It's been just about 2 months since opening day, and just about 2 months since my last post. So I guess it feels like time.
Teams are now more or less one third of the way into their seasons (at 54 games they will be), so it's a good time to see which teams have been playing well, which teams have surprised (one way or another), and which players are award-worthy. It tends to be more common to look at these at the quarter point or halfway point, but 2 of 6 months seems like not a bad spot. I may revisit these points at the end of July, when we're two thirds done. Teams Above Expectations
Below Expectations
Players American League MVP (so far) - Remember how Mike Trout was the best player in the world? Yeah, that's still true. He's on pace for another 10-win season, with a wOBA of .416, plus strong center field defense. He's walking at a nearly career-high rate, and striking out less than he has in any year but 2013. He will eventually turn 25 (in August), and historically speaking may not have hit his peak yet. MVP (runner up) - Here's hoping that voters don't punish Trout for his team's record... but they probably will. Just behind him in fWAR is 23-year-old Manny Machado, who returned to shortstop with the injury of veteran J.J. Hardy. He has a Trout-esque wOBA of .417 with strong infield defense, and these two guys should be competing for this award for the next 5 years. Honorable Mention - Riding close behind is Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts, also just 23 years old. His dominance has been expected for a few years, but it took a bit of time to build to. He's now looking like he'll be a force in Boston's lineup for quite a while. LVP (Least Valuable Player) - Oh Prince Fielder... from ages 22-29, he averaged 160 games, 33 doubles, 35 home runs, 90 walks, and a slash line of .286/.390/.528. Since joining Texas for his age 30 season, he's missed 120 games in one season (in which he was hitting .247/.360/.360 with 3 home runs in 42 games) before hitting pretty well last year. That seems to have been a temporary bounceback, as he's now anchoring (as in holding back) the Texas offense with a slash line of .194/.263/.298, which combined with his "defense" when he plays the field, has been worth -1.4 fWAR so far this year. But don't worry, he only has 4 more years (and $96 million) left on his contract. Cy Young (so far) - Chris Sale has been pretty excellent the last few years, striking out over 30% of batters the last two years. This year he's taken a little off (intentionally, not because of injury), and now has a 9-1 record with a 2.29 ERA and still just under a strikeout per inning. The record shuldn't matter much, but given a close top few pitchers in the AL, it could be a tie-breaker. Cy Young (runner up) - Sale's quietly excellent teammate Jose Quintana has "only" a 5-5 record, but bests Sale in ERA, FIP, xFIP, and fWAR (though it's close in all 4). I gave Sale the slight edge because he has a history of a bit more dominance, while Quintana has been more of a "quietly very good". Still, he could be the right choice of the two. Honorable Mention - Currently third in fWAR among AL starter is 36-year-old Rich Hill, who made his first starts in the Major Leagues last year since 2009, and this year has an 8-3 record to go with a 2.25 ERA, 2.67 FIP, and 10.4 strikeouts per 9 innings. At this age, and averaging less than 6 innings per start, he probably won't continue this dominance, but it's a good story so far. Cy Old - It's tempting to choose Jered Weaver, but when his "fastball" is averaging 82.4 mph, his 5.40 ERA and 5.52 FIP seem about right. Anibal Sanchez, on the other hand, is still averaging over 90 mph on his fastball, but it is down 1.3 mph from last year. Still though, at age 32, his ERA is second worst in the AL, and his FIP is the worst, thanks to the 5th highest walk rate in the majors at 4.6 walks per nine innings. Dishonorable Mention - Yordano Ventura has also lost 1.4 mph off his fastball, but it's still averaging 95 mph. His major issue is that he's walking 5.34 men per nine innings while striking out just 6.14 per nine. That plus a high rate of home runs allowed has not put him off to any kind of good start. Rookie of the Year - The Rangers' Nomar Mazara is off to a strong start, hitting .302/.348/.479, and some of the biggest raw power seen so far this year. At the moment he has no strong competition in the AL, so this award is his until somebody else tries to claim it. National League MVP (so far) - While Bryce Harper got off to a good start, he's struggled lately, and currently doesn't lead his own team in fWAR. We're going to talk about him some more, but right now the leader across the major leagues in fWAR is Clayton Kershaw. He has already done the MVP/Cy Young combo, and somebody else may step up to take this award (as people usually like to not give it to a pitcher), but for now, he's been so good it's hard to ignore. Where to start... his ERA, as mentioned before, is 1.56. His FIP is actually lower. He has struck out 105 batters (a career high 34.0% of all hitters he's faced so far). He's walked 5. That's FIVE. That's a 21-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. If he has a glitch on his record, it's his April 9th start agains the Giants when he gave up home runs to pitcher Madison Bumgarner and utility infielder Ehire Adrianza while striking out just 5 in 8 innings. MVP (runner up) - Boy has Dexter Fowler earned his 1-year deal already, leading NL hitters with 3.2 fWAR so far behind a .416 wOBA and good center field defense. If there's a reason not to vote for him, it might be a more "traditional" reason, which is that the Cubs have a LOT of good players, and without Fowler... they'd probably still be the best team in the league. Given his pedigree, this probably won't continue (that and his .389 BABIP), but it's a good start. Honorable Mention - A lot of close calls here, as Fowler's teammate Ben Zobrist has 2.9 fWAR behind a .418 wOBA, and Marcell Ozuna has 2.5 fWAR with a .408 wOBA, but for just the first third of the season, credit has to go to National's second baseman Daniel Murphy, hitting a sizzling .397/.428/.634 for a .447 wOBA. The .415 BABIP and 10 walks in 51 games gives me no belief that it will continue, but again, points for what he has achieved so far. LVP - The only player with more negative (fewer total?) WAR than Prince Fielder is Braves' shortstop Erick Aybar, who has been a decent player over the last 8 years, but at age 32 (seems like a theme) has fallen off of a cliff, "hitting" .182/225/.209 for a .191 wOBA, and -1.7 fWAR thanks to negative defensive value as well. In "good" news for the Braves, his contract is up this year, and he's on the DL. That and they're not trying to win (I mean... look at that team). Cy Young - Did I miss anything on Kershaw up there? His WHIP is 0.646, which would be the best mark ever. That's EVER. The curent standard bearer is Pedro Martinez' 2000 season when he had a 0.737 WHIP. Kershaw's current 245 ERA+ is a tiny bit better than Pedro's 1999 season mark of 243, but still well behind Pedro's modern record of 291 from that 2000 season (and a little behind Greg Maddux's 1994 and 1995 seasons at 271 and 260, respectively). But that's the company he's in right now. And in case you haven't been following much baseball and think that it might be a fluke... since 2011, Kershaw has a 2.11 ERA, averaging 10 strikeouts per 9 innings, and has already won 3 Cy Young awards, finished second once and third once, plus an MVP award. He's also 28. That is 5 days younger than 2-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry. Cy Young (runner up) - Some people worried they were going a little strong by picking 23-year-old Noah Syndergaard here so early in his career... but he's earned every bit of it. Second in fWAR, with a 1.84 ERA to go with a 1.66 FIP, he's averaging 98 mph with both his fastball and his sinker, plus over 91 mph on his SLIDER. At 6'6" and 240 lbs, he looks like he should throw that hard, and batters are really struggling with him (though Hunter Pence seems fine - that's 106 mph off the bat on a 98 mph pitch outside). Thor is striking out about a third of the hitters he faces, and while his control is not quite at Kershaw's level, he has walked just 9 batters in 10 starts and one relief appearance, which is pretty superb. He'll be competing for more of these. Honorable Mention - There were some who were worried about the big contract for Johnny Cueto, but so far he has earned every cent, going 8-1 with a 2.31 ERA in his first 11 starts, including 3 complete games and 2 shutouts. Pitching for the even-year Giants has really agreed with him so far, and he's not too far ahead of teammates Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija. By the end of the year, this spot could also have Jose Fernandez, Jake Arrieta, or Stephen Strasburg, but highlighting Cueto and his 2.5 fWAR seems like a good choice here. Cy Old - Francisco Liriano seemed to have revived his career with the Pirates over the last few years (35-25, 3.26 ERA, 9.6 K/9), but the age-32 bug seems to have struck again. His ERA is up to 4.63. Which is actually belied by an even worse 5.43 FIP thanks to the third worst walk rate in the majors (5.25 per 9), and 13th highest home rate (1.70 per 9). His velocity is virtually the same as the last three years, so it's hard to say what the cause it, but it is not good. Rookie of the Year - Popular preseason pick Corey Seager has been the best rookie in the NL at 1.9 fWAR, and in fact is 12th in the NL among all position players, rookie or not. He's hit .278/.333/.474 with very good defense at shortstop and 9 home runs so far. It may not be long before he's on that MVP list, and if the Dodgers do make a run this year, he's likely to be a big part of it. Honorable Mention - The NL actually has a couple of good candidates. After a red-hot start, Trevor Story has cooled off considerably (.674 slugging in April with 10 home runs, .455 slugging in May with 4 home runs), while Aledyms Diaz has hit very well for the Cardinals (good year for young shortstops), but I'll give this to Steven Matz, who so far has been the second best starter in the lauded Mets' rotation, going 7-1 with a 2.60 ERA and nearly a strikeout per inning. That's all for this point. I may start doing some links posts, but there are too many in the last two months to really catch up with, so I'll find some of the best ones, and some more going forward. If you're looking for good reading, Fangraphs, Beyond the Box Score, SB Nation, the newly opened Ringer, Joe Posnanski's blog, Jonah Keri on CBS and Sports Illustrated, and Keith Law's blog and Insider Articles are all good spots.
