SUPER-REGIONAL Q:   This collection of eight regional winners is dominated by Yankees teams, with three of the eight coming from the Bronx, and two of those were the only surviving pennant winners of the four that began this group of 64 teams.   There were also two Braves squads from different successful eras for that franchise, and the group was rounded out by entries from the Phillies, Red Sox, and Angels that I think had survived more on grit than on talent.   My hunch was that there would be multiple Yankees/Braves showdowns that would be the key games of the bracket, and I predicted that one such matchup would be in the finals, where I guessed that the 2003 version of the Braves would handle the 1958 version of the Yanks. The ELO rankings predicted an all-pinstripes final, with the ‘47 Yanks over the ‘58 Yanks in a matchup of two World Series winners.

Round four action

The 1968 Yankees were the least impressive of the three Bronx entrants in this super-regional, but they were over .500 at 83-79 and boasted a solid rotation typical of the Year of the Pitcher, with Steve Barber (6-5, 3.23) representing their #4 starter.  The 1967 Braves were a 77-85 team but they had persisted through Regional #130 despite some injuries, and Felipe Alou would still be out for this game and both his bat and glove would be sorely missed; however, like the Yanks the Braves had a solid option at the bottom of the rotation in Pat Jarvis (15-10, 3.66).  New York gets a run in the top of the 2nd when Joe Pepitone scores as Bobby Cox hits into a double play, although Pepitone returns the favor by misplaying a Rico Carty single in the bottom of the inning, setting up an RBI hit from Felix Millan–although Woody Woodward ends a promising rally by lining into a triple play.  Hank Aaron crushes a 2-out solo homer in the 3rd to put the Braves ahead, and in the 6th Tito Francona follows an error by 1B-3 Mickey Mantle with a 2-run homer to provide additional padding for the lead.  Steve Hamilton is then summoned from the pen, but he loads the bases for Aaron, whose fielder’s choice scores another and when Torre follows with an RBI single, it’s 6-1 Atlanta after six.  And that is how it ends as Jarvis holds on, as does 1B-4 Francona for the final out of the game to send the Braves on, buoyed by the news that Alou will be rejoining the lineup for round five.  

Having the Series champion 1958 Yankees reach the super-regionals was not much of a surprise, but their opponents were:  the 1938 Phillies, a 45-105 team that according to the ELO ratings were one of the 30 worst teams of all time, yet managed to win their regional as a #8 seed.   And it gets even worse, as these Phils suffered three costly injuries in that regional, and although Heinie Mueller would be back for this game, Chuck Klein and Hersh Martin were still out, and their number #4 starter was the aptly named Max Butcher (9-12, 4.47).  The Yanks had injury issues of their own, with HOFer Yogi Berra still out for several games, but they had a number of decent starter options and went with Art Ditmar (9-8, 3.42) on the hill.  They start off with a bang as Norm Siebern leads off the top of the 1st with a homer, but the pesky Phils tie it in the bottom of the frame on a fielder’s choice from Phil Weintraub.   In the 2nd, Hank Bauer misses his HR 1-12 split and gets stranded at second, and the Yanks load the bases in the 3rd but come up empty again.  In the 4th, Bauer now rolls Butcher’s HR 1-14 split, and this time he gets it with a 14 roll; Gil McDougald has a chance to go back to back with his own HR 1-14 split but it comes up a 20 for a double.  No problems, as Tony Kubek roll’s Butchers HR split again for the third HR 1-14 chance in a row, and he converts it–followed by Sieburn rolling HIS HR split once again, converting it to go back to back and Butcher is being slaughtered, and with Enos Slaughter in fact coming up to the plate the Phillies want to try someone with a more peaceful name, so Syl Johnson comes in to end the inning but the Yanks lead 5-1.  Philly responds in the bottom of the 4th with a 2-out RBI single by Earl Browne, but Gibby Brack leads off the 6th by getting injured and the Phils are fresh out of outfielders and begin scanning the bleachers for likely looking replacements.   Still, Johnson holds the Yanks at bay while the Bronx fielding falls apart in the 7th, with errors by SS-3 Kubek and P-5 Ditmar scoring one and setting up a 2-out 2-run double by Weintraub that ties the game.  With Ditmar unable to get the third out, the Yanks summon wild man Ryne Duren who blows three pitches by injury replacement Cap Clark, but we head to the 8th knotted at 5 each.  Unfortunately for Philadelphia, Johnson is toast and Elmer Burkart comes in with the game on the line, but Siebern doubles past RF-3 Morrie Arnovich and then he races home on a Slaughter 2-out single to put the Yankees back in front.  After earning the save in the regional final, Duren is burnt in the 9th but Bobby Shantz comes in to retire the Phils without incident, putting an end to their Cinderella run with the 6-5 Yankee win.    

The round four matchup between the 1983 Angels and the 1947 Yankees included such iconic names as Rod Carew, Reggie Jackson, Joe Dimaggio and Yogi Berra, with both teams at full strength behind starters Tommy John (11-13, 4.33) for the Angels and Bill Beven (7-13, 3.82) for New York.  A 92-loss team, the Angels were decided underdogs against these pennant-winning Yanks, but they draw first blood in the top of the 4th when Doug DeCinces finds and converts Bevens’ HR split for a solo shot and a 1-0 lead, but the Yanks immediately tie it when an error by C-1 Bob Boone sets up a 2-out RBI triple from Tommy Heinrich.  The Yanks then move ahead in the 5th on a 2-out double by Scooter Rizzuto that scores Billy Johnson, but DeCinces again converts that HR split in the 6th to tie the game once again.  Fred Lynn then goes back-to-back and the Californians regain the lead, and John is put on notice that his leash will be quite short to begin the 6th.  It turns out that Bevens is the first to exit after allowing a single in the 7th, and Joe Page is brought into to retire the side, recording the third putout himself despite being a P-4.  In the 7th, Yankee PH Allie Clark rips a 2-out double but 1-10+2 George McQuinn is cut down at the plate and the air goes out of Yankee Stadium.   And John never even requires a tug on the leash as he finishes out the 3-2 victory to upset the World Champs and send the 92-loss Angels on to round five.

The 1927 Red Sox were an unlikely entrant in a super-regional, having won their regional from the #8 seed and their 51-103 record was good for last in the AL; however, they were dogged in pulling off three upsets and swingman Jack Russell (4-9, 4.10) had showed his bite earning a save in their round one extra inning game.  They were underdogs once again against the 2003 Braves, who won 101 games and the NL East and had scored 17 runs in their regional final–although they had allowed 12 and they were hoping that Horacio Ramirez (12-4, 4.00) would be able to give a stretched bullpen a bit of a break.  The Braves offense picks up where it left off, as in the bottom of the 1st they get one run on an error from Boston C-3 Grover Hartley, and that’s followed by a 3-run blast from Gary Sheffield and it’s 4-0 after an inning.  The Red Sox hadn’t scored more than four runs in any of their three regional games, but they start trying to crawl back into the game with an RBI single from Ira Flagstead in the top of the 3rd.  The Braves add to their lead as a run scores on a Chipper Jones fielder’s choice in the 5th, and the Red Sox load the bases in the 6th but come away empty after Wally Shaner hits into a double play.  From there, both starters close out 5-hit complete games, but the Braves are more efficient with their hits and they march on with a 5-1 victory and keeps the possibility of an all-Braves super-regional final alive.

The survivors:  round five

This round five game features one of the two Atlanta squads to win in round four of this super-regional, the 1967 Braves, and the only surviving one of the two pennant-winning Yankee teams to begin this bracket, the 1958 Yankees.  With both teams coming around to the top of the rotation, it would be two Hall of Famers facing off with Whitey Ford (14-7, 2.01) and the Yanks battling  Phil Niekro (11-9,1.87) going for the Braves.   The injury scales were tilted in favor of the Braves, who would get Felipe Alou back while Yogi Berra was still out for the Yanks.   But something isn’t knuckling for Niekro in the bottom of the 1st, as after allow two leadoff singles Mickey Mantle sends one 500 feet to put the Yanks up 3-0.  In the 4th Hank Bauer triples and then scores on a 2-out Tony Kubek single that adds another run, but in the 6th Clete Boyer, playing for the Braves and not New York, swats a 2-out 2-run double to cut the lead in half.  However, that is the last hit of the game, as the Yanks hold on for the 4-2 win with Ford allowing only two hits, and while he committed two errors himself he allowed neither of those mistakes to lead to a run.  

On paper, this is a rather lopsided round five matchup between the 101-win 2003 Braves and the 92-loss 1983 Angels; both teams would return to the top of their rotation, although both Russ Ortiz (21-7, 3.81) for the Braves and Ken Forsch (11-12, 4.06) for the Angels had been knocked out of their round one starts with relievers earning the wins.  The Braves strike in the bottom of the 2nd with a solo homer from Gary Sheffield, but in the 4th Braves LF-4 Chipper Jones manages to make a 3-base error on a Reggie Jackson fly ball that ties the game, and then LF-4 Sheffield turns a Bob Boone flyball into a double and Ortiz loses his cool, walking the bases loaded and then walking Brian Downing and the Angels now lead 3-1.  In the bottom of the inning, a 2-out Vinny Castilla RBI single makes it a one run game, and in the 6th the Braves tie it when Sheffield doubles and scores on a single by Andruw Jones.  When Castilla singles, the 1-17 Jones takes off for 3rd but is thrown out, although Castilla ultimately scores on a sharp hit from Julio Franco, and when Forsch issues a walk he’s pulled for reliever Luis Sanchez, who promptly yields an RBI double to Rafael Furcal off his card and the Braves now lead 5-3 after six.  However, when Fred Lynn walks to lead off the 8th and Doug Decinces doubles to put the tying run in scoring position, the Braves head to the pen themselves for ace closer John Smoltz.  Smoltz gets two straight and it looks like he’s going to escape unscathed, but Boone delivers a clutch single to score both runners and tie the game.  It’s then up to the relievers for the 9th inning; Smoltz is flawless in the top of the inning, and Javy Lopez leads off the bottom of the 9th with a HR 1-14 split….the roll is a 14 and it’s a walk-off homer that seemingly dings off the foul pole to give the Braves the hard fought 6-5 win over an Angels team that punched above their weight in the entire tournament.  

