, when he gets two quick outs but then walks Dave Bergman.  Pat Sheridan then hits a lazy flyball that CF-1 Willie Mays inexplicably drops, and the tying run is now at the plate in the form of Fred Lynn.  Sanford bears down, strikes Lynn out, and the Giants capture their 9th regional title with the 6-hitter from Sanford.  The Big 3 of Cepeda, Mays, and McCovey share regional MVP honors, as they collectively drove in 11 of the 14 runs scored by the Giants in the bracket.  

Interesting card(s) of Regional #123:  This edition is a Tale of Two Sluggers, both of whom were the big offensive weapon on losing teams, both of whom failed to get their teams past the regional semifinals, but who came from dramatically different eras of baseball.  Stanton (who made an appearance as “Mike” Stanton in Regional #89) hit 59 homers, a Ruthian accomplishment that places his card among the 10 best HR seasons of all time.  In contrast, Hondo’s seemingly lowly 44 places him in a tie for 152nd place among HR seasons.  However, I just want to point out that Howard hit his 44 in 1968: the Year of the Pitcher, so bear with me while I throw out some comparison numbers.   In 2017, the MLB-wide rate of HR/AB was.03687, meaning that Stanton’s rate of .09883 was 2.68 times the average.  Howard’s HR rate of .07359 is not as gaudy as Stanton’s, but he did it in a season where the average rate was .01837–meaning that Hondo’s longball probability was 4.01 times the average.  Just for fun, if we put that ratio to league average into 2017 numbers, that would give Howard a total of 88 homers in his 598 at bats.  The concept of what Hondo might have done with today’s “nutritional supplements” is positively frightening.

REGIONAL #122:  This seemed to be the regional of the Reds, with three representatives from three different decades selected for the bracket.  However, I didn’t remember any of them as great teams, although the ‘67 version was only a few years away from the beginning of a dynasty.  Instead, teams that caught my eye were the ‘85 Padres, a year after winning the NL and putting the Cubs away, and the 2012 Mets that were a few years away from an NL pennant.  I decided to go with the trend of more modern teams doing well, and picked the Mets over the Padres, and I was unsure if the latter would survive against the most modern team in the bracket, the A’s.   The ELO ranks selected the 2018 A’s, the only postseason team in this collection, over  the ‘50 Braves (who had won the NL just two seasons prior) in the finals--both teams that I had overlooked.

First round action

I had overlooked the 1950 Braves in thinking about regional favorites, but the ELO ranks recognized that this was the “Spahn, Sain, and a day of rain” era Braves that had won the NL two years prior, and both of those pitchers won 20 this season to lead the team to an 83-71 record.   Even so, they would only be considered slight favorites over the 87-75 1967 Reds, who were an enlarging Red Machine with many of the cogs in place, albeit not fully developed (e.g., a young Johnny Bench hitting .163).  The matchup of Spahn (21-17, 3.16) against Mel Queen (14-8, 2.76) looked like a good one, but the Reds get to Spahn immediately in the top of the 1st when a Tony Perez sac fly scores Pete Rose.  Spahn is not sharp and walks the bases loaded in the 3rd but whiffs Lee May to end the inning unscathed, which seems to buoy the Braves who then torch Queen for four hits in the bottom of the inning for three runs.  The Braves add another run in the 5th on a Bob Elliott fielder’s choice, which looks necessary as Spahn continues to struggle, allowing three straight singles to open the 6th.  However, the Reds only convert those into one run on a Rose sac fly, Spahn clings to the 4-2 lead, and to begin the 7th the Braves summon some defensive replacements to shore up their terrible fielding to try to support their ace.  Spahn does seem to settle down, recording his first 1-2-3 inning in the 8th, and Bob Elliott finds Queen’s HR result in the bottom of the inning to provide some insurance and a 5-2 lead.  That insurance seems badly needed, as two quick singles by Rose and Perez bring up Lee May as the potential tying run at the plate with one out.  May singles, scoring Rose, but Spahn again gets out of the jam without further damage and the Braves outlast the Reds 5-3, getting the win despite only managing six hits.