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Might as well do one more catching up for opening day!
You can find links to projections here and to standings and awards here.
First pitch is two days away, so now's as good a time as any to do a quick set of predictions for this season. You can find predictions online from Fangraphs, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, SBNation, Baseball Prospectus.
For mine, I'm going to try to guess final standings (without records), and some major awards. Will there be some bias? Maybe, but why not predict the teams you root for, especially when they have a good chance. American League East - Toronto Blue Jays Central - Cleveland Indians West - Houston Astros Wild Card - Kansas City Royals Wild Card - Tampa Bay Rays National League East - New York Mets Central - Chicago Cubs West - San Francisco Giants Wild Card - Washington Nationals Wild Card - Pittsburgh Pirates World Series Toronto Blue Jays vs San Francisco Giants Is this a biased pick? Absolutely. But ESPN had 6 of 31 experts pick the Giants to make it, and 8 picked the Blue Jays, including Jayson Stark who picked this exact matchup (and he thinks the Jays will win it). Champion San Francisco Giants Sorry to my Jays fan friends, but if both of these teams get this far as currently constituted, I believe in the Giants pitching a little more (ok, a fair bit more). But I also wouldn't be surprised if it were the Blue Jays in this scenario, I feel like it would be a 6 or 7 game series. Awards American League Most Valuable Player - Mike Trout - Los Angeles Angels - It's not exactly gripping analysis to pick the best player in the game, but there's a good chance he doesn't actually win the award because his team may not be a playoff team, and that seems to be held against him (when, imagine them without him). National League Most Valuable Player - Bryce Harper - Washington Nationals - I think these two guys are going to be winning a lot of these as they go. I wanted to pick somebody like Buster Posey, but Harper is 23 years old and terrifying. Trout, by the way, is 14 months older than Harper. Neither is going away anytime soon. American League Cy Young Award - Chris Archer - Tampa Bay Rays - If I have the Rays making the playoffs, Archer and the pitching staff would be a big reason why. He's a fairly popular pick on the major websites too, though Chris Sale is probably even more popular, and it's easy to see why. On the Jays, could Stroman win it? Maybe. Apparently Pedro Martinez thinks he's that good. National League Cy Young Award - Madison Bumgarner - San Francisco Giants - Damn right I went there. I mean, this award is probably Clayton Kershaw's to lose, but sometimes voters get tired of that (sometimes), sometimes guys just have a slightly off (for them) year... Max Scherzer is also a popular choice, and Jose Fernandez would be a not that shocking dark horse. American League Rookie of the Year - Byron Buxton - Minnesota Twins - Another popular choice, he's been a top (#1 or #2 prospect) for a couple of years now, and is about ready to make good. A lot of people have the Twins with the top three favourites for this award, in Buxton, Byung-Ho Park, and Jose Berrios. They might be bigtime contenders in about 2018. National League Rookie of the Year - Corey Seager - Los Angeles Dodgers - A fairly overwhelming favourite, and Keith Law's number 1 prospect this year. I think the Dodgers have just enough regression in them this year, but they won't be missing for long, not with that team and that budget. Two more days! Fangraphs did a series previewing the power rankings at every position for all 30 teams. You can find the whole series here. Being Blue Jays and Giants-centric, I thought it would be fun to do a quick summary, with best, worst, and where those two teams rank.
AL East Red Sox - 41.5 WAR Yankees - 40.4 WAR Blue Jays - 39.6 WAR Orioles - 35.8 WAR Rays - 35.6 WAR AL Central Indians - 42.3 WAR White Sox - 36.2 WAR Tigers - 34.5 WAR Twins - 33.0 WAR Royals - 32.5 WAR AL West Astros - 42.3 WAR Mariners - 35.4 WAR Angels - 34.9 WAR Rangers - 31.8 WAR Athletics - 31.6 WAR NL East Mets - 46.2 WAR Nationals - 42.4 WAR Marlins - 32.4 WAR Braves - 20.6 WAR Phillies - 17.3 WAR NL Central Cubs - 50.5 WAR Cardinals - 39.7 WAR Pirates - 39.4 WAR Reds - 29.0 WAR Brewers - 24.4 WAR NL West Dodgers - 49.6 WAR Giants - 41.2 WAR Diamondbacks - 32.3 WAR Padres - 27.3 WAR Rockies - 25.9 WAR Fangraphs uses a WAR baseline of about .294 winning percentage, or about 47.7 wins, so adding those WAR numbers to 47.7 gets you close to the teams expected wins (although you might have to bump them down a little bit, as there are some decimals rounded here that pushes everybody up a little bit.) So good news for Toronto and San Francisco, they're both in as second wild cards by these projections. The baseline to make the playoffs seems to be about 40 WAR, which comes out to about 88 wins, which makes sense, historically. The American League has a lot of parity, with the worst team in Oakland expected to win 78-79 games, and the best teams in Cleveland and Houston projected for about 90 on the nose. The National league... umm, does not. The best teams in Chicago and Los Angeles are projected around 97-98 wins, and the worst team (Philadelphia) is shooting for 65. The National League's three division winners are projected well above any other teams. The Wild Card race could be good as the Cardinals and Pirates are just outside, but the bottom 8 teams in the NL don't look to be very competitive (Miami, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Arizona, San Diego and Colorado). Of that group, Miami and Arizona look the most hopeful as roughly .500 teams. It will be fun to see at the end of the season how close this was to reality. Still working on those player entries, but life has gotten in the way to some extent.
Spring training moves along though, and the regular season is exactly 2 weeks away! So lets have some links, yeah?
We're just 9 days away from the first set of pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training.
February 18th:
So to tide us over, here's some links from the last few weeks. The favourite players list will still be coming, but this is an easy compilation of some good reading. Plus roll through the last few entries to look at my 10 favourite team seasons. Yahoo! Sports is doing a Homer History feature, where writers tell stories of particularly memorable home runs.