Super-regional finals

This was the super-regional final that I had predicted, with the world champion 1958 Yankees against the division-winning, 101-win 2003 Braves.  The pitching matchup was suitably strong, with Greg Maddux (16-11, 3.98) going against Cy Young winner Bob Turley (21-7, 2.97), and although Yogi Berra was not quite recovered from the injury he suffered in the regional finals, that just meant more playing time for an excellent replacement in Elston Howard, who actually received more AL MVP votes than Berra did.  The Yanks waste no time, with Norm Siebern leading off the top of the 1st with a double and Enos Slaughter brings him home with a sharp single, and then Mickey Mantle and Andy Carey begin the 4th going back to back homers off Maddux’s card and the Bombers lead 3-0.  In the bottom of the inning, a walk and Turley’s first hit allowed, a double by Javy Lopez, puts two runners in scoring position with nobody out but Turley racks up two consecutive strikeouts and 2B-2 Gil McDougald makes a highlight play for the third out of the inning and the Braves come up empty.  In the 5th, it’s Tony Kubek’s turn to convert Maddux’s pesky 6-5 homer split, and when Howard singles off Maddux’s card in the 6th the Braves pull the Hall of Famer for Ray King, who ends the inning without incident.  However, in the 7th Mantle takes him deep for a 2-out, 2-run shot, and the Yanks take a big lead into the 9th.  However, Enos Slaughter gets injured for 15 games in making the Yanks final out in the top of the 9th, and that dampens the celebration of Turley’s 3-hit shutout that propels the Yanks to the 6-0 win and the super-regional crown.  Although Slaughter will be lost for the remainder of the tournament, the good news is that Berra will be back in the lineup as the Yanks advance to the final field of 32.  

Interesting card of Super-Regional Q:  I first started paying attention to baseball in the mid-1960s, and if you had asked me to name the greatest baseball player in existence, I would have said it was this guy.  In retrospect, it’s interesting that this White Sox fan would have had that view, since in those “game of the week” days I rarely if ever saw Mantle play; I suspect my view was shaped by a public relations aura that came with playing for a team in the media capital of the world, which tended to focus on a white superstar in an era when most of the other greats (e.g., Mays, Aaron, Clemente) were not.  However, when I got my first Strat set in the form of the 1967 AL season, I think I remember being pretty disappointed by the Mick’s card.  What I didn’t know at the time was that it would be his penultimate season, with his last hurrah represented by this card, presented in its original and advanced reissue forms.  The Yankees made three appearances in this bracket and Mantle figured prominently in two of them 10 years apart; his excellent 1958 card was already featured in my Regional #139 writeup, and that card seemed deserving of an MVP award to me.  Not so much this one, but it was the final Mantle entry in the Strat universe.

SUPER-REGIONAL P:   There was only one pennant winner that had begun this bracket of 64, and it had been eliminated in the regional final and did not reach the super-regional level.  However, there were two Canadian teams and two Giants teams represented in this group of regional winners, as well as some rare regional wins by franchises like the Rays, Brewers, and an unlikely White Sox team.   Both of the Giants squads were very close to some classic championship teams, and I guessed that the Polo Grounds would host the finals because both of those teams would be in it.  The ELO ranking agreed, suggesting that they were the only two deserving squads with the rest of the group getting through their regionals with smoke and mirrors.

Round four action

For one of the Zoom games of the week, it was Canadian choice with Canada’s own Eaglesfly having to select between the 1976 Expos and the 2005 Blue Jays.  Apparently having a thing for the underdog, he selected the 107-loss Expos, who had somehow managed to win Regional #121 as a bottom seed, but now were stuck with the bottom of the rotation in the form of Don Carrithers (6-12, 4.44).   That left ColavitoFan to helm the 80-82 Jays, with the equally unimpressive Dave Bush (5-11, 4.49) due for his turn on the mound.  And Bush is looking shrubbery in the early going, allowing a solo homer to Ellis Valentine in the top of the 1st with a Barry Foote sac fly and a 2-run single for Bombo Rivera making it 4-0 Expos after two innings. When Larry Parrish adds a solo homer in the top of the 3rd, the good news for Toronto is that Bush can be removed, with Jason Frasor coming in to prevent further damage.  Perhaps buoyed by the pitching upgrade, the Jays offense comes alive in the bottom of the inning, reeling off 7 hits and 5 runs against Carrithers with the biggest blow being a 2-run double from Vernon Wells; the game is now tied and it’s in the hands and arms of the respective bullpens.  The Expos show the mettle that led to their unlikely run and retake the lead on an RBI single by DH Jose Morales, but Montreal reliever Joe Kerrigan gets into trouble in the 6th, loading the bases and #9 hitter Gregg Zaun pokes a 2-run hit that pushes the Jays into the lead for the first time in the game.  From there, it’s a showcase for Toronto reliever Scott Schoeneweis, who tosses two and a third hitless innings to end the Cinderella run for the Expos and propel the Jays deeper into the project with the come-from-behind 7-6 win.

Although the 1960 Giants only managed a 79-75 record, the pieces were in place for what would be a dominating pennant winner two seasons later, and StratFan Rick was ready to send some of his favorites out against my 70-83 1927 White Sox, who had survived my Sox jinx mainly due to weak opposition in their regional.  The round four matchup meant we were at the bottom of the rotation, and while Billy O’Dell (8-13, 3.19) looked solid to me as the Giants #4 starter, Hall of Famer Red Faber (4-7, 4.54) was 38 years old and had the worst season of his career.  Orlando Cepeda finds one of the numerous singles on Faber’s card for an RBI in the top of the 3rd, but Faber manages to get out of later jams and eventually the Sox offense figures out O’Dell as a Bibb Falk solo homer and a Harry McCurdy RBI single in the bottom of the 6th give the pesky Sox a 2-1 lead.  Thus the Comiskey Park crowd gets a brief thrill before the Giants erupt in top of the 7th with Cedepa, Felipe Alou, and Willie Mays battering Faber for four runs and a 5-2 lead.  In the 8th, a two-run homer by Jim Davenport hammers the final nail in the Sox coffin to seal the 7-2 Giants win; the 1927 Sox fans trudge home, consoling themselves with the knowledge that none of them will live long enough to bear witness to the futility of the 2024 team.

The 2017 Rays had a middling 80-82 record and after defeating the top seed in Regional #125, they had a relatively easy path to the super-regional; Jake Odorizzi (10-8, 4.14) was not a bad #4 starter if he could keep the ball in the park.  On the other side, the 94-loss 2003 Brewers won their regional as a #8 seed, downing two very good teams in the process; Wayne Franklin (10-13, 5.50) would try to keep that streak alive, with a card that shared the gopher ball problems of his counterpart.  It takes two batters before Logan Morrison finds one of Franklin’s HR results for a solo shot in the top of the 1st, and then Franklin loads up the bases in the 4th for a double by Evan Longoria, although C Wilson Ramos is out at the plate trying for a third run.  They get that and more when Franklin walks the bases loaded again only to yield a 2-run single to Kevin Kiermaier, and that’s it for Franklin as closer Dan Kolb is summoned in desperation, just in time to deliver a three-run homer to Morrison.  Now down 8-0, the Milwaukee fans focus their attention on the beer vendors, perhaps missing the Brewers first hit of the in the 6th inning by Royce Clayton, but it amounts to nothing.  They do push across a run in the 8th on a Brady Clark single, but the Rays get that back in the 9th on a Colby Rasmus RBI double.  Odorizzi then retires the Brewers in order in the 9th to finish up a 4-hitter and the Rays march on with an easy 9-1 win.

This round four game looked like a fairly balanced matchup between two decent teams.   The 1953 Giants were one season away from a historic season, but with Willie Mays in the military the team only assembled a 70-84 record that was nine games worse than their Pythagorean project.   The 1930 Pirates went 80-74 but their projection was six games worse and they had a somewhat worse ELO rating than the Giants, so it was hard to pick a favorite between these two.  One tiebreaker was that the #4 pitcher in a 1930 rotation had to be pretty bad, and Glenn Spencer (8-9, 5.40) was no exception, while Larry Jansen (11-16, 4.14) was not a terrible option for the Giants although his gopher ball was a worry.   The game starts quickly for the Bucs as two Waners get on base for a Pie Trayner 3-run homer in the top of the 1st, but Giant 2B Davey Williams leads off the bottom of the inning by converting Spencer’s HR split, Bobby Hofman adds an RBI single, Monte Irvin contributes a run-scoring sac fly, and then Bobby Thomson fires a shot heard round the Polo Grounds for a 2-run blast and the Giants lead is 5-2 after just one inning.  Little Poison Lloyd Waner provides an RBI single in the 2nd but is deprived of a second tally when 1-14 Denny Sothern is cut down trying to take the extra base, and it’s a one run game after two.  Traynor then leads off the 3rd with a triple and he scores on a George Grantham single that ties it up, and when Gus Suhr follows with a single the Giants give up on Jansen and try Marv Grissom from the pen, but Dick Bartell’’s sac fly provides Pittsburgh with the go-ahead run.  A Whitey Lockman single and a Wes Westrum double from missing Spencer’s HR split puts two runners in scoring position with nobody out, and the Pirates look at their pen and recoil in horror, instead bringing the infield in and hoping for the best.  A walk loads the bases but Spencer induces consecutive grounders that nail the runner at the plate and he escapes with the lead still intact.  Traynor singles to lead off the 5th, leaving him a double short of a cycle, but he ends up stranded at 3rd; in the bottom of the inning Hofman gets knocked out of the game with an injury, and 1-16 Thomson is nailed trying to score so the Pirates cling to the lead after five.  Back to back doubles by Sothern and Rollie Helmsley provide an insurance run for the Pirates in the 6th, but when Don Mueller cracks a double past LF-3 Adam Comorosky in the bottom of the inning, Pittsburgh brings in their only non-dreadful reliever, Steve Swetonic, and he escapes the inning when 1-11+2 Mueller is out at home trying to score on a Dusty Rhodes single.  Traynor flies out to lead off the 7th, making his cycle unlikely, and in the 8th Hank Thompson rips an RBI single to make it a one-run game entering the 9th.  Paul Waner gets hurt in the top of the 9th to the chagrin of the Pirates fans; it’s a minor injury but he has to leave the game which downgrades RF from a 1 to a 4.  In response, Grantham converts a TR 1-2 on Hoyt Wilhelm’s card to provide a little padding for Swetonic entering the bottom of the 9th.  He gets Dark and Thomson for two quick outs but then walks Lockman to bring up Westrum as the tying run, but Swetonic whiffs him to send the Pirates to round five with the hard-fought 8-6 win.  

The survivors:  round five

The Zoom game of the week was an international grudge match with Canadian manager Eaglesfly and the 2005 Blue Jays against StratFan’s 1960 Giants that he had previously led to victory over my White Sox in round four.  Being a round five game, it was back to the top of the rotation and a strong matchup between the Jays’ Hall of Famer Roy Halladay (12-4, 2.41) and SF’s Mike McCormick (15-12, 2.70), the NL ERA leader; however, the Giant were having to make do after losing RF Willie Kirkland to injury for the tournament in the previous round.  Regardless, they came out swinging against Halladay, repeatedly rolling on one of the few extra base outcomes on his card to rack up six hits and three runs in the first two innings of play, and the Jays start making calls to Philadelphia to see if they’d be interested in a trade.  Felipe Alou adds a double in the bottom of the 4th for his second RBI of the game to make it 4-0 Giants, and McCormick is reaping the Jays lineup until the 6th when Shea Hillenbrand raps a 2-run single to cut the lead in half.  Toronto continues to fight back with an RBI double from Aaron Hill in the 7th and it’s a one-run game. A mound conference with McCormick convinces the Giants to stick with him, and he proves his mettle by shutting down the Jays the rest of the way as the Giants hang on for a 4-3 win and a trip to the super-regional final.  