After the ELO rankings suggested that my blind pick of the 2012 Mets was ill-informed, I was interested to see what I had selected, and although they lost 88 games they looked like a decent team to me, with David Wright (who has been money for other Mets teams in this tourney) having a strong year.   They were still underdogs to the 80-82 2005 Blue Jays, and the pitching matchup was a good one with Jays ace Roy Halladay (12-4, 2.41) against 20-game winner RA Dickey (20-6, 2.73).   Things start out ominously for the Jays when their 2B-1 Orlando Hudson drops the first ball of the game, but that runner is erased trying for third on a Daniel Murphy single and Halladay fans Wright to keep the Mets off the board.   The Jays ride that momentum in the bottom of the inning as Aaron Hill doubles and Frank Catalanotto singles him home to give Toronto the early 1-0 lead.  The Jays score two more in the 3rd, courtesy of a Catalanotto double on a missed HR split, and Halladay keeps getting out of jams caused primarily by poor Toronto defense.  In the 7th, Dickey commits a 2-base error to start the inning, and the Mets bring in Matt Harvey, but Vernon Wells singles in the unearned run and the Jays lead extends to 4-0.   That’s all Halladay needs, as he finishes up a 5-hitter sustaining the shutout despite three Toronto errors, and the Jays move on to the semis.

The 1985 Padres were coming off their first NL pennant in franchise history, and although they slipped to an 83-79 record they still had players like Gwynn, Garvey, and Gossage that got them to the Series the previous year.  Their opponents, the 1927 Reds, may have come from the Year of the Babe but they had absolutely no power, with their top HR hitter managing only 6 HRs, but they still managed to go 75-78 with the help of some decent pitchers.  The Padres tapped Dave Dravecky (13-11, 2.93) to go against the Reds’ Dolf Luque (13-12, 3.19).  The Padres get lucky against Luque in the 3rd, when doubles by Garry Templeton and Bruce Bochy produce a 2-0 lead, but their luck runs dry in the 4th when runners on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out fail to score.  The Reds similarly get a triplefrom Red Lucas to lead off the bottom of the inning, but he gets stranded when Padres SS-1 Templeton turns a highlight reel DP to end the inning.  The Reds finally mount a threat against Dravecky in the bottom of the 7th, leading off with two straight hard singles, and the Padres turn to relief ace Goose Gossage to try to preserve the lead.  However, one run scores on a Tim Flannery error, and the game heads to the 8th with San Diego clinging to a 2-1 lead.   The Padres get some insurance runs courtesy of a 2-base error by Reds RF-2 Curt Walker, although Gwynn gets knocked out of the game with a minor injury which doesn’t help the Padres own RF fielding situation.  Eager to preserve Gossage for later rounds, the Padres bring in Craig Lefferts to pitch the 9th, and he does the job, only allowing a harmless single by Hughie Critz, and the Padres move to the semifinals with the 4-1 win.

With two of the three Reds squads in this regional already eliminated in the first round, it was up to the 1950 Reds to try to carry the standard, and although they only managed 66 wins, they had an imposing weapon in Ted Kluzewski and an outstanding #1 pitcher in Ewell Blackwell (17-15, 2.97) who finished 11th in the MVP voting.  He would need to be at his best against the offensive might of the 2018 A’s, led by Khris Davis’s 48 HR.  The A’s won 97 games and made a brief postseason appearance as a wild-card team, leading me to think that their season-ending ELO rating seriously underestimated them; they were sending Sean Manaea (12-9, 3.59) to the mound.  The game is scoreless until the 4th, when Davis crushes a 2-run blast; Matt Olson leads off the 7th with another longball, and it’s 3-0 with Manaea settling in after getting out of early jams.  Manaea finally loses the shutout in the 9th when Connie Ryan pushes a 2-out single past A’s SS-3 Marcus Semien, and when PH Bob Scheffing singles to bring up Big Klu as the potential winning run, the A’s take no chances and bring in killer closer Blake Treinen, who records the one-pitch save as Klu flies out.   The A’s move on with a tight 3-1 win, and the Reds go zero-for-three in the first round of this regional.  

The survivors

His name barely fits on card

For all the lore surrounding their “Spahn and Sain” rotation, the 1950 Braves decided to trot out Vern Bickford (19-14, 3.47), certainly better than a rainout, as their #2 starter for their semifinal matchup against the 2005 Jays.  The Jays countered with Gustavo Chacin (13-9, 3.72), who was decent enough but was a name that I had forgotten if indeed I ever knew it, and it is a testimony to the power of Strat that I was far more familiar with Bickford’s career, who pitched before I was born.  Anyhow, the Braves jump out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the 1st on a Sid Gordon sac fly, but the Jays immediately tie it in the bottom of the inning when Frank Catalanotto, the hitting star of the Jays’ first round game, converts a TR 1-3 to drive in a run.  The Jays then move on top in the 3rd when Vernon Wells blasts a 2-out solo shot, which is immediately matched by Walker Cooper to lead off the 4th, and it’s looking like another of those semifinal matchups where both teams refuse to lose.  The Jays decide its time to put away the pesky Braves, and in the bottom of the 4th they rip four hits, three of them doubles, and jump to a 5-2 lead, but the Braves promptly begin to chip away at that lead when Sam Jethroe converts a HR 1-3 split for a solo bast in the 5th.  Catalanotto returns the favor, nailing a HR 1-5 split in the bottom of the inning, and after five innings it’s 6-3 Jays, with Toronto nervously eyeing a bad bullpen hoping that Chacin can hold on.  He does so, and the Jays head to the finals with the 6-3 win, seeking to become the only Toronto team outside of the 80’s to win a regional.