And finally, an MLB.com promo video to get you pumped up for the new season! On a side note, those who follow the Jays will be happy to know that Josh Donaldson was extended for this year and next year, avoiding an arbitration hearing over his salary. Enjoy, everybody! Quick recap of the rules, adapted from Jonah Keri's teams entry in his BestCoolest columns:
The team has to have been good, and I have to remember watching them. So, as above, that's 1992 on. But rather than just making it a list of the 10 best teams of the last 24 seasons, I want to focus on teams that I enjoyed watching for some reason or another. In part 1A, I talked about the 2004 Boston Red Sox, 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, 2015 Toronto Blue Jays, 1999 New York Mets, and 2001 Seattle Mariners. The Red Sox and Diamondbacks were teams that I only really followed for 1 series or so in the playoffs, but with great delight, and both won the World Series in those seasons. The Jays, Mets and Mariners were teams that had good seasons and fun playoff runs, but ultimately lost in their respective League Championship Series round in year. In part 1B, I talked about the Giants of 2010, 2012, and 2014. Starring Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey, and a cast of other fun characters, the Giants have been my favourite (alone or tied) franchise of just about the last decade. A lot of their players will end up on the "modern" half of my favourite players list, which will come next. In this part, I'll be focused on the teams that got me started with my love of baseball (and who will populate a good portion of my "older" half of the favourite players list). It's throwback time. 2d. 1992 Toronto Blue Jays The first team I followed, they get bumped to a second place tie because my memories of the next year are stronger, but this group helped build the foundation. And while I didn't watch much of them live, I've watched that video linked above without exaggeration probably 30 or more times. There are likely to be fewer overall links in the next two, just owing to their age, but if you have an hour to spare and love nostalgia, 90's hairdos on fans in the stands, and the Blue Jays, click on the link at this title and the next one. The Jays came into the 1992 season with a strong recent history. They had won the American League East in 1991 and 1989, and won at least 85 games every year since 1983, including a team record 99 in 1985. They had a good mix of young and veteran players in the lineup.
In the ALCS, they would face the Oakland Athletics, who had won the American League pennant each year from 1988-1990, beating the Blue Jays in 1989 on the way to winning the World Series. The Athletics had star power in Bash Brothers Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco and leadoff hitter extraordinaire Rickey Henderson, and strong pitching from Mike Moore, Dave Stewart, Bob Welch, and Dennis Eckersley, among others. Eckersley would win the Cy Young Award and the American League MVP that year thanks to his 51 saves and 1.91 ERA, though looking back with advanced metrics would show that to be suspect choices on both fronts. In game 1, Morris got the ball against Dave Stewart. He was roughed up in the second inning, as McGwire and Terry Steinbach went deep against him to give the A's a 3-0 lead. The Jays would answer with solo home runs from Borders in the 5th and Winfield in the 6th, and then a run-scoring single from Olerud in the 8th. Morris would come back out for the 9th inning, and gave up a leadoff homer to Harold Baines. He would complete the game, but the Jays were shut down in the bottom of the 9th and took the loss 4-3. In game 2, Cone would face Mike Moore, who gave up a 2 run homer to Kelly Gruber in the 5th inning to give the Jays a 2-0 lead. The Jays would add a run in the 7th, and Cone came out after allowing a leadoff triple in the 9th, which would then score Oakland's only run before Tom Henke closed the door on a 3-1 victory. Game 3 starter Juan Guzman had earned the only Jays victory in the 1991 playoffs, and would go 6 strong innings, allowing just 2 runs, as home runs from Maldonado and Alomar helped the Jays to a 3-2 lead. After Manny Lee tripled in 2 runs in the 7th, the A's would get 2 back against Duane Ward in the bottom of the inning, but the Jays countered with another run in the 8th. The A's answered back in the bottom of the 8th with one more to draw to 6-5, but the Blue Jays would score a final run in the top of the 9th before Tom Henke completed his 5-out save to finish a 7-5 victory. In game 4, Jack Morris would get hit hard, leaving after 3.1 innings with the Jays trailing 5-1. Todd Stottlemyre would go 3.2 innings and allow just one more, but the Jays trailed 6-1 going into the 8th inning. After an Alomar single against starter Bob Welch, the A's turned to the bullpen, but Jeff Parrett would give up back-to-back singles to bring the Jays a run closer. In came Eckersley, who the Jays greeted with 2 more hits to come closer at 6-4, but he would get the next three hitters to end the inning. On to the 9th, and after Devon White led off with a single, Alomar would take Eckersley deep to tie the game a 6. The two teams would battle into the 11th, when Pat Borders brought home Derek Bell with a sacrifice fly, and the Jays would take the game 7-6, leading the series now 3 games to 1. Game 5 saw David Cone come back on short rest, and this combined with Morris' game 5 performance probably helped Cito Gaston's decision to go back to a 4-man rotation, as Cone was rocked for 6 runs in 4 innings including a Ruben Sierra home run. The Jays would score just twice against Dave Stewart, who pitched a complete game for a 6-2 Oakland victory. Back in Toronto, Juan Guzman would get the ball for game 6. Guzman would strike out 8 over 7 innings of 1-run ball and the Jays would chase starter Mike Moore in the bottom of the 3rd after scoring their 6th run of the game. They would cruise to a 9-2 victory, and the first World Series that would include games outside the US. Roberto Alomar would win series MVP with a .423 average, 2 home runs, and 5 stolen bases. The World Series would match the Jays up with the now two-time reigning National League Champion Atlanta Braves. The Braves had the top pitching staff in the National League, featuring 26-year-old Tom Glavine (20-8, 2.76 ERA), 25-year-old John Smoltz (15-12, 2.85 ERA, and an NL-high 215 strikeouts), and 22-year-old Steve Avery (11-11, 3.20 ERA). They had also led the NL in home runs and slugging, and scored the third most runs in the league. Jack Morris would get the ball for the Jays in game 1, and he had shut the Braves out for 10 innings in their most recent World Series game, number 7 in 1991. When Joe Carter homered against Glavine in the 4th, Braves fans had to be feeling a little bit nervous. But, to quote the World Series film "...fame, and scoreless innings streaks, are fleeting." In the 6th inning, Morris would falter, giving up a 3-run home run to catcher Damon Berryhill. Glavine would finish the game allowing only 4 hits overall, as the Braves took a 3-1 victory. In game 2, David Cone would return to the mound, facing off against John Smoltz. Cone would struggle somewhat, giving up 5 hits, 5 walks, 4 stolen bases, and 4 runs in 4.1 innings. Smoltz would pitch well, coming out in the 8th after the Jays narrowed the score to 4-3. In the top of the 9th inning, closer Jeff Reardon allowed a walk to pinch hitter Derek Bell before backup catcher Ed Sprague rocked him for a pinch-hit, go ahead home run. Tom Henke would close out the game in the bottom of the 9th as Kelly Gruber poked the Braves fans with a mock tomahawk chop. Game 3 featured the first World Series game on non-American soil. The Jays sent young fireballer Juan Guzman to the mound against young lefty Steve Avery, and both pitchers were locked in early. Through the first 3 innings, each team managed just 1 hit, and both pitchers were looking very good. In the top of the 4th inning, Guzman gave up back-to-back singles to Deion Sanders and Terry Pendleton, bringing David Justice to the plate. Justice would hit the ball deep to center field, where Devon White made a leaping catch against the wall. Pendleton had been running, but Sanders returned to second base, crossing Pendleton, making him the second out of the inning. Gruber tried to run down Sanders, but just missed the tag according to the umpires, losing a chance at an amazing triple play. Joe Carter would then make the Braves regret the miscue in the