Although middling teams on paper, the 2017 Rays and the 1930 Pirates had each survived an entire pass through their rotation and it was now back to the top, but neither Chris Archer (10-12, 4.07) for the Rays or Larry French (17-18, 4.36) were dominating starters, and both bullpens were seriously stretched.  The Rays strike in the top of the 3rd as Logan Morrison converts a 2-run triple off French’s card and Colby Rasmus drives him in with a pitcher-card single; Corey Dickerson then rolls on his own card for a long 2-run homer, and although it appears that French is fried there is nobody in the pen that is remotely as good and so he’s staying put despite the 5-0 deficit.  The Bucs make a game of it in the 4th as Adam Comorosky converts a HR split off Archer’s card for a 3-run shot, but Morrison leads off the 5th with his third homer in two games and Steven Souza adds another solo shot later in the inning to restore a comfortable lead.  Pie Traynor cuts the margin to three with a sac fly in the bottom of the 5th, but Rays PH Lucas Duda crushes a 2-run shot in the 6th as Tampa refuses to allow the Pirates to gain any ground.  Pittsburgh refuses to go quietly and Gus Suhr adds a 2-out RBI single in the 8th, but their hopes wane as the two Waners contribute a DP ball and a strikeout to end the bottom of the 9th and the Rays move on with a 9-5 win and an appearance in the super-regional final.

Super-regional final

The super-regional finals would be taking place over Zoom as a Friday Night Strat featured game, and Tall Tactician elected to manage the 2017 Rays, whose powerful lineup had averaged 8.8 runs a game in their previous five outings; Alex Cobb (12-10, 3.66) was hoping for similar levels of run support in this appearance.  Meanwhile, StratFan would be directing the 1960 Giants for the third time in this bracket, but not only had he lost RF Willie Kirkland to injury for the tournament, he was also faced with a lingering injury to his #2 starter Sam Jones that had occurred back in Regional #123.  Fortunately, under tournament rules there are no usage restrictions when an injury replacement must be made, meaning that 22 year old rookie Juan Marichal (6-2, 2.66) would be pressed into service.  Both pitchers start off in fine form, but in the bottom of the 4th Colby Rasmus and Corey Dickerson manage back to back doubles that are good for a 1-0 Tampa lead.  The Giants can only manage one hit against Cobb for the first six innings, but in the 7th it’s Willie Mays and Bob Schmidt with solo homers that provide SF with a 2-1 edge that lasts for one inning until Wilson Ramos’s own solo shot ties it up entering the 9th inning.   Now, in orchestrating the Zoom game, I keep asking TT if he’s interested in the status of the Rays bullpen, but he’s convinced that Alex is the best Cobb since Ty…at least until one away in the top of the 9th, when Orlando Cepeda finds and converts Cobb’s HR split for a solo shot that’s good for a one-run lead entering the bottom of the 9th.  Meanwhile, StratFan has the ultimate confidence in his promising young starter, and Marichal responds with a perfect bottom of the 9th to give StratFan his third straight victory with the Giants in this super-regional, a 3-2 win that is good for the bracket crown and a berth in the final field of 32 in the tournament. 

Interesting card of Super-Regional P:  Under tournament rules, starting pitchers must have at least 100 IP to take a spot in the rotation, unless there are not four such pitchers carded for the team (in which case the SP with the most innings must pitch).  However, another tournament rule is that any usage restrictions do not apply when an injured player must be replaced.  Thus, as a result, this 22 year old rookie wouldn’t get a shot until the #2 starter in the Giants rotation, Sam Jones, went down for seven games in his round two start.  Marichal’s limited innings were no fault of his own; he wasn’t called up for his major league debut until July 19th of 1960, when he was called upon for a start against the Phillies–he did pretty well, throwing a complete game shutout while allowing only one hit (a pinch-hit single to Clay Dalrymple in the eighth inning) while walking one and striking out 12.   Four days later he four-hit the eventual World Series champion Pirates for a 3-1 win, and in his third starting he outpitched Warren Spahn for 10 innings to earn a 3-2 victory.  Not a bad beginning to a Hall of Fame career, although it was a career that never saw him win a Cy Young award despite arguably being the best right handed pitcher of the 1960s.   Perhaps he hurt his case in 1965 when he was not on the mound, but in the batter’s box; after two consecutive brushback pitches from Sandy Koufax, when Dodger catcher John Roseboro buzzed a throwback past Marichal’s head, Juan turned around and began beating Roseboro with the bat, opening a gash on the catcher’s skull that resulted in Marichal’s ejection and the largest fine in NL history up to that point.  Fortunately for all involved, this tournament is an all-DH project and so in his start in the super-regional final, Marichal never was allowed to wield any lumber, allowing him to keep his cool and lead his team to the final round of 32 with a 5-hit complete game.  

SUPER-REGIONAL O:   Only one pennant winner began this group of 64, and it didn’t survive into the super-regional, although there were two Reds teams from consecutive seasons that seemed to constitute a mini-dynasty.  Given that those two squads faced one of the few White Sox teams to survive the jinx as well the final surviving Rockies team that would probably disappoint brother Chuck, the Reds teams might face off to see who makes the bracket final here.  Regardless, I thought the stronger part of the group was in the top teams, with all four teams representing franchises within a couple of seasons of a pennant.  I had no idea which of those four would prevail, nor did I have a clue about which Reds team would win their perhaps inevitable faceoff, so I guessed that the most modern team in the bunch, the Phillies, would prevail against the 2010 version of the Reds.   The ELO ratings aligned perfectly with that prediction, also noting that the two halves of the super-regional were very imbalanced, with the 2011 Phils a top 100 team of all time while the 2010 Reds barely made the top 1000.

Round four action

The 2011 Phillies won 102 games for the top record in baseball and were ranked as a top 80 team of all time by the ELO ratings, so for the Zoom game of the week I felt it was important to turn over the managerial duties to partisan Philadelphian Tall Tactician to try to sustain the tournament success of this era of the franchise. By comparison, the 79-75 1950 Cardinals were less impressive but Stan Musial was a force to be reckoned with, so Eagfesfly Roy felt pretty good about their chances, particularly with Philly 2B Chase Utley out as usual with an injury.  Both teams were down to their #4 starter, Gerry Staley (13-13, 4.99) for the Cards and Vance Worley (11-3, 3.01) for the Phils, and Staley looks like the bottom of the rotation as he doesn’t survive the 2nd inning, with a bases loaded single by injury replacement Wilson Valdez driving in two and Hunter Pence, Shane Victorino, and Ryan Howard all contributing ribbies in a five run inning.  Al Brazle manages to get the third out of the 2nd, but only can record one more in the 3rd before Philly DH John Mayberry Jr. sends a homer into the recesses of Sportsmans Park and it’s 7-0 Phils after three–and the Cards haven’t yet seen a baserunner in a home uniform.  They finally get a walk, a hit, and a run on a sac fly by Del Rice in the 5th, but that was only after Pence and Victorino had added three more Philly runs in the top of the inning.  Raul Ibanez responds to my remarkably robust Philly dice-rolling with a solo homer in the 8th, and the beating doesn’t stop as the 4th and 5th St. Louis pitchers get rocked for seven more runs in the top of the 9th.  Musial doubles in the bottom of the 9th and scores on a Bill Howerton single, but the rally falls sixteen runs short as the Phils march on in dominating fashion with the 18-2 win.  

The 1970 A's won 89 games at the beginning of a memorable dynasty, and they had bashed their way through Regional #115 with three consecutive two-homer games from three different sluggers: Reggie Jackson, Rick Monday and Don Mincher.  The 80-82 1964 Pirates reached this level in a different fashion, only allowing a total of three runs in their three regional games, but in the regional final they suffered a prolonged injury to their best player in Roberto Clemente, meaning that Joe Gibbon (10-7, 3.67) would need to continue the string of strong pitching against the A’s and Chuck Dobson (16-15, 3.74).   The A’s start off in good form in the top of the 1st with Joe Rudi driving in Monday on a sac fly, but the Bucs respond immediately with back to back doubles from Willie Stargell and Jerry Lynch to tie it in the bottom of the inning.  Lynch doubles again in the 4th, but the 1-9+2 slugger is thrown out trying to score for the last out of the inning.  However, the third base coach doesn’t give up that easily, and in the 6th he gives the green light to 1-10+2 Stargell to try to score on a two-out Jim Pagliaroni double; this time it works and the Pirates take the lead, and Dobson is out for Jim Roland who gets the third out.  When Monday doubles in the 7th, Pittsburgh takes no chances and summons closer Al McBean to preserve the lead, and he retires the side although Rudi puts a scare into the Forbes Field crowd by missing McBean’s HR 1-2/flyB split.  Faced with a tough decision to burn McBean or preserve some use for the next game, the Pirates stick with their closer for the 9th, figuring that the top of the rotation is coming around for round five.   He rewards them with a 1-2-3 inning and the Pirates pitching prevails again for a 2-1 win as they survive and advance.

With two of our favorites on the line, brother Chuck and I did a Zoom doubleheader, with the first game of the matchup involving Chuck’s 2016 Rockies, the last surviving representation of their kind in the tournament, while I rolled for the 2009 Reds.  Neither one of these squads had been world-beaters in real life, with the Rockies going 75-87 and the Reds slightly better at 78-84, and the pitching matchup of Colorado’s Chad Bettis (14-8, 4.79) and Cincinnati’s Aaron Harang (6-14, 4.21) suggested that this might be a typical high-scoring afternoon at Coors.  But these pitchers rolled better than they looked; the Reds took a 1-0 lead in the top of the 3rd on a Johnny Gomes RBI single but the Rockies pulled even in the 4th with David Dahl singling home a run.  Colorado then moves out in front in the 6th with a pinch hit double from Ryan Raburn, but the Reds counter that with a pinch hit solo homer from Drew Stubbs in the 7th that ties the game heading into the 9th, with both managers looking nervously at depleted bullpens if extra innings are needed.  In the top of the 9th, Bettis gets two out, but then the wheels come off the bus with a double and a Scott Rolen single that puts the Reds ahead.  Chuck calls upon Chris Rusin as the only non-terrible option available in the Rockies pen, but it’s Rusin roulette gone wrong as Stubbs, remaining in the game in CF, crushes his second solo homer of the game into the pine trees at Coors.  When Gomes later adds an RBI double, the fat lady is singing and Harang hangs in for the 9th to seal the 5-2 victory for the Reds, and the final chance for the Rockies head to the card catalogs while Cincinnati heads to round five.