The semifinal between the 2018 A’s and the 1985 Padres paired the #1 and #3 seeds in the regional.  There were two capable starters on the mound in San Diego’s Andy Hawkins (18-8, 3.15) against Trevor Cahill (7-4, 3.76), and although both teams had to use their excellent closers in round one, both would available for limited duty in this game.   Ralph Laureano kicks off things for the A’s in the bottom of the 1st with a leadoff homer, but things get quiet as both starters settle in.  However, in the top of the 6th the Padres lead off the inning with two straight hard singles, and the A’s sense that the game may be on the line and turn to their closer extraordinaire Blake Treinen to try to preserve the lead with the tying run on 3rd and nobody out.   The A’s keep the infield back, and Garvey hits a grounder to Jed Lawrie, who converts the DP but Gwynn scores to tie the game at 1-1.  However, in the bottom of the inning Matt Olson hits his second solo shot of the regional and the A’s regain the lead, and with a deep bullpen they decide to preserve Treinen and put in Santiago Casilla to begin the 7th.   Casilla tosses two hitless innings, and to begin the 9th the A’s summon Jeurys Familia to try to get the final three outs.  He does exactly that, with Marcus Semien converting a game-ending DP, and the A’s stellar bullpen hangs on to push them into the finals winning the 2-1 duel despite recording only 5 hits off Hawkins.  However, they lose RF Steven Piscotty to injury for the finals and beyond.

The final matchup between the 2005 Blue Jays and the 2019 A’s was between the top-seeded A’s and the #5 seed Jays, who scored twice as many runs as the A’s in their first two rounds but faced an A’s pitching staff that had only allowed 1 run per game.  Both teams were nervous about their starting pitchers, with the Jays sending out Josh Towers (13-12, 3.71) against a gopher-ball prone Mike Fiers (12-8, 3.56), but the A’s were confident in their outstanding bullpen.  Doubles by Matt Olson and Marcus Semien in the bottom of the 2nd put the A’s up early, 1-0, and Fiers only allows one hit in 5 innings, but the narrow lead and Fiers tendency to allow the longball prompt the A’s to turn to their pen to begin the 6th, with Chris Bassitt making his first appearance in the regional.  However, that doesn’t work as planned when Russ Adams gets a 2-out double on a missed HR split and Aaron Hill singles him home to tie the game.  Things remained deadlocked entering the 9th, and the A’s go deeper in their pen to Ryan Buchter, who sets the Jays down in order and the A’s enter the bottom of the 9th looking for walk-off heroics.  Towers gets the first two quickly, but then two walks and a Hill error loads the bases, and the Jays bring in Justin Speier to get the last out and send the game to extra innings.  The A’s respond by pinch-hitting Chad Pinder for Jonathan Lucroy, but he grounds out and the game heads to the 10th.  The Jays get a 2-out double from Reed Johnson in the top of the frame, and the A’s summon Santiago Casilla who retires Orlando Hudson to end the threat.  However, in the top of the 12th, Vernon Wells finally connects for the Jays, blasting a solo shot to give the Jays their first lead, and Speier hangs on in the bottom of the inning, recording the final out against Khris Davis as the Jays capture their third regional with a 2-1 extra inning win.

Interesting card of Regional #122:  I must confess that it has been years since I played in a Strat league that used contemporary players, and although I buy the new season every year I typically just separate the teams and send them straight into their storage drawers with little more than a glance at most of the cards.  It’s really only through this tournament that I discover some gems, like this relief pitcher who was the cream of a really good crop of 2018 A’s relievers.  Treinen came in 6th in voting for the Cy Young Award, the top vote-getter among relievers, even though he finished nearly 20 saves behind the league leader in that category.  Apparently the voters recognized that Treinen was virtually unhittable, as he was in this regional although other members of the A’s pen faltered in extra innings to lose in the finals.  Treinen subsequently became quite hittable in 2019, after which he was traded to the Dodgers where he has been pretty good.  However, it seems to me that we don’t see too many relievers anymore who are great year in and year out, for years on end.  I wonder if the three-batter minimum rule will increase the chances of seeing the next Mariano Rivera, albeit probably not the next Mike Marshall.