bottom of the 4th with a home run off of Avery to give the Jays a 1-0 lead. Guzman would hold the Braves scoreless until the top of the 6th, when Justice would knock in Sanders with a single to tie the game at 1. In the top of the 8th, with Guzman still in the game, the Braves would take the lead after an error by Kelly Gruber allowed Otis Nixon to reach and he was knocked in 4 batters later by Lonnie Smith. Gruber, who hadn't had a hit in the playoffs since game 2 of the ALCS, would lead off the bottom of the 8th with one of just 2 hits he would pick up in the World Series, tying the game with a long home run off of Steve Avery. (By the way, if you're thinking that starting pitchers were left in a lot longer in the early 90's than the last couple of years, you're absolutely right). After Duane Ward held the Braves scoreless in the 9th, Jimy Williams, who had replaced Bobby Cox after he was thrown from the game in the top of the 9th following a close strikeout, throw-out double play, would get very busy in the bottom of the 9th. Avery would come back out and allow a leadoff single to Roberto Alomar. Cox brought in right-hander Mark Wohlers to face Joe Carter, but after Alomar immediately stole second base, Wohlers would intentionally walk Carter. Dave Winfield dropped down a sacrifice bunt (sigh), and Cox would bring out left-hander Mike Stanton to face the left-handed hitting John Olerud. The Jays brought in game 2 hero Ed Sprague, but he was intentionally walked to load the bases. Closer Jeff Reardon, who had allowed the game-winning home run in game 2, would come in to face Candy Maldonado, who had struggled against Reardon in his career. This time, on an 0-2 pitch, the Candy-man would lift a Reardon pitch over Otis Nixon's head in center field for a walk-off single. On to game 4, where the Jays would bring out left-hander Jimmy Key to face Braves ace Tom Glavine. Key would pitch extremely well, allowing just 1 run on 5 hits over 7.2 innings. Glavine would complete the game again, but this time took only 8 innings to do so, as a 3rd inning Pat Borders home run and a 7th inning Devon White single gave the Jays a 2-1 victory, and a 3 games to 1 series lead. It was another low-scoring game, as Glavine allowed 10 baserunners over 8 innings, and Key allowed just 5 in his time on the mound. The combined score through 4 games had the Jays scoring 11 runs, and the Braves with 10. The Jays would come in to game 5 with a chance to win the series. Their ace in name Jack Morris had the ball against John Smoltz, and the Jays were hoping that his last 3 postseason starts were not a harbinger. Morris gave up a run in the first on a double by Terry Pendleton, but the Jays would get it back in the second when Pat Borders hit a double of his own off of Smoltz to bring Olerud home. In the top of the 4th, David Justice would lead off with a home run against Morris, but Borders would knock in Olerud again in the bottom of the 4th to tie the game back up. Morris would start the top of the 5th off well enough, getting a strikeout and a groundout before giving up a single to Otis Nixon. A stolen base and an RBI single by Deion Sanders gave the Braves a 3-2 lead, but there were still two outs. After Terry Pendleton hit a ground-rule double, the hot-hitting Justice was intentionally walked to face the "ice-cold Lonnie Smith". Morris would get the count to 1-2 before throwing what would be his last pitch of the postseason, as Smith turned his offering around for a grand slam, giving the Braves a 7-2 lead, and ultimately a 7-2 victory in the highest scoring game of the series. Game 6 was back in Atlanta, and David Cone would face Steve Avery. Cone would pitch well, allowing just 1 run over 6 innings, while Avery was pulled after 4 innings, having allowed 2 runs including a home run by Maldonado. The Jays bullpen would get the ball to Tom Henke in the 9th, where the Braves would stage a rally to tie the game at 2. Neither team scored in the 10th, but in the top of the 11th, the Jays would put two men on for Dave Winfield, facing Charlie Leibrandt with a chance at the lead, and Winfield would line a double into left field, bringing both runners home. In the bottom of the 11th, Jimmy Key would come back out, having picked up 2 outs in the 10th. After a single and an error put two runners on, a bunt and a groundout would bring one runner home, bringing Otis Nixon to the plate with a runner on 3rd and 2 outs. The young Mike Timlin would come out to face Nixon, and when Nixon dropped down a bunt, Timlin would jump on it and just throw him out at 1st, where Joe Carter started jumping in celebration after making the catch. The Jays had climbed the summit, and the Braves would have to wait at least one more year for their title (three years, as it turned out). The Series MVP went to Pat Borders, who had hit just .242 during the season, but hit .318 with one home run in the ALCS, and .450 with a home run and 3 doubles in the World Series. Now all they had to do was try to win it all again... 1. 1993 Toronto Blue Jays (see the whole season story here) In 1993 the Jays came back strong, having won 2 straight division titles plus the '92 World Series. The cast of characters had some new faces, and some maturing returning players.
Their pitching staff featured some new faces, including some young blood.
In the ALCS, they would match up with the Chicago White Sox, who featured MVP and future Hall of Famer Frank Thomas and American League Cy Young Award winner Jack McDowell led the American League's top pitching staff with 3 excellent pitchers under 23 years old in Alex Fernandez, Wilson Alvarez, and Jason Bere. In game 1, Guzman and McDowell would face off, and the first 3 innings were well pitched, as the Jays went into the top of the 4th with the score tied at 0. McDowell would start to struggle against the Jays lineup, as Ed Sprague knocked in 2 runs with a triple. Guzman would would give the lead back in the bottom of the 4th as the White Sox scored 3 runs after an error, a walk and a pair of hits. In the top of the 5th, the top of the order would get to McDowell, as hits from White, Carter, Olerud and Molitor put the Jays in front 5-3. McDowell would stay in the game until the 7th inning, coming out after a 2-run home run by Molitor before back-to-back singles by Fernandez and Sprague. Guzman would get the win despite walking 8 White Sox in 6 innings as the Jays would take game 1 by a 7-3 score. Game 2 starter Dave Stewart came into the game 6-0 in his ALCS career, including 3 wins against Toronto in 1989 and 1992. Facing Alex Fernandez, both teams would score 1 run in the first inning before the pitchers settled in to a groove. In the 4th, Fernandez was bitten by the bottom of the Jays order, as 2-out singles by Tony Fernandez and Pat Borders would give the Jays a 3-1 lead. Stewart would roll until the 6th inning when he loaded the bases with none out, escaping with no runs allowed after a shallow fly ball to center, a popup, and a groundout which he would run to first base himself. The Jays bullpen would shut the White Sox down for the last 3 innings, picking up a 3-1 victory and improving Stewart's record to 7-0 in the ALCS. In game 3, the Jays would struggle against lefthander Wilson Alvarez, who would allow just 1 run in 9 innings. Pat Hentgen would struggle, allowing 6 runs in 3 innings as the Jays lost 6-1. In game 4, Jason Bere was chased after 2.1 innings, and the Jays would end up with 4 runs. Todd Stottlemyre, however, would get rocked by the White Sox including 2 home runs, one of which was by Lance Johnson, who hadn't homered in 579 regular season plate appearances. The Jays would drop the game 7-4 to tie the series at 2 games to 2. The White Sox came into game 5 hoping that McDowell could improve on his game 1 performance, but he would be taken out after 2.1 innings after the Jays scored runs in each of the first 3 innings. Guzman would turn his performance up a notch, giving up just 3 hits and one run through 7 innings with 6 strikeouts on the way to a 5-3 victory. In game 6, Stewart would outduel Fernandez again, going 7.1 innings of 2-run ball to win the series for the Jays to improve to 8-0 in his LCS career and win MVP of the series. Duane Ward would finish the series with his second save, though he had struggled in 4 games, allowing 4 hits, 4 walks and 3 runs in 4.2 innings. The Jays opponent this year would be the worst-to-first Philadelphia Phillies, who had beaten the heavily favoured Atlanta Braves in the LCS behind Curt Schilling, Mitch Williams, Lenny