The second game of the double-header was my probably jinxed 2011 White Sox against a 2010 Reds team that sported most of the same players as the prior year team that had just dispatched the Rockies, giving Chuck a chance to return the favor.  This Reds team would use Homer Bailey (4-3, 4.46) as their #4 starter while the Sox tapped Jake Peavy (7-7, 4.92), and the Reds picked up where they left off with an RBI double in the bottom of the 1st from Jay Bruce giving them a 1-0 lead.  And that was Peavy’s most successful inning, as in the 2nd the Reds got an RBI single from Drew Stubbs, who had apparently earned the starting CF job given his performance in the previous game, but that just sets up a 2-out 3-run homer by Joey Votto and it’s 5-0 Cincinnati.  The good news for the Sox is that they can now pull Peavy for a decent bullpen, and a young Chris Sale comes in and performs decently, allowing only one hit in four innings.  Unfortunately, that one hit followed two walks in the 4th, and it was Votto’s second tape measure shot of the game for another 3-run homer and it’s 8-0 Reds.  The Sox manage an unearned run in the 7th on the second of three errors, but that’s all they can manage as the Reds mini-dynasty plows on with an 8-1 win, setting up an all-Reds round 5 in which Chuck and I both hope that they both lose.

The survivors:  round five

After scoring 18 runs under the direction of Tall Tactician in round four, it seemed appropriate that I set up an emergency Zoom night so that he could attempt to extend the run of the 2011 Phillies in the tournament; I recruited brother Chuck to provide the loyal opposition in the form of the 1964 Pirates.   Both of these squads had lost key members of the lineup to injury:  the Bucs were without Roberto Clemente, while the Phils would be without Chase Utley for the entire project.  With both teams sending out their top starters, Bob Veale (18-12, 2.73) for the Pirates and Cole Hamels (14-9, 2.79) for the Phils, it didn’t look like anyone would be scoring 18 runs in this game, but the Phils did score a run in the top of the 2nd on a Carlos Ruiz sac fly for a 1-0 lead.  With Bill Mazeroski leading off the bottom of the 3rd, we explained to Chuck the history of Maz’s famous walk-off homer in the World Series, and Chuck absorbs the information by finding and converting Maz’s HR 1-6/flyB split and the game is tied.  However, in the 4th Shane Victorino singles a run home and the following inning Raul Ibanez adds a solo homer; another solo shot from Hunter Pence in the 6th provides additional insurance.  It turned out no further insurance needed to be purchased, as Hamels finishes out a 5 hitter and the Phils march on with a 4-1 win.

A battle of dopplegangers, the round five matchup of the 2009 Reds and the 2010 Reds required many of the players to violate the conventions of time travel and face versions of themselves separated by 12 months.  The alternative versions had the opportunity to return to their #1 starters to determine which would move on to represent the franchise, with Bronson Arroyo (15-13, 3.84) going for the 2009’s and Johnny Cueto (12-7, 3.64) for the 2010s.   In the bottom of the 1st, the 2010 Drew Stubbs wastes no time finding the weaknesses on Arroyo’s card, rolling the solid 5-9 homer as the leadoff batter, and two outs later Jim Edmonds rolls his own solid homer and the 2010s lead 2-0.  The 2009s respond immediately in the top of the 2nd with back to back doubles from Jay Bruce and Laynce Nix, but the 2010 Stubbs finds his own homer in the 3rd for his second solo shot in two AB and it’s 2010 with a 3-1 lead.  A two out rally in the 7th puts runners on 2nd and 3rd for the 2010s and Arroyo is yanked for Arthur Rhodes, who retires defensive replacement Paul Janish to prevent further damage.  The 09s then get a single and a Scott Rolen double in the 8th to put the tying runs in scoring position with nobody out, and the 2010s summon their own version of Rhodes, but after recording two outs he yields a 2-run single to Jay Bruce and the game is tied.  Neither team can do anything in the 9th, although 2010’s Edmonds does manage to get injured, and the game hits the Rhodes to extra innings.  In the top of the 10th, 2009’s Johnny Gomes crushes a solo homer to put the younger team ahead, and in the bottom of the inning they try to preserve their version of Rhodes for a later date after three hitless innings, and they trust the game to their closer Francisco Cordero who whiffs Stubbs for the final out and the 2009s come from behind to take the 4-3 win that propels them into the super-regional final.  Arthur Rhodes earns the unusual distinction of being both the winning and the losing pitcher in the same game.  

Super-regional finals

As the second game of the emergency Zoom doubleheader, the 2011 Phillies would attempt to continue their domination under the direction of Tall Tactician, while brother Chuck played the “if you can’t beat em, join em” game by manning the 2009 Reds that had knocked out his Rockies in round four.   For the Phils, it would be Cy Young runner-up Roy Halladay (19-6, 2.35) while Johnny Cueto (11-11, 4.41) had a decent card for the Reds, albeit with some gopher ball issues.  The Reds jump out to a quick 2-0 lead against an uncharacteristically sloppy Halladay with a sac fly by Laynce Nix and an RBI single from Jay Bruce.  However, Halladay quickly settles down, while in the 4th Ryan Howard converts a HR 1-3/flyB split for a two-run blast to tie the game, while John Mayberry Jr. and Howard drive in two more in the 5th and the Phils move into the lead.    Cueto lasts six innings but the Reds can’t afford to fall behind any further, so Chuck moves to reliever Nick Massett to begin the 7th.  He does his job, but it’s too late, as Halladay doesn’t allow a hit after the second inning and finishes with a 3-hitter as the Phillies win 4-2, capturing the super-regional and joining their 2008 brethren in the final group of 32 teams.

Interesting card of Super-Regional O:  Joey Votto held the rare distinction in this tournament of leading not one, but two Reds teams to their regional championship that ended up in the same super-regional.  Furthermore, both posted round four wins in this bracket, setting up a round five matchup between dueling Vottos that were the best hitters in each lineup.  Although both were impressive cards, this 2010 version was particularly strong as Joey won the NL MVP award by leading the league in OBP, SLG%, and of course OPS, while finishing 2nd in batting average and 3rd in RBI for a near miss at a Triple Crown.  He stayed with the Reds for what is likely to be his entire major league career, but they did not resign him after the 2023 season; being one of the greatest Canadian ballplayers in the history of the game, the Blue Jays took a flyer on him and signed him to a minor league contract, but he hit only .165 and felt he did not deserve an “honorary” promotion to the majors.   This signalled the end of a great career in which he averaged .294 with 356 homers, a .409 career OBP and a .511 lifetime SLG%.  Are those Hall of Fame numbers?   Well, according to the Jaffe WAR Score (JAWS) Hall of Fame rating system, he would place 13th of the 25 first basemen currently in the HOF, with numbers that are pretty much dead average for that group, suggesting that he’s an entirely reasonable candidate for enshrinement.  One factoid that underscores just how good a hitter he was is that on April 17, 2019, he popped out to first base in a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers–and it was the first time he had popped out to the infield in 1,592 career games!

SUPER-REGIONAL N:  This was the first group of 64 teams that didn’t include a single pennant winner, but the eight participants in this super-regional featured a number of squads that were near misses.  These included two Yankee teams from different dynasties that had considerable success, a Phillies team from a similar vintage to one that had overcome numerous injuries to capture the previous super-regional, and serious challengers from the Angels and the Red Sox.  And then there was a Cubs team that really had no business making it this far, doing so just to spite me and that spitefulness was all too likely to persist here.  However, I couldn’t see them handling three more wins against this competition, so I picked the Babe and the Iron Horse to handle the Angels in the final.  Although that Red Sox team was sort of a sentimental favorite for me, I figured that sentiment would spell doom against the Cubs, but I counted on the Angels to end the North Siders’ luck.  The ELO rankings yielded the same prediction as me, meaning that it was unlikely to happen that way! 

Round four action

The 1995 Yankees went 79-65 in a strike shortened year, and made a brief postseason appearance but would meet with considerably more success in the following years.  They had two rookies get a cup of coffee in Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, and although they and their teammates had considerable real life success, this was one of the few squads from that era that had made any progress whatsoever in this tournament.  They would turn to Andy Pettitte (12-9, 4.17) on the mound, but two 13+ inning games in the regional semis and finals left their bullpen a bit ragged, so they were hoping Pettitte would go deep in the game against the 2006 Dodgers.  The Dodgers had also briefly visited the postseason with an 88-74 record, but their options for a #4 starter were not exciting, with Mark Hendrickson (6-15, 4.21) getting the nod.  However, they were at full strength with a fully rested pen, so they were hoping that their solid offense could stake Hendrickson to an early lead.  He escapes a NY threat in the top of the 1st, leaving the bases loaded, while the Dodgers do provide him with an early lead as Nomar Garciaparra knocks an RBI single in the bottom of the 1st, although LA also leaves the bases loaded to end the inning.  In the 2nd, AA Rafael Furcal singles, steals second, and scores on a 2-out Andre Ethier single that makes it 2-0 Dodgers, and then Nomar leads off the 3rd with a blast into the ravine as Pettitte can’t seem to keep LA off the scoreboard.  However, an error by SS-2 Furcal in the top of the 4th and Hendrickson seems to lose his composure, as Randy Velarde singles in a run, Tony Fernandez misses Hendrickson’s HR split but drives in another with the resulting double, and Wade Boggs singles in Fernandez to quickly tie the game.  Pettitte responds with a 1-2-3 inning and it’s game on, tied 3-3 entering the 5th.  Hendrickson holds for the 5th, but when he walks the leadoff batter in the 6th the Dodgers aren’t messing around and bring in closer Takashi Saito, who strikes out the side, punctuated by two walks that loaded the bases but resulted in nothing for the Yanks.  New York loses DH Ruben Sierra for three games with an injury in the 7th, and when Kenny Lofton leads off the bottom of the inning with a single and steals 2nd for LA’s 4th stolen base of the game,  it’s the Yankees turn to summon their closer, John Wetteland.  But Ethier drives a single under the glove of 2B-3 Randy Velarde and Lofton scores to the LA back on top.  Faced with a tough decision in the 9th, the Dodgers opt to burn their closer for the super-regional and trust Saito to seal the win against the heart of the Yankee lineup, and he sets them down in order to propel the Dodgers on to round five with the 4-3 victory.