Dykstra, Darren Daulton and others. The Phillies were a wild bunch with beards and mullets, and had managed to beat the 104-win Braves, preventing them from avenging their 1992 World Series loss. Game 1 featured Phillies ace Curt Schilling against Jays fireballer Juan Guzman. Schilling had been NLCS MVP and would make a career of excellent playoff pitching including with the number 9 and 10 teams on this list. Guzman would struggle in the first, giving up 2 runs around 3 strikeouts. In the 2nd, Schilling would find out how dangerous the Jays lineup could be, as Carter, Olerud and Molitor would single and score 2 runs for the Jays to tie the game. Both teams would score in the third to keep the game tied, and then another run each in the 5th including a huge home run by Devon White. In the bottom of the 6th, the Jays would take the lead for good on an upper deck home run by John Olerud. Schilling would remain in the game to start the 7th, but singles by Borders and Henderson would be followed by doubles from White and Alomar to give the Jays an 8-4 lead, ultimately leading to an 8-5 victory for the Jays. In game 2, the Jays would face another tough left-hander, with Dave Stewart facing off against Terry Mulholland. Stewart would struggle in the 5th, as the Phillies would score 2 runs on two walks and two singles followed by a 3-run homer by Jim Eisenreich. The Jays would score 2 in the 5th on a Joe Carter home run, plus one more in the 6th. Lenny Dykstra would add to the Phillies' lead with a home run in the 7th off of lefty Tony Castillo, and the Jays would ultimately drop the game by a 6-4 score. In game 3, the Phillies would put another lefty on the mound in Danny Jackson. The Jays would decide to play Molitor at first base in place of John Olerud, planning to sit Molitor for the next game (though they would ultimately decide to play Molitor at third base in games 4 and 5). Molitor would make the decision look good right away with a two-run triple in the first as the Jays jumped out to a 3-0 lead after the first inning. He would homer in the third to increase the lead to 4-0. After each team scored in the 6th, the Jays would score 3 times in the 7th to increase their lead to 8-1. They would add 2 more runs in the 9th, as Molitor finished with 3 hits, 3 runs, and 3 driven in in a 10-3 victory for the Jays. Game 4 featured both teams' 4th starters, as Todd Stottlemyre faced Tommy Greene. With both Olerud and Molitor in the lineup, the Jays lineup would batter Greene for 3 runs in the first inning. Stottlemyre would give the lead back and more, as a bases-loaded triple by Milt Thompson gave the Phillies a 4-3 lead. After Stottlemyre started the top of the second by somehow drawing a walk against Greene, he would be thrown out in a baserunning miscue that left him bloodied, but he stayed in the game. He returned the favour in the bottom of the 2nd by allowing a single to Greene, but Lenny Dykstra would make him pay with a 2-run homer to give the Phillies a 6-3 lead. In the third, the Jays chased Greene from the game with a walk and three straight hits, ultimately scoring 4 runs to take the lead again 7-6. Now facing Al Leiter, the Phillies would tie the game in the 4th before scoring 5 times in the 5th on home runs by Dykstra and Darren Daulton to go up 12-7. The Jays would score twice in the top of the 6th to pull to 12-9, but the Phillies would score runs in the 6th and 7th to increase their lead to 14-9. In the 8th, the Jays would start the inning with the middle of their order, as singles by Carter and Olerud followed by a Molitor double got the score to 14-10. Phillies closer Mitch Williams would come in and allow a single to Tony Fernandez and a walk to Borders before striking out Ed Sprague for the second out. The score was 14-11 as Rickey Henderson came to the plate with the bases loaded. A single by Henderson and a triple by White would give the Jays the lead for the last time, as the 9th inning was the only scoreless inning of the game. The Jays had won a wild, rain-filled 15-14 game, the most combined runs in a playoff game until the Red Sox beat Cleveland 23-7 in a 1999 Division Series game. In game 5, both teams brought exhausted bullpens in, with Jim Fregosi threatening to ride Schilling "until his arm fell off". Schilling would dominate the Jays, shutting them out on 5 hits over 147 pitches. Guzman would pitch well, allowing 2 runs in 7 innings, but Schilling could not be denied, and the series would return to Toronto for game 6, giving the Jays a chance to win the World Series on their home field. In game 6, the Jays offense woke up against Mulholland in the first, as hits by Molitor, Olerud and Alomar plus a sacrifice fly from Joe Carter staked them to an early 3-0 lead. The two pitchers settled down until the 4th inning, when both teams scored runs to increase the score to 4-1. After Molitor homered in the 5th, Stewart entered the 7th with a 5-1 lead. A walk, a single, and a 3-run home run from Lenny Dykstra would chase Stewart and trim the Jays lead to 5-4. Reliever Danny Cox came in, but was unable to stop the bleeding, as three singles and a walk chased him and tied the game before Al Leiter would come in and allow the go ahead run on a sacrifice fly. The Jays would go quietly in the 7th inning, but 2 walks and a hit batter in the 8th would send them to the 9th inning with the top of the order due up. The Phillies brought in mercurial closer Mitch Williams, who had saved 43 games in the regular season, but had blown 2 saves in the NLCS plus the wild finish in game 4. Williams would walk Rickey Henderson to lead the inning off, but then retired Devon White on a fly ball to left. Paul Molitor would then single for his third hit of the game, putting runners on first and second with one out. Molitor would win series MVP after after hitting .500 with 2 doubles, 2 triples, and 2 home runs, scoring 10 runs and driving in 8 with a .500/.571/1.000 batting line as the Jays would end up with 45 runs in the series. Joe Carter stepped to the plate, in a moment that would become legend. After Williams worked the count to 2-2, Williams would throw a pitch low and in, that Carter would turn on. "Well hit down the left field line" became "Touch 'em all Joe, you'll never hit a bigger home run in your life!" For just the second time in history, the World Series ended on a walk-off home run, as Joe Carter leaped and celebrated around the bases, part of the final play of the World Series for the second year in a row. The Jays were back-to-back champions, the whole country celebrated, and I was hooked. It is almost hard to imagine another team capturing the imagination of an entire nation like the Jays did in the early 90's. They were the first team to draw 4 million fans, which they managed in 1991, 1992 and 1993. A taste of that passion was rekindled in 2015 as they finally made their way back to the playoffs for the first time since that epic run. With some sustained winning, they could be a cultural giant again. I'll remember every big moment from those World Series highlight videos for years, having watched them over and over again, almost feeling like I was at every one of the games. For a young fan there's a lot to be said for watching an exciting, winning team. Here's hoping that the Jays build on last year's momentum and build a whole new generations of kids loving baseball again. Next in this series, I'll write about a bunch of my favourite players from 1992-2003, including several of the key players from these Blue Jays teams. I'll probably throw up a links post again too, as Spring Training is approaching fast! Quick recap of the rules, adapted from Jonah Keri's teams entry in his BestCoolest columns:
The team has to have been good, and I have to remember watching them. So, as above, that's 1992 on. But rather than just making it a list of the 10 best teams of the last 24 seasons, I want to focus on teams that I enjoyed watching for some reason or another. In part 1A, I talked about the 2004 Boston Red Sox, 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, 2015 Toronto Blue Jays, 1999 New York Mets, and 2001 Seattle Mariners. The Red Sox and Diamondbacks were teams that I only really followed for 1 series or so in the playoffs, but with great delight, and both won the World Series in those seasons. The Jays, Mets and Mariners were teams that had good seasons and fun playoff runs, but ultimately lost in their respective League Championship Series round in year. In this part, I'll be focusing on 3 teams that won it all. I've gone with a 4-way tie for number 2, and 3 of those teams were the same franchise, which will be the focus of this entry. The other tie and number 1 are also from the same (but different than this one) franchise. I went with the split because otherwise this was going to turn into a near 10,000 word entry. 2a. 2010 San Francisco Giants I spent 1992 to 2005 pretty closely following whichever team John Olerud was on, though I wasn't particularly cheering for his team in late 2004. After he retired, I became slightly team agnostic for a couple of years. He'll feature in the favourite players list and in one of those longer profiles. However, sometime in 2007 my curiousity and interest were piqued by a young pitcher on the San Francisco Giants. Tim Lincecum's tornado windup and electric stuff were amazing to watch, and I got hooked. This led me to adopting the Giants as one of my favourite teams, and they have remained there ever since, even though Lincecum has struggled over the last couple of years. He will also feature in the favourite players list and the longer profiles. In 2007, their first year with manager Bruce Bochy, the Giants struggled to a 71-91 record, but with the 23-year-old Lincecum joining the 22-year-old Matt Cain in the rotation, Giants fans were getting a peak at the future. The 2008 season was only marginally better at 72-90, but Lincecum exploded, winning his first of back-to-back Cy Young awards. In 2009, they improved significantly to 88-74, but still fell a bit short of the playoffs. In 2010, everything came together. The Giants made it to the All Star break at 45-41, but now featured 23-year-old rookie Buster Posey behind the plate, 23-year-old Pablo Sandoval at third base, 25-year-old Matt Cain, 26-year-old Tim Lincecum, and 27-year-0ld Jonathan Sanchez. Just a couple of weeks before the break, they also called up 20-year-old Madison Bumgarner to fill out their rotation. The team was red-hot in July, going 20-8, but then stumbled in August to 13-15 behind an 0-5 record with a 7.84 ERA from Lincecum. He and the team would rebound in a big way down the stretch, as the Giants finished September and early October with a 19-10 record, and Lincecum went 5-1 with a 1.94 ERA and 52 strikeouts in just under 42 innings. The Giants would win the National League West with a 92-70 record, behind the best pitching staff in the league. With the third youngest average age in the NL among their pitchers, the Giants were first in ERA, hits allowed and strikeouts, and third in FIP and home runs allowed. Their opponents in the first round were the wild-card winning Atlanta Braves, with a fine pitching staff of their own. Game 1 featured Braves starter Derek Lowe against two-time defending Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum. Lowe came out after 5.1 innings, having allowed 1 run, and 1 run was all the Giants would get. It ended being more than enough though, as Lincecum dominated the Braves. After allowing a double to leadoff the game, Lincecum would set down the next 9 Braves before allowing a leadoff walk in the 4th inning. He then retired 10 straight before allowing his second and final hit in the 7th inning. The Braves wouldn't get another baserunner, as Lincecum finished with a complete game, 14-strikeout masterpiece. The brilliant Joe Posnanski wrote about Lincecum and Roy Halladay, who had thrown a no-hitter in his playoff debut the night before, noting that, by game score, Lincecum was even more impressive than Halladay. In the second inning, Lincecum would strike out the side as Braves hitters swung and missed 9 times in the inning. The whole series ended up being 1-run games, as Matt Cain went 6.2 innings of 1-run ball in game 2, only to see his bullpen ultimately lose the game for him in 11 innings, as the Giants dropped their only game of the series by a 5-4 score. In game 3, Jonathan Sanchez pitched brilliantly, leaving after 11 strikeouts in 7.1 innings. The bullpen would blow the lead, but ultimately the Giants would win 3-2 in 9 innings. And in game 4, the rookie Madison Bumgarner gave the Giants 6 innings of 2-run ball to send the Giants to a 3-2 victory and a series win. The Giants moved on to the NLCS, facing the 2-time defending National League champion Philadelphia Phillies and their new ace, Roy Halladay, fresh off of his no-hitter in the Division Series. They followed him with Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels, and Joe Blanton. In Game 1, Lincecum and Halladay faced off, in what would turn out to be the 10th matchup of multiple Cy Young Award winners in a playoff game. In the top of the third inning, Cody Ross got to Halladay with a solo home run. Carlos Ruiz would lead off the bottom of the inning with a home run of his own. The two pitchers would hold on until the 6th inning, when the Giants scored 3 runs in the top and the Phillies answered with 2 runs in the bottom. Halladay and Lincecum would each go 7 innings, leaving with a 4-3 Giants lead, and eventually a victory by that score. In game 2, Jonathan Sanchez faced Roy Oswalt, but was not quite as successful as in the previous round, allowing 3 runs through 6 innings. The Giants bullpen would allow 3 more, and behind Oswalt's 8 innings of 1-run pitching, the Phillies took a 6-1 victory. Game 3 featured Matt Cain, who continued his postseason excellence, shutting out the Phillies for 7 innings en route to a 3-0 victory. In game 4, the rookie Bumgarner would struggle somewhat, allowing 3 runs in 4.2 innings, but he was backed up by his offense and a faltering Phillies bullpen as the Giants slipped by 6-5 on a walkoff sacrifice fly by Juan Uribe. Game 5 featured a Halladay-Lincecum rematch, and this time Doc prevailed, as Lincecum's 3 runs in 7 innings were one too many, and the Giants dropped the game by a 4-2 score. Game 6 became an all hands on deck game, as Sanchez lasted just 2 innings, and the Giants brought in both Bumgarner and Lincecum out of the bullpen. They would take the lead in the 8th on a Juan Uribe home run, taking the game 3-2 and the series 4-2. Cody Ross would be named series MVP after going 7 for 20 with 3 doubles and 3 home runs. In the World Series, the Giants faced the Texas Rangers, and Cliff Lee, who came into the series with a 7-0 playoff record, including a 1.26 ERA and 77 strikeouts to just 7 walks in 64.1 innings in his playoff career which spanned the 2009-2010 playoffs so far. When the Rangers scored a run each in the first and second innings, things were looking tough for the Giants. But Lee's postseason dominance came to an end as the Giants scored 2 runs to tie it in the 3rd inning, then 6 times in the 5th inning including a 3-run home run by Juan Uribe right after Lee was pulled. The hits would keep coming as the Giants ended up with an 11-7 victory. In game 2, Matt Cain was brilliant again, going 7.2 shutout innings to end his 2010 postseason run with an ERA of 0.00 in 3 starts. The Giants would score just twice in the first 7 innings, but then exploded with 7 runs in the bottom of the 8th en route to a 9-0 victory. In game 3, Jonathan Sanchez struggled again as the Giants lost 4-2 in Texas. Game 4 began Madison Bumgarner's World Series legend, which would culminate 2 entries from here. He went 8 shutout innings, and backed up by a pair of 2-run home runs, the Giants would win 4-0 to take a 3-1 series lead. On to game 5, where Cliff Lee would take the mound once more against Tim Lincecum, with the Giants having a chance to take the series before it went back to San Francisco. Both starters were brilliant through 6 innings, holding their opponents scoreless with just 3 baserunners each. In the top of the 7th, with 2 men on and 2 out, the hero of the 1997 World Series stepped to the plate, and Edgar Renteria delivered. The Giants had a 3-0 lead. Lincecum would allow 1 back in the bottom of the 7th, but ended up going 8 innings, striking out 10, and turning the game over to dominant closer Brian Wilson, who struck out Nelson Cruz for the final out of the series, capping off a masterful game and a brilliant postseason run for the Giants. Wilson and his growing beard had become a fan favourite as the team advanced through the playoffs. The series MVP would go to Renteria, who had hit .412 with 2 home runs in the 5 games. It was the first championship for the Giants in San Francisco, and the first for the franchise since 1954. It started off a fantastic run of success for the team and an incredible embrace by the fans. 2b. 2012 San Francisco Giants Two years later, the Giants were back in the playoffs, this time with a different look. The 2010 team had finished 9th in the NL in runs scored, but 2nd in runs allowed, riding their brilliant pitching to a championship. The 2012 team finish 6th in runs scored behind NL MVP Buster Posey and the Brandons Belt at first base and Crawford at shortstop, plus new addition Hunter Pence in right field. They had added Marco Scutaro during the season to play second base, and he had hit .362/.385/.473 over the final two months of the season, helping spark the team. They did lose near batting champion Melky Cabrera to a PED suspension, but did not end up missing him come playoff time. They would fall to 5th in runs allowed, but their adjusted ERA+ of 96 showed that they were a slightly below average run prevention team who played in a great park. Tim Lincecum struggled to the worst season of his career, finishing 10-15 with a 5.18 ERA, though his FIP of 4.18 suggested some bad luck had haunted him. This theme would continue over the next few years. This year's ace was Matt Cain, and with a strong number two in Madison Bumgarner, a second strong showing from Ryan Vogelsong after being out of the major leagues from 2007-2010, and one of Barry Zito's best years in a Giants uniform, the Giants would end up moving Lincecum to the bullpen for all but one game in the playoffs. The bullpen still featured holdovers Sergio Romo, Santiago Casilla, Jeremy Affeldt, and Javier Lopez, but Brian Wilson had been lost to Tommy John surgery after pitching in just 2 games at the beginning of the season. Like the 2010 team, the Giants hit the All Star Break with a lackluster record at 46-40, and then picked up somewhat through the end of July to a 56-47 record. After adding Pence and Scutaro for the trading deadline, they would heat up 38-21 down the stretch. Having finished with a 94-68 record, the Giants would match up against the 97-65 Cincinnati Reds, with the first 2 games in San Francisco, and the last 3 scheduled for Cincinnati. This format had been used in the first three years of the Division Series in 1995-1997, but was scrapped until 2012 when it was brought back because of scheduling conflicts. It has not been used since. The Reds would be a tough matchup, as they had been the best run prevention team in the National League behind the strong pitching of Johnny Cueto, Mat Latos, Homer Bailey, and Bronson Arroyo, plus young fireballer Aroldis Chapman in the bullpen. In game 1, Johnny Cueto left in the first inning with a back injury, but the Reds would score 3 runs against Matt Cain and end up rolling to a 5-2 victory. Game 2 fell apart for the Giants when the Reds took a 4-0 lead after 4 innings. The Giants brought in Lincecum for his first appearance out of the bullpen since the 2010 NLCS, and he rewarded them with 2 scoreless innings. The rest of the bullpen would struggle in the 8th, giving up 5 more runs on the way to a 9-0 Giants loss. Down 2 games to none with the last 3 games in Cincinnati looked very bleak for the Giants. Game 3 would be a pitching battle, as the Reds and Giants each scored once by the third inning, and then not again through 9 innings. In the 10th, the Giants broke through on a pair of singles, a passed ball, and an error, giving them a 2-1 lead that Sergio Romo would close out in the bottom of the inning. Game 4 saw Lincecum go 4.1 innings out of the bullpen to help preserve a close game until Pablo Sandoval put things out of reach for good in the 7th inning with a huge home run. Game 5 was a tight affair for the first 4 innings as Latos and Cain traded zeros back and forth. The Giants scored twice in the top of the 5th before loading the bases for Buster Posey, and on a 2-2 count, Posey delivered a grand slam, creating one of the great catcher reaction gif's of all time. The Giants would hold on for a 6-4 victory, and a brilliant come back from being down 2 games to none that were part of what gave me hope following the Blue Jays last year. Hunter Pence would gain fame for his inspirational speeches that started after going down 2-0 to the Reds, which he delivered before every game through the rest of the playoffs. In the NLCS, the Giants would face the defending World Champion St. Louis Cardinals. In game 1, the ball went to Bumgarner, who struggled again, continuing a worrying trend. His velocity had been down in September and his ERA had been up at 5.47, and he was beaten up in the Division Series. He would last just 3.2 innings in this game, leaving with a 6-0 deficit. The Giants would get 4 back, and saw another 2 scoreless innings from Lincecum out of the bullpen, but lost by a 6-4 score. Game 2 put Ryan Vogelsong on the mound, and after the teams traded runs in the first and second innings, he settled in and finished with 7 innings of 1-run pitching. The Giants would score 4 runs in the 4th thanks to a misplay of a Marco Scutaro single with the bases loading allowing all 3 baserunners to score. They finished the game with a 7-1 victory as the series moved back to San Francisco. In game 3, Matt Cain would pitch fairly well, but the Giants bats went cold, and they last 3-1. In game 4, the Giants gave the ball to Tim Lincecum for what would be his only postseason start in an effort to give Bumgarner some extra rest and see if he might show some of the magic he'd shown out of the bullpen so far. He gave up 2 runs right away in the first inning, but then settled down through the next 3 innings, before allowing 2 more runs in the 5th inning and being pulled with the Giants down 4-1. The Cardinals would tack on 4 more runs before the Giants hit a 2-run home run in the 9th, but it was too little, too late, and they fell 8-3, now trailing 3 games to 1 in the series. Running out of options, they gave the ball to Barry Zito. After putting together a fine 7-year run with the Oakland Athletics, the Giants had signed Zito to a 7-year, $120 million contract prior to the 2007 season, and he had struggled mightily through most of it, even being left off of the postseason roster entirely during the 2010 run. The 2012 season had been superficially his best in a Giants uniform, as he went 15-8 with a 4.15 ERA, but with only 0.2 WAR. He had struggled in his Division Series start, giving up 2 runs in 2.2 innings in the game where Lincecum gave the Giants 4.1 innings. With the season on the line, Zito was brilliant, and after escaping a bases-loaded jam in the second inning, finished with 7.2 innings of shutout ball as the Giants left St. Louis with a 5-0 victory, and two games to play at home. Game 6 brought back Ryan Vogelsong, and he managed to be even better than in game 2. He would strike out 9 over 7 innings of 1-run pitching, and the Giants would score 5 runs in the first 2 innings, adding one more in the 8th to send them to game 7 with a 6-1 victory. Game 7 had Matt Cain back on the mound, and he delivered 5.2 innings of shutout ball, which was more than enough when the Giants scored 6 runs in the first 3 innings en the way to a 9-0 victory, and another series comeback. Marco Scutaro would be named series MVP after hitting .500 with an LCS record-tying 14 hits and an iconic shot of him enjoying the game 7 rain in the 9th inning. In game 1 of the World Series, the Giants would face Tigers ace Justin Verlander, who was 78-31 with a 2.95 ERA over the past 4 seasons, and 3-0 with 2 runs allowed in the first two rounds of 2012. The Giants sent Zito back to the mound, and for a second straight start, he pitched very well, giving up just 1 run in 5.2 innings. Meanwhile, Verlander, who had given up a bases loaded triple to Pablo Sandoval in the All Star Game, helping the National League earn home field advantage in the World Series, found himself unable to deal with Sandoval again, as Sandoval would homer twice against Verlander and a third time against reliever Al Alburquerque. This combined with 5 strikeouts from Tim Lincecum in 2.1 innings of relief would send the Giants on their way to an 8-3 victory. In game 2 the Giants would score only 2 runs, but Madison Bumgarner came back strong from his extra rest, throwing 7 shutout innings and continuing his scoreless streak in the World Series. In game 3, Anibal Sanchez would hold the Giants to 2 runs again, but 5.2 scoreless innings from Vogelsong and an additional 2.1 scoreless from Lincecum gave the Giants another 2-0 win and a 3-0 series lead. In game 4, Matt Cain and Max Scherzer would face off with the Giants hoping to close the series out. Cain would go 7 strong innings and with a home run from Buster Posey and strong relief from Jeremy Affeldt, the Giants would go to the 10th inning against Phil Coke, who had struck out the side in the 9th. This time, LCS MVP Marco Scutaro would come through again, and Sergio Romo would finish off the Tigers, freezing Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera to strike out the side. The Giants had come out on top for the second time in three years, with their pitching-dominant team morphing into a more balanced team. Pablo Sandoval would win series MVP after hitting .500 over the series and tying a Giants record for hits in a postseason. 