The Zoom game of the week looked to be an epic battle of the titans, with Philadelphian Tall Tactician guiding an 85-77 2006 Phillies team that was quite similar to the one he had led to crown of the previous super-regional; this version boasted NL MVP Ryan Howard, who had smacked a Ruthian 58 homers.  In the other corner, StratFan Rick made a return appearance as guest manager after a long layoff in this tournament, unable to resist the allure of helming the 86-68 1930 Yankees, featuring an even more Ruthan Babe Ruth leading the league in homers with 49, and representing the last surviving team from the Ruth/Gehrig era of the Bombers. With both teams reaching the bottom end of their rotation, they both had options, but unfortunately all of those options were bad.  For the Yankees, Hank Johnson (14-11, 4.67) would get the starting assignment against the truly terrible Ryan Madson (11-9, 5.69), and although both teams had lost a regular to injury that carried over to this game, these powerful lineups suggested that a pitching duel was unlikely.  That becomes obvious in the top of the 1st as Gehrig rips an RBI single, helping to set up a Ben Chapman double that scores Lou, but the Babe is gunned down trying to score and then a DP ball ends the rally leaving the Yanks with a 2-0 lead that should have been more.  They get more in the 3rd as TT, issues a second intentional walk of the game to Bill Dickey, offending Tony Lazzeri who responds with an RBI single, and Earl Combs adds a solo homer in the 4th for a 4-0 Yankee lead.  Madson’s first pitch of the 5th to Ruth travels about 550 feet and the only good news for Philly phans is that Madson can now be pulled, but reliever Geoff Geary fares no better, yielding another RBI single to Lazzeri in the top of the 6th.  Finally, in the bottom of the 6th, the power of the Philly lineup begins to show, with back to back solo homers from Jimmy Rollings and Carlos Ruiz narrowing the gap to 6-2 after six innings.  With the possibility of a game emerging, TT wants nothing to do with Gehrig and Ruth leading off the 7th, so he intentionally walks both of them, but Chapman makes him pay with a 2-run double and although David Delucci knocks in a run in the bottom of the inning, the Yanks hold a solid 8-3 lead heading into the 9th.  Having now abandoned the intentional walk, TT directs closer Tom Gordon to pitch to Dickey, and he enjoys the opportunity to swing the bat with a solo homer to extend the lead.  In the bottom of the 9th, Johnson is still looking capable, and he gets two quick outs but Howard finally wakes up with a long home run, but it’s too little too late as the Bombers waltz to a 9-4 win and a trip to round five.

The 2004 Angels were a 92-70 team that won the AL West, but they had still needed to pull off three straight upsets to win a very strong Regional #109.  Thus battle-hardened, they would send out John Lackey (14-13, 4.67) supported by a deep bullpen against the 1960 Indians, a 76-78 team that would still be without injured 3B Bubba Phillips for the duration of the super-regional.   The Indians would pitch Barry Latman (7-7, 4.04) against a powerful Angel lineup that included MVP Vladimir Guerrero, and Vlad walks and races home in the top of the 1st on a two-out Jose Guillen single, although Troy Glaus is nailed at the plate trying the same thing on a Garret Anderson hit to end the inning.  The Indians retaliate immediately with a 2-run Woodie Held home run in the bottom of the 1st to take the lead; in the 2nd, they get an RBI double from injury replacement Marty Keough, a run-scoring single by Ken Aspromonte, and then Held adds another RBI double to chase Lackey before he can complete two innings.  The desperate Angels summon nearly unhittable closer Francisco Rodriguez and he gets the final out but the Indians lead is 5-1 after two.  Back to back doubles by John Romano and Tito Francona lead off the bottom of the 5th to extend the Indians lead, and Jimmy Piersall singles home Francona while Harvey Kuenn adds another RBI single to make it 8-1 Indians after five.  The Angels load the bases in the 6th but Piersall makes a highlight reel catch to end the threat, while Held picks up a single in the bottom of the inning to leave him one triple away from a cycle.  3B-4 Kuenn, having to cover third with Phillips hurt, drops a grounder that sets up a run-scoring fielder’s choice from Darin Erstad, but Angels reliever Brendan Donnelly loses all control in the 8th, walking three to set up two more run for the relentless Cleveland offense-including a Held single that fails to complete the cycle, since neither he nor Donnelly have a triple result on their cards.  Still, the Indians cruise to the 10-2 win and look forward to revisiting the top of their rotation for round five.  

The 1996 Red Sox were a sentimental favorite as I’d taken my oldest son to see this team at Fenway a number of times when I was on sabbatical in Boston, and it was a good team that won 85 games and it had one of the most legendary cards in Strat history, that of nameless Rudy Pemberton, available come the 6th inning.  However, the only option for a #4 starter was Tom Gordon (12-9, 5.59) who had the dubious distinction of leading the AL in earned runs allowed.  The 1959 Cubs had won Regional #112 despite a mediocre 74-80 record and a one-dimensional offense consisting of MVP Ernie Banks; Art Ceccarelli (5-5, 4.76) had a decent WHIP but had some issues with the long ball, although bad Cubs teams seem to play over their head in this project out of spite for this Sox fan.  Jeff Frye leads off the top of the 1st with a double and he scores on a Mo Vaughn sac fly to spot the Red Sox to a 1-0 lead.  However, 3B Tim Naering gets injured in the 2nd, and in the bottom of the inning Sammy Taylor rips an RBI single under the glove of Naehring’s replacement, young Nomar Garciaparra, and the game is tied.  It’s then Mo Vaughn’s turn to get injured in the 4th, this time for four games knocking him out of the super-regional and perhaps the tournament, and my dislike of these Cubs elevates even further.  Sammy Taylor then swats a solo shot in the bottom of the inning to give the Cubs a lead that they probably would not relinquish, a prediction that seems infallible when Irv Noren adds a three-run homer later in the inning that sends Gordon to the showers in a flash.  Rich Garces does no better, yielding RBI singles to George Altman and Al Dark and then a 2-run double to Lee Walls, and Garces is pulled after ⅓ of an inning.  Stan Belinda finally gets the final out, but the Cubs now lead 9-1 and Boston’s main excitement is waiting for someone else to get injured.  An RBI single by Frye in the 7th narrows the gap slightly, and in the 8th it’s Ceccarelli’s turn to get hurt, knocked out of the game to be relieved by Moe Drabowsky, who dispatches the Red Sox and the Cubs continue their upset ways, cruising to a 9-2 victory in which Banks was held hitless.  

The survivors:  round five

After watching StratFan lead the 1930 Yankees to a rout in round four, I dreaded playing them solo against the 2006 Dodgers because I had already driven every other Babe-led Bombers team into the ground in this tournament, and I was fairly certain I would jinx them here.  Although their starting CF Harry Rice was still out with injury, ace Red Ruffing (15-8, 4.38) had recovered from one that had knocked him out of his first round start, and he was ready to go here against Derek Lowe (16-8,, 3.63).  It doesn’t take long for the jinx to manifest as the second batter of the game, Andre Ethier, swats a solo homer to put the Dodgers up, while the Yanks roll three straight X-outs in the bottom of the inning and fail to respond.  The Dodgers then draw two straight walks to begin the 2nd and Wilson Betemit clears the bases with a solid homer and it looks like a rout.  This is further confirmed when Ethier leads off the 3rd with a triple, and Olmedo Saenz follows with another long home run and it’s 6-0 LA and Ruffing is hearing the Bronx cheers.  Saenz hits another 2-run homer in the 5th for good measure, and 1930 not being a good year for relief pitching, the Yanks just decide to let Ruffing go until he drops.  The Dodgers load the bases in the 6th, and after Russell Martin drives in one on a sac fly, a walk sets things up for Nomar Garciaparra–but he misses the HR 1-8 with a 9 split, still clearing the bases with a double and the Dodgers lead hits double digits.  Ethier doubles in the 8th, putting him a just a single away from a cycle, and although they try the Dodger fall just short of garnering enough baserunners to bring him up again.  Regardless, Lowe finishes up a 7-hit shutout against a collection of Hall of Famers and the Dodgers eliminate Babe and Lou from the tournament with the 12-0 blowout.

After watching my jinx play out in characteristic form in the previous game, it was time for the reverse jinx to manifest on behalf of the 1959 Cubs, as these north side teams typically overperform just to bedevil this south sider.  The probable victims were a near-contemporary 1960 Indians, with both of these sub-.500 teams playing over their heads in reaching round five of this tournament.  Both teams were sending out their top starters, Jim Perry (18-10, 3.62) for Cleveland and Glen Hobbie (16-13, 3.69) for the Cubs, and both pens were in good shape although 3B Bubba Phillips remained on the DL for the Indians.  Cleveland gets off to a good start in the top of the 1st as Tito Francona misses a HR split but still drives in two with a 2-out double, and Harvey Kuenn adds a sac fly in the 2nd to make it 3-0 Indians.  However, the Cubs show their persistence as a two base error by RF-3 Kuenn leads to a big inning with an RBI single from Al Dark and two run-scoring fielder’s choices tying the game after two.  Both pitchers then settle down, but in the 7th Mike de la Hoz gets the first Indians hit in five innings in the form of a solo homer; however, Ernie Banks matches that in the bottom of the inning and Perry is pulled for promising young reliever Johnny Klippstein, who ends the inning without further mishap but the score is again tied after 7 innings.  A couple of Cleveland hits put runners at the corners in the 8th, so the Cubs gamble on the strikeout pitch of reliever Bill Henry, but Francona greets him with a three-run homer onto Waveland Avenue and the Indians regain the lead.  In the 9th, Cleveland hopes to preserve Klippstein for a possible super-regional final and veteran Don Newcombe comes in and assures that they will make the trip, wrapping up the 7-4 victory and earning a date with a modern Dodgers team in the final.  

Super-regional finals

Although I had somehow rolled the 1960 Indians into the super-regional final, I thought it was time to turn over the reins to Cleveland partisan ColavitoFan (even though these Indians had just traded Colavito away) for the Zoom game of the week.  They faced the 2006 Dodgers, manned by brother Chuck who had no dog in this fight, although he did have an aging Greg Maddux (15-14, 4.20) on the mound to go against Cleveland swingman Bobby Locke (3-5, 3.37).  Both of these pitchers started off strong against offenses that had put up big run totals in the previous five rounds, but in the top of the 4th LA’s Jeff Kent managed to convert a HR split for a solo shot and the Dodgers take the lead.   Maddux is not dominating, but he’s crafty and although he’s allowing hits, the Dodgers use the double play ball to keep Maddux out of trouble, including one DP on an attempted sacrifice bunt that drives several Indians fans out of the park vowing to set the Cuyahoga River on fire.  With the game riding on every pitch, the Indians summon round five victor Johnny Klippstein to see if he can pull the same magic, and he provides his two hitless innings to keep the Dodgers at bay.  With dominating LA closer Takashi Saito burnt for this game, Chuck wants to stick with his Hall of Fame starter but the hits keep mounting, and so he opts for Jonathan Broxton to try to close out the game.  He does so, with any threat of a Cleveland rally wiped out by yet another DP in the bottom of the 9th, and the Dodgers earn their spot in the final group of 32 winning the 1-0 nailbiter–the second straight shutout recorded by a pitching staff that was really below typical Dodger standards. 