2c. 2014 San Francisco Giants (here too) After the 2010 championship, the Giants had fallen to 86-76 in 2011, missing the playoffs as injuries, including Buster Posey's broken leg, cost them important games through the season. In 2013, they had stumbled to 76-86, losing more players to injury and continued ineffectiveness from Tim Lincecum, a major stumble from Matt Cain, and the worst and final season from Barry Zito. In 2014 the Giants got off to a red-hot start, going 37-20 through the end of May. They would be frustrated as the season went on, losing Matt Cain to injury and seeing ineffectiveness from Sergio Romo in the bullpen. Lincecum, who would throw a no-hitter for the second year in a row, would struggle as the season went on, and end up in the bullpen. Tim Hudson, who hit mid-June with a 7-2 record and a 1.81 ERA, would stumble badly, going 2-11 the rest of the way and nearly doubling his overall ERA. They would add Jake Peavy at the trade deadline, and he was excellent in San Francisco, pitching to a 2.17 ERA in 12 starts down the stretch. The Giants would go 51-54 from June 1st through the end of the season, only making the playoffs because of the addition of a second wild card, where they faced the Pittsburgh Pirates. This year's edition of the Giants was a middle of the pack pitching team, finishing 7th in the NL in ERA, but they were a stronger hitting team, as they finished 5th in the league in runs scored, with strong offense from rookie Joe Panik, who came up part way into the season, and contributions from Hunter Pence, new addition Mike Morse, and Buster Posey and Brandons Crawford and Belt, when the latter was not injured. The Pirates would face off against the Giants now undisputed ace, Madison Bumgarner, who had just turned 25 but was coming off an 18-win season, his 4th straight with at least 200 innings pitched, and memory of his dominance in the World Series adding to his strong pitching down the stretch, as he had gone 6-2 after August 1st, allowing 3 runs or fewer in 9 of 10 starts.. When Brandon Crawford broke a scoreless tie in the 4th with a grand slam, adding to other Brandon (Belt) reaching base 4 times and driving in 3 runs, the Giants were on their way. As it turned out, the first run was more than enough, as Bumgarner dominated the Pirates, throwing a complete game, 4-hit, 10-strikeout shutout. Was this going to be another case of "Even Year Magic"? In the Division Series, the Giants would face the Washington Nationals, and in game 1, Jake Peavy pitched an excellent game, shutting the Nationals out for 5.2 innings. Hunter Strickland would give up two home runs in the 7th inning, but the Giants held on for a 3-2 victory. In game 2, Tim Hudson and Ryan Zimmermann would go toe-to-toe, as Hudson allowed just one run in 7.1 innings, but Zimmermann made it into the 9th with a shutout intact. After allowing a 2-out walk, the Nationals would pull Zimmermann for closer Drew Storen, who promptly allowed a single and an RBI double to allow the Giants to tie the game. Yusmeiro Petit came out to pitch in the bottom of the 12th, and would hold the Nationals scoreless for an amazing 6 innings out of the bullpen, helping cap off a year when he had set a record by retiring 46 consecutive batters at one point during the season. In the top of the 18th inning, against starting pitcher Tanner Roark, Brandon Belt finally gave the Giants just enough extra offense, with a huge solo home run that would give them an epic 2-1 victory, and send them home with a 2-0 series lead. In game 3, a 7-inning, 3-run performance by Madison Bumgarner would not be enough, as the Giants offense stayed quiet in a 4-1 loss. Game 4 sent Ryan Vogelsong to the mound, and he delivered a strong performance, allowing 1 run over 5.2 innings. In a close game, the Giants would score what would be the series-winning run on a bases-loaded wild pitch, allowing the Giants to advance to the NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals, a 2012 rematch. Madison Bumgarner would take the mound again, looking to make up for his loss in the NLDS, and would shut the Cards down for 7.2 innings, as 3 early runs against St. Louis ace Adam Wainwright would hold up for a 3-0 victory. In game 2, the Cardinals used 4 solo home runs to pull out a 5-4 victory, as 3 different Giants relievers gave up blasts that would lead to the loss. Game 3 starter Tim Hudson would pitch into the 7th inning, leaving with the game tied 4-4. After two unsuccessful bunt attempts, Juan Perez would swing away in the 10th for a single before another bunt attempt by Gregor Blanco turned into a walk-off throwing error. In game 4, after both starters were knocked out early, Yusmeiro Petit came back for another brilliant relief outing, this time shutting out the Cardinals for 3 innings. Buster Posey would drive in 3 runs and Santiago Casilla would shut the door in the 9th for a 6-4 victory. In game 5, Madison Bumgarner would excel again, going 8 strong innings and leaving with the game tied. In the bottom of the 9th, starter Michael Wacha, who had missed much of the season, was brought in to face literally Travis Ishikawa, who sent the Giants to the World Series with an amazing 3-run walkoff home run. Bumgarner was named NLCS MVP after allowing 3 runs in 15.2 innings over 2 starts for the Giants. In the World Series, the Giants would face the upstart Kansas City Royals, who had turned an amazing Wild Card game into a brilliant, unexpected, and thus far undefeated run to the World Series. The Royals were full of confidence, having swept Mike Trout's Angels and the slugging Baltimore Orioles. In game 1, the Royals would run straight into the buzzsaw that was Madison Bumgarner and the Giants. Before Bumgarner even took the mound, Hunter Pence took James Shields deep, staking Bumgarner to a 3-0 lead without a single pitch thrown. Bumgarner would keep the Royals off balance all night, going 7 innings. He would finally allow his first career World Series run in his third such start, but that was all the Royals would get as they dropped the game by a 7-1 score. Game 2 saw the Giants start off with a bang again, as Gregor Blanco would lead the game off with a solo home run. The Royals would tied it in the bottom of the first, then take the lead 2-1 in the second before the Giants tied it again in the 4th. The score held at 2-2 until the 6th, when the Royals would tag the Giants bullpen for 5 runs including 2 baserunners that Jake Peavy had put on, ultimately leading to a 7-2 loss. Game 3 starter Tim Hudson allowed a run in the first inning, and then 2 more in the 6th that would ultimately be the difference as the Giants got just 2 back in the bottom of the 6th and ended up dropping the game by a 3-2 score. The Royals were regaining confidence as the series went to game 4 with the Giants down 2 games to 1. When Ryan Vogelsong was chased in the 3rd inning after allowing 4 runs on 7 hits, the Giants looked to be in trouble. After the Giants got two back in the 5th to tie the game at 4-4, the offense woke up further, scoring 3 runs off of Brandon Finnegan in the 6th and 4 more in the 7th to take an 11-4 lead that would hold up as an 11-4 victory, tying the series with Madison Bumgarner coming back for game 5. James Shields would improve on his game 1 performance, allowing just 2 runs through 6 innings, but Bumgarner improved on his as well, finishing with a 4-hit shutout as he lowered his career World Series ERA to a microscopic 0.29 to go with a 4-0 record. He was also up to 47.2 innings pitched in a single postseason, just behind Curt Schilling's 48.1 innings in 2001. The Royals only solace was that he was probably done for the World Series, as there were just two games left. Game 6 was back in Kansas City, and the Royals wasted no time getting to starter Jake Peavy, as he was chased after getting just 4 outs, ultimately charged with 5 runs in what would turn into 10-0 loss. The stage was set for game 7. The Royals had their dominant bullpen ready