Interesting card of Super-Regional N:   Well, this one wasn’t featured in their regional writeup, but I felt obligated to present the lovely die-cut, old-school patterned card of the Bambino here. Unfortunately I probably won’t get another such opportunity; the loss of the 1930 Yanks in round five here eliminated the last version of the Babe from the tournament, unless the game company defies my expectations and finally releases another season from the pre-war era.  We can only hope.  In the meantime, at least we have 1930, one of my favorite Strat sets of all time.  The 1930 season is not necessarily regarded as one of the Babe’s best, and he finished a distant 10th in the voting for MVP, but he led the league in homers, walks, OBP, SLG%, OPS, and WAR, and at the end of June he was ahead of his 60-homer pace of 1927, but injuries slowed him down and he finished with 49.  His 1930 Yankees were an offensive juggernaut but they finished a relatively distant third to the Philadelphia A’s dynasty of those years, with the Yanks not having pitching to match that of Lefty Grove and company.  In fact, even the Yankees’ ace, Red Ruffing, came up short in this tournament, getting mauled by the eventual super-regional champs.  In the meantime, it’s sadly back to the storage drawers for the Babe and his teammates, but if someone needs an outfielder for their pickup team, this card should do the trick.

SUPER-REGIONAL M:   Of the five pennant winners that began the tournament in this group of 64, only one had managed to put together three wins in a row to reach this level.  Even so, this batch looked like a group of very competitive teams, although there was a Reds team that didn’t really seem to belong here.  There would be old school greats like the Babe and Willie Mays rubbing shoulders with more modern stars like Jimmy Rollins and Kris Bryant.  I thought the upper half of this division was extremely tough, and although I was pulling for the older squads, I suspected that the Cubs from the season following their historic championship would make the finals just to spite me; I predicted that they would get their comeuppance from a Phillies team from an era that had been uncannily successful in this tournament.  The ELO ratings didn’t account for the tendency for the Cubs to torment me, and predicted Babe’s Yankees would top the Phils to move on to the final 32.

Round four action

Two strong teams from very different eras meet as the 92-60 1934 Yankees of Ruth and Gehrig face off against the 92-70 2017 Cubs, a year after they had broken the curse of the billy goat.  The Yankees had serious injury problems, with their top two 2B both out and a rotation thrown into chaos by a 10-game DL trip for Red Ruffing, so their defense would be dismal behind an already hittable Jimmie DeShong (6-7, 4.11).  On the other hand, the Cubs would be at full strength with C Wilson Contreras returning from injury and a deep and rested bullpen available to support an already capable Jake Arrieta (14-10, 3.53) as the #4 starter.  In the 3rd, Earle Combs doubles past CF-3 Jon Jay to drive in a run and Gehrig adds another with a sac fly, but the Yanks leave the bases loaded and fail to improve upon the 2-0 lead.  However, the Cubs get a setback when LF Ian Happ hits into a DP to end the bottom of the inning, and gets injured for 8 games in the process, meaning he’s gone for the tournament.  Of course, the dice gods can’t permit the Cubs to be disadvantaged, so immediately in the 5th Ruth gets hurt, he’s out for 6 games, and it’s farewell to the Sultan of Swat most likely for the remainder of the project, although George Selkirk takes out some of the sting with an RBI single for a 3-0 lead.  The inevitable Cubs comeback begins in the 6th with a 2-run double by Contreras, and when Ben Chapman leads off the 7th with a single, the North Siders yank Arrieta and the largely unhittable Carl Edwards Jr. comes in, but he issues a walk and then Bill Dickey drives an RBI single to provide an insurance run.   Edwards then holds the Yanks, and the Cubs get the tying runs aboard in the bottom of the 9th with two out, courtesy of a walk and a Jay single, and then a Javier Baez base hit scores one and Jay is at second with imposing Kris Bryant at the plate.  And yes, predictably he singles, 1-14+2 Jay races home to tie the game and Baez takes third to put the game winner 90 feet away for injury replacement Albert Almora.  And yes, he rolls the 4th straight single with 2 outs and the Cubs walk it off scoring three runs with two out in the bottom of the 9th for a 5-4 win, proving that the dice just love to have the Cubs torture me while any decent White Sox teams were eliminated in the first round.

The Zoom game of the week features two strong squads, with Toronto’s own Eaglesfly at the helm of the 89-win, AL East winning 1989 Blue Jays, with me rolling the dice on his “behalf”, while the Friday Night Strat College of Coaches would guide the 90-win 1964 Giants and brother Chuck would provide his dice-rolling skills on their behalf.   The Jays send out Mike Flanagan (8-10, 3.93) , while after some debate the College settles on Ron Herbel (9-9, 3.07) as their #4 starter.  And, it appears that the College chose unwisely, as Herbel fails to record a single out, with five straight hits punctuated by an intentional walk to load the bases for Junior Felix, who looks more senior in swatting a grand slam and Herbel exits after allowing 6 runs for an infinite ERA.  The College then opts for one of the other starter alternatives, Bob Bolin, and it looks like they should have gone with him to start with as he retires the side without further damage.   Tom Haller drives in a run in the bottom of the 1st and the long comeback trail begins, and while Bolin holds off the Jays Haller nails a three-run homer in his next at-bat, and Orlando Cepeda singles in a run in the 4th and suddenly we’re looking at a one-run game and Eaglesfly yanks an ineffective Flanagan as he’s confident in the Jays strong pen, with Duane Ward coming in to end any further threat.  The Giants move to veteran Billy Pierce in the 6th and he continues to take advantage of my terrible dicework, but Ward holds the fort until a single in the bottom of the 8th is a cue to move to dominating Toronto closer Tom Henke.  And….that doesn’t go well, as Cepeda doubles in the tying run to bring up NL home run leader Willie Mays; Chuck rolls right in the midst of a fat group of homer results and it’s a 2-run shot for the Giants first lead of the game.  That’s it for Henke, but the horse has left the barn and Jim Duffalo sets down the Jays in the 9th as the Giants complete a remarkable comeback for an 8-6 win, and a return to the top of the rotation for round five.

The 2008 Phillies were the only pennant winner still surviving in this super-regional, as they won 92 games and the World Series over the Rays.  However, they had been hit by the injury bug in winning Regional #101, losing star 2B Chase Utley for the entire duration of this super-regional and in the regional final an early injury to SP Brett Myers had taxed the bullpen, meaning that a hittable Joe Blanton (9-12, 4.69) needed to put in some useful innings.  Still, they had to be considered as favorites over the 1941 Pirates, but these Pirates had outscored their opposition 21-3 in their regional, and those three complete game wins meant that they could use their best reliever, Dutch Dietz (7-2, 2.34) in his spot starter role here.  But in the top of the 1st Dutch watches his LF-4 Maurice Robays turn a Shane Victorino liner into a double, and then Jayson Werth smacks a hard single to bring the runner home.  A rattled Dietz then grooves one to Ryan Howard who puts it over the Forbes wall for a rapid 3-0 Philly lead.  However, the injury bug hits the Phils again as Werth is lost until the super-regional final, and when LF-4 Pat Burrell misplays an Elbie Fletcher single to allow a run to score in the bottom of the inning, it feels like the momentum is shifting.  Although Dietz holds the Phils hitless for 4 straight innings, Jimmy Rollins leads off the 6th with a walk, steals 2nd against the strong arm of C-1 Al Lopez, and then scores on a Victorino to add to the Phils lead.  Lopez then throws AA Victorino out trying to steal to end the threat, and when the Pirates begin the bottom of the inning with a walk and a single, the Phils opt to try the deeper recesses of their bullpen and try JC Romero, and despite a walk that loads the bases Romero strands all runners to sustain the 4-1 lead entering the 7th.  Victorino then blows the game open with a 3-run homer in the top of the 7th, although yet another injury, this one to DH Greg Dobbs, hits the beleaguered Phils in the 8th.  Armed with a six run lead, the Phils send out mop-up reliever Tom Gordon to begin the bottom of the 8th, and he is helped when Pedro Feliz leads off the 9th with an insurance homer.  From there, Gordon closes out the 8-1 win without incident and the Phils advance to round five, but with a third of their starting lineup injured.  

Two contemporary teams meet in this round four game, although pretty different in their rankings.  The 2017 Cardinals were a decent 83-79 team that underperformed their Pythagorean prediction, and they had knocked off two stronger teams in Regional #103 on their way here.  The good news for the Cards was that DH Matt Carpenter was back from an injury suffered in the regional semifinals; the bad news was that uninspiring #4 starter Mike Leake (7-12, 4.21) did not have their best relief pitcher available after a crucial stint in the regional final.  Still, they should be favored over the 95-loss 2018 Reds, who managed to win their regional as the #8 seed, but in the process had lost their starting SS and 3B to injury for the remainder of the tournament.  Also, befitting a 95-loss team, their #4 starter options were gruesome, with Anthony DeSclafani (7-8, 4.98) hoping to make it five innings to turn things over to a fully rested bullpen.  This one had the makings of a high-scoring affair, and that seems confirmed when the first hitter of the game, Kolten Wong, hits a solid HR result on DeSclafani, and three hits later Jose Martinez drives in a run to make it 2-0.   Tommy Pham finds and converts DeSclafani’s split HR result to lead off the 3rd, but the Reds starter manages to get through five innings without further damage and they move to David Hernandez in the 6th to try to keep within reach.  However, in the 7th Dexter Fowler drops a 2-run single in front of LF-4 Jesse Winker to add to the Cards lead, and the Reds don’t get on the board until Scott Schebler leads off the bottom of the 9th with a long homer.  Joey Votto then misses a HR split, but he scores anyway when Dilson Herrera follows with a tape measure shot and suddenly it’s a 2-run game with nobody out, and the Cards find that their lead is Leake-ing away.  They bring in Samuel Tuivailala to try to get the save, and he slams the door on the Reds retiring three in a row to preserve a 5-3 win for the Cards that didn’t come without a scare.  

The survivors:  round five

This round five matchup features two squads that had posted dramatic come-from-behind wins in round four against very strong opponents, and it was back to the top of the rotation for both teams.  That meant that the 1964 Giants would have Hall of Famer Juan Marichal (21-8, 2.48) on the mound against Jose Quintana (11-11, 4.15) of the 2017 Cubs in a freezing but sold out Candlestick Park.  The Giants get off to a rough start when in the 3rd C-3 Tom Haller commits the second error of the game for SF and that runner scores on a Javier Baez single; the Cubs plate another on an Anthony Rizzo sac fly and Chicago moves out to a 2-0 lead.  However, the Cubs return the bad fielding favors with an error from 2B-3 Ben Zobrist that scores one in the bottom of the inning, and then 3B-3 Kris Bryant drops another run-scoring grounder in the 4th and the game is tied.  In the 5th, Baez gets only the second hit against Marichal, both by him, and this one is a long solo blast to put the Cubs up once again, but Tom Haller does the same in the 7th and when Willie McCovey doubles on a missed HR 1-14 split that would have been back to backs, Quintana gives way to Wade Davis who hits the hole in Harvey Kuenn’s best column to end the inning, but the game is tied heading into the 8th.  After Davis gets Willie Mays to hit into a double play in the bottom of the 9th, the Cubs bring in Justin Wilson to record the last out and the game heads to extra innings: the second start in a row Marichal has headed into the 10th inning.  As he did in round one, Marichal does his job in inning 10, completing his eligibility with only two hits allowed and nine strikeouts. However, the Giants can’t score in the bottom of the inning and their heavy use of the bullpen in round four now haunts them as Jim Duffalo comes out and holds serve in the 11th.  In the bottom of the inning, offensive replacement Jim Davenport walks with one out and Jesus Alou singles him to third, so Wilson now must face the heart of the Giants order with the winning run 90 feet away.  The infield comes in for Orlando Cepeda, who responds with a gbA to put the runners on 2nd and 3rd, Mays up, two away.  For a team to advance in this project, their stars need to come through in the clutch, and Mays does so, ripping a single for the walk-off 4-3 win that pushes the Giants into the super-regional final.

With injuries to 2B Chase Utley, RF Jayson Werth and DH Greg Dobbs, the 2008 Phillies had to look on the bright side as they returned to the top of their rotation for Cole Hamels (14-10, 3.09) and closer Brad Lidge was fully rested if needed for extended service.  Still, the 2017 Cardinals also had their top starter, Carlos Martinez (12-11, 3.64) on the mound who had tossed a 2-hit shutout in round one, and they were completely healthy behind him.  Martinez strikes out the side in the top of the 1st to the delight of the Busch Stadium faithful, while the Cards look like Lady Luck is on their side as Paul DeJong rips a gbA++ RBI single thanks to the held Tommy Pham, and although the roll is also an injury, the 3 split keeps DeJong in the game.  Jose Martinez then converts a SI* 1-6 for another run, and although Hamels finally ends the frame by turning a DP himself, the Cards lead 2-0 after an inning.  However, replacement DH Matt Stairs ends the Martinez streak of strikeouts at four with a single, and then Pedro Feliz discovers that Martinez sports a juicy 6-5 HR result that he converts to tie the game. Then, in the 3rd it’s Ryan Howard’s turn as he crushes a long 2-run blast to put the Phils ahead, and when Pat Burrell leads off the 6th with a double and scores on a base hit by Stairs the Cards yank Martinez for Tyler Lyons, but he’s not the answer either as Geoff Jenkins adds an RBI single and Lyons loads the bases up for a 2-run single from Shane Victorino as the Phils take an imposing 8-2 lead.  With nothing to lose, the Cards bring in closer Trevor Rosenthal to begin the 7th, but Burrell greets him with a triple and he trots home on a Stairs single to pad the lead further.  Fortune finally smiles on the Phils as Burrell rolls an injury in the 8th, but the 2 split means he’s able to stay in the game, although the Phils feel they should wrap the remainder of their lineup in foam padding to keep them healthy.  Hamels shows some signs of tiring in the 8th, as Pham doubles in a run but Hamels strands three runners to end the inning still in command.  He proves that convincingly by striking out the side in the bottom of the 9th to finish with 11 Ks in the 9-3 win that sends the Phils to the super-regional finals, where they will be rejoined by Werth and Dobbs in their quest to make the final round of 32.  

Super-regional final:  round six

The super-regional final was also the Zoom game of the week, with Philadelphian Tall Tactician assuming the reins of the 2008 Phillies and the 1964 Giants helmed by ColavitoFan, who had led the College of Coaches that gave the Giants their come from behind victory in round four.  It was 25-year old Gaylord Perry (12-11, 2.75) on the mound for the Giants, while the Phillies went with the other end of the age spectrum in 45-year old Jamie Moyer (16-7, 3.71), and the Philly faithful were happy that Jayson Werth and Greg Dobbs were back from injury, although MVP vote-getter 2B Chase Utley would still be on the DL for a few more games.  Even so, the returning Phils make their presence felt quickly, with Werth and Dobbs taking advantage of an error by lead-gloved 3B-4 Jim Ray Hart to drive in runs that stake their team to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the 4th.  Meanwhile, Moyer seems to have discovered the fountain of youth, but in the 7th Jesus Alou finds Moyer’s HR split for a solo shot that makes it a one run game.  However, Perry allows a hit and a walk to begin the bottom of the 7th, and ColavitoFan decides Perry has run out of Vaseline, but the Giants bullpen has been severely depleted in their previous come-from behind wins.  So, in a controversial move CF summons a startled Ron Herbel, who had started round four but got nobody out while allowing six runs.  Herbel, given a chance to redeem himself, does anything but:  between more Giant errors and Phils hits, Herbel once again fails to record a single out, allowing both of Perry’s runs to score and adding two more tallies of his own, and he’s yanked for Bob Shaw.  Shaw promptly grooves one to Ryan Howard, who has done nothing before this point other than strike out, and Howard finally makes contact for a 3-run shot to cap a 6-run inning.  Herbel thus amasses the impressive numbers of 0 innings pitched, 10 runs allowed, which would have to be the worse ERA in the tournament if it were possible to calculate it.  Shane Victorino adds an RBI double in the 8th, and Chad Durbin holds off the Giants in relief of Moyer as the Phils take the easy 9-1 win, as four errors help send the Giants back into storage.  The Phils thus move on to the final group of 32, needing just two more wins to get Utley back at 2B in time for the Elite Eight.

Interesting card of Super-Regional M:  This all-time great carried his team to the super-regional final, but ultimately he couldn’t do it alone, and some terrible fielding and pitching by a few of his teammates doomed the Giants after five straight wins.   The 1964 Mays didn’t get featured when they won the regional, so I figured I’d make up for it here, with the added bonus of having an opportunity to compare the ORIGINAL ‘64 Mays with the more modern presentation.  Given the 40-some odd years of tweaking the Strat formulas that likely occurred between the printing of these two cards, the similarity is pretty striking–although as usual I prefer the old card look to the newer one.  As for 1964, despite leading the NL in homers, SLG%, and OPS, Mays only finished 6th in the MVP voting, perhaps because of his teams’ 4th place finish despite being only three games off the pennant.  One interesting footnote to this season is that these Giants were rife with tension resulting from racist comments offered by their manager, Alvin Dark, during the season–comments that obviously did not sit well with a team stacked with black and Latin players.  By all reports, Mays played a critical role in attempting to mediate the relationship between the manager and the players, but it’s hard to imagine that these issues did not impact the team in the midst of a tight pennant run.  Dark was ultimately fired on the last day of the season, and under new manager Herman Franks Mays won his 2nd and final MVP award the following season–although the Giants still fell short in the pennant race, this time by two games. 

SUPER-REGIONAL L:  Although seven pennant winners had begun this round of 64, they went a combined 5-7 and not a single one won their regional.  Nonetheless, the surviving squads here were a solid bunch, with the sole mediocre team, the 1977 Angels, having triumphed in a regional that included three of those seven pennant winners, so they were hardly afraid of being underdogs.  However, I doubted that they would be able to sustain their success against high quality opponents; my guess was that a modern Yankees team would best a 70s Orioles team to go on to the final field of 32.   The ELO rankings predicted the same result in the finals, which would be an interesting matchup of modern power hitting vs. the great rotation of the O’s from those years.  Even so, I was also looking forward to seeing how the two pre-war entries from the Tigers would fare against some tough modern competition. 

Round four action

Two Orioles teams from very different eras must face off in round four to see which one will represent the franchise going forward in the tournament.   The 1975 Orioles won 90 games courtesy of a strong rotation, and Doyle Alexander (8-8, 3.05) was about as good a #4 starter as you could ask for.  The 2013 Orioles won 85 but were built very differently, riding Chris Davis’s 53 homers but Wei-Yin Chen (7-7, 4.07) had an unnerving tendency to allow extra base hits.  That tendency becomes obvious in the bottom of the 1st as Lee May converts Chen’s hefty HR split for a 2-run lead, and in the bottom of the 5th it’s elderly Brooks Robinson taking advantage of that result for another 2-run homer.  However, an error by 1B-4 May sets up a 3-run blast by Davis in the top of the 6th and suddenly it’s a ballgame, so the 2013’s pull Chen and give it to Darren O’Day to keep it close.  The 75’s get men on 2nd and 3rd with two out in the bottom of the 7th but O’Day whiffs Don Baylor to keep the 2013’s hope alive, which turns out to be key when Matt Wieters homers to lead off the 8th.  A following single by Brian Roberts and it’s the 75’s turn to go to the bullpen, and Dyar Miller comes in and retires three straight and the game is tied heading into the 9th.  Miller gets into trouble immediately in the top of the 9th with a walk followed by an Adam Jones double; 1-12 Danny Valencia is held at 3rd and the infield comes in with nobody out.  But Manny Machado lofts a sac fly and the 2013s take the lead for the first time heading into the bottom of the 9th; with nobody else decent in the pen, O’Day will be burnt for the super-regional but it’s his game to save.  Veteran Tommy Davis comes up to pinch hit but he fails to convert a HR 1-2/flyB, and that’s one out.  But PH Al Bumbry draws a walk and another PH Doug Decinces follows with a single–but the 1-17 Bumbry is cut down trying for 3rd with a 19 split roll.  Jim Northrup then grounds one to 2B-2 Roberts, who fields it cleanly and the 2013’s pull off a come-from-behind 5-4 win, despite only recording five hits.

In the Zoom game of the week, Jonathan would lead his hometown 2012 Nationals who had powered through Regional #92 despite a rash of injuries, and although SS Ian Desmond would be returning to the lineup for this round four game, C Kurt Suzuki was still unavailable, meaning that #4 starter Ross Detwiler (10-8, 3.40) would have an unfamiliar batterymate.   Still, they had a manageable opponent in the 88-loss 1977 Angels, who rode two very good starting pitchers through their regional, but Ken Brett (7-10, 4.25) looked far more generous with the hits.   And Brett shows his generosity quickly, allowing four hits in the bottom of the 2nd to set up a Ryan Zimmerman sac fly and a two-run homer by Danny Espinoza provide a 3-0 Nats lead.  The Angels retaliate in the top of the 3rd when Bobby Bonds walks, steals second, and scores on a Don Baylor single, but Zimmerman launches a solo shot in the 4th to make it 4-1, and as manager of the Angels I am itching to get Brett off the mound as soon as rules permit.  That happens in the 6th, and Mike Barlow does somewhat better although Zimmerman slams his second solo shot of the game in the 8th.  In the meantime, Jonathan calls upon Craig Stammen and Drew Storen to preserve the lead, and they do so–however, not everything is roses in the capital as SS Desmond and 2B Espinoza both go down with 7 game injuries, meaning that the Nats must try to manage the remainder of the tournament without their very strong double play combination.   Still, they get by the Angels, who can put together only six hits as Washington cruises to the 5-1 win and advance, battered and bruised, to round five.

After a few recent rough outings managing some Indians regional winners, ColavitoFan was willing to forego a Zoom game with the 2000 Indians, letting me roll for the 90-game winners who had an all-1 infield; if there are other teams that had this, there aren’t many.   However, he did submit a recommendation to use Steve Woodward (4-10, 5.85) as the #4 starter, preferably as briefly as possible.  The 75-79 1941 Tigers would call upon Schoolboy Rowe (8-6, 4.14) and hope that their all-4 DP combo could stop a few balls from getting through the infield.  The Tigers show their stuff in the bottom of the 1st, leading off with two straight singles that set up a Bruce Campbell sac fly; Pinky Higgins then misses Woodward’s HR split but a run still scores on the resulting double.  After a walk, Birdie Tebbetts doesn’t mess around with splits and finds Woodard’s solid HR result for a 3-run shot, and it’s to the bullpen for Paul Shuey as Woodard lasts two-thirds of an inning.  The Indians start to dig out of the hole with a Manny Ramirez RBI single in the 3rd, and Jim Thome adds a solo shot in the 8th to gain a little more ground.  But although Shuey and Justin Speier hold the Tigers hitless in 7+ innings of relief, the damage is done as Rowe scatters 11 hits and Detroit moves on with the 5-2 win.

Two regional winners from 90+ years apart face off in this round four game, testing the mettle of their #4 option in their rotations.  The 2019 Yankees won 103 games but fell short in the ALCS; they were the top ranked team in this super-regional, having made it through Regional #96 with heavy support from a deep bullpen, but they might need those bullpen arms with a very hittable JA Happ (12-8, 4.91) on the mound.  The 1927 Tigers went 82-71 and didn’t use a single bullpen inning in winning their regional, probably because their bullpen was largely useless, but Ownie Carroll (10-6, 3.98) looked like he might need some help himself.  He gets some in the top of the 1st from .398 hitter Harry Heilmann, who nails a solo homer in the house of the Babe, but the pinstripers respond immediately with an error by 3B-3 Jack Warner setting up a sac fly from Aaron Judge and a 2-run triple by Gleyber Torres for a 3-1 Yankee lead after one.  However, in the 3rd Heilmann adds a sac fly, and then a two-out rally erupts with RBI singles by Jackie Taverner, Heinie Manush, and a 2-run single from Warner give the Tigers a lead and the Yankees an excuse to pull the hapless Happ, with an unhittable Luis Severino coming in for long relief.  But he walks the bases loaded and Johnny Neun singles for another two runs, and when the dust clears the Tigers now lead 8-3.  Judge responds with a solo shot in the bottom of the inning, and you get the sense that this game is a long way from over.  An RBI single from Warner and a run-scoring double by Larry Woodall and the Tigers hit double digits in the 4th inning, but a Yankee run scores on a fielder’s choice in the 5th to narrow the gap to 10-5, although Torres ends the inning by getting injured.  However, in the 6th Carroll walks the first three batters of the inning, then allows a run-scoring single to Mike Tauchman and a fielder's choice from Brett Gardner scores another.  Another walk loads the bases again and a Gio Ushela sac fly makes it now a two-run game.  Seeking to keep the momentum, New York turns it over to Adam Ottavino and his 1.90 ERA to begin the 7th, and he holds off the Tigers while in the 8th an error by Detroit SS-1 Taverner leads to a Gio Urshela sac fly and it’s a one run game entering the 9th.  Ottavino holds, and although Carroll walks PH Cameron Maybin to put the tying run aboard, Carroll gets a DP ball out of DJ Lemahieu and the Tigers hold on for the 10-9 upset, sending the powerful Yankees back to the card catalogs.  

The survivors:  round five

The 2012 Nationals remain alive despite having a third of their starting lineup injured, including both halves of their very good DP combo; the good news was that their ace Gio Gonzalez (21-8, 2.89), who came in third in the Cy Young ballots, would be on the mound.  On the other side of the Beltway, the 2013 Orioles would be sending out Scott Feldman (12-12, 3.86) who was decent but not in the hunt for any pitching awards.  However, it’s Gonzalez who starts off terribly, not recording an out until after RBI doubles from Nick Markakis and Danny Valencia, and even that out comes from 1-12 Chris Davis getting thrown out at home.  JJ Hardy adds an RBI single and the O’s lead 3-0 before the Nats can swing a bat.  Things get worse in the 2nd when injury replacement 2B-2 Steve Lombardozzi drops a Markakis grounder to allow another run, but in the bottom of the inning Adam Laroche converts Feldmans’s HR split to make it 4-1 Baltimore.  The Nats get a run on the fielder’s choice in the 3rd to cut the lead to two, and Gonzalez begins pitching like an ace.   The Nats threaten with two baserunners in the 7th, and Baltimore looks at their pen but their best reliever is burnt and the alternatives aren’t encouraging, so Feldman is left in but he surrenders an RBI single to Tyler Moore and it’s a one-run game entering the 8th.  However, a triple by Matt Wieters gives the Orioles an insurance run in the top of the 9th, which proves fortuitous as Bryce Harper crushes a solo shot in the bottom of the 9th to draw back within one.  Injury replacement Jhonatan Braxton then rips a double to put the tying run in scoring position with one out, and again the O’s look at the pen but opt to stick with Feldman.  He’s bailed out with a fine play by 2B-2 Brian Roberts for the second out, but up comes Tyler Moore, who’s gonna make it on his own with a 6-5 roll, converting the HR split for a walk-off 6-5 win to send the battered Nats to the super-regional finals.  

A distinctly feline aura surrounds the round five matchup between the 1927 Tigers and the 1941 Tigers, with the sole commonality between the two squads being the Mechanical Man, Charlie Gehringer, manning second base.  Both were back to the top of the rotation, with 27’s Earl Whitehill (16-14, 3.36) and 41’s Al Benton (15-6, 2.96) sporting nice cards, so a pitching duel might be in order.  But it doesn’t take long for the 27’s to get on the board, as a 2-run homer by Bob Fothergill in the bottom of the 1st stakes Whitehill to a 2-0 lead.  However, he walks the first three batters of the 4th inning, then allows a Frank Croucher single for one run and then walks the elder Gehringer for another; after recording two outs he then issues his 5th walks of the inning to Pat Mullin to score another, and then Bruce Campbell strokes a 2-run single when he finally get a ball over the plate and the 41’s take a 5-2 lead.  They then put together a 2-out rally in the 8th and get an RBI single from defensive replacement Tuck Stainback, and things look bleak for the 27’s going into the bottom of the 9th down by four and having only one hit since the 1st inning.  However, with two outs they refuse to go down, and score a run on a Jackie Tavener double that was a missed HR split that would have put the game within one.  A walk loads the bases, and PH Marty McManus delivers a single that makes it a two-run game, and the winning run is now at the plate in the form of Lu Blue.  The 41’s don’t have anyone better in the pen than Benton, so they stick with their ace and Blue lofts a fly towards the best fielder on the 41’s, LF-1 Barney McCoskey, and he makes it look easy as the 27’s leave the bases full and the ‘41 Tigers move on by holding on for the 6-4 win.  

Super-regional final:  round six

The tattered remnants of the 2012 Nationals somehow limp into the super-regional finals despite having suffered four injuries for a total of 18 games in their five previous tournament wins.  Although they would still be missing both halves of their DP combo, starting C Kurt Suzuki would be back from the DL, which upgraded their defense but downgraded the offense provided by his replacement; Stephen Strasburg (15-6, 3.16) would be on the mound for the Nats.  They faced a healthy 1941 Tigers team who had somehow managed five straight convincing wins without benefit of any defense or bullpen, but sporting the best nicknames in the bracket.  After his round five walkoff homer, everyone in DC wants to marry Tyler Moore, and he keeps it up with an RBI single under the glove of aged 2B-4 Charlie Gehringer for a Washington lead in the top of the 3rd.  Michael Morse then drives in Moore with a single past 3B-3 Pinky Higgins, and a passed ball by C-2 Birdie Tebbetts allows another run to score as the Tiger nicknames prove better than their gloves.  The Tigers do respond in the bottom of the inning with a 2-out rally to load the bases and a walk to Bruce Campbell scores a run, but they leave the bases jammed and it’s 3-1 Nats after three.  When the Tigers begin the bottom of the 6th with two straight hits, Strasburg is relieved by Craig Stammen, who gets a DP ball out of Higgins but a run does score to cut the Nationals’ lead to one.  The Tigers defense holds in the top of the 7th with two straight successful plays from 4-rated infielders, and in the bottom of the inning Stammen walks the bases loaded with two away, but Rudy York whiffs to end an inning with three men on for the second time in the game.  Drew Storen comes on in the 8th to try to wrap up the game for the Nats, but he promptly commits a 2-base error to put the tying run in scoring position, and Detroit sends out HOF PH Hank Greenberg.  Storen gets him out as Greenberg avoids injury with a 4 split roll, but then Gehringer walks and offensive replacement C Jhonatan Solono drops a popup and the bases are loaded for Rip Radcliff–who pops out and Washington clings to the one-run lead entering the 9th.  Bridges holds in the top of the 9th, so the game rests on Storen’s arm, but singles by York and Tebbetts put the tying run in scoring position and the winning run at 1st, although with no replacements on the bench the Tigers can’t pinch run for the slow York.   That makes it up to Higgins, but it’s on Storen’s card for a lazy fly ball and the injury-riddled Nationals continue their improbable run, with the 3-2 victory sending them to the round of 32.  Note that if they can keep it up and make the Final Four–they will get their DP combo back!

Interesting card of Super-Regional L:   The 1927 Tigers made it through five rounds of this tournament, and it was in no small part due to the efforts of this Hall of Famer.  It is because of players like Harry Heilmann that I am disappointed that the game company seemingly refuses to print any new pre-WWII seasons, because I think that there are so many greats in that golden era of baseball that fly under the radar of contemporary fans.  Obviously, Strat is banking on a nostalgic desire to play with the players we remember from our youth, with endless reprints or reimaginings of seasons from the 1970s and 80s, but as someone who’s been playing the game since that time, what really captured my imagination even back then were the old-timers, guys like Heilmann who died before I was born.  Strat was how I learned about them, and to this day I can remember the lineup of the 1927 Yankees or 1934 Cardinals better than I can any contemporary teams, even the one that I pull for (the 2024 White Sox?  Give me a break).  But greats like Heilmann fade into obscurity, despite feats like batting .400 and winning batting titles every other season throughout the 1920s.  Come on, Strat, throw us history lovers a bone–how about a new prewar season like 1939, or 1929, or  ‘21 or ‘22, or maybe even a centennial edition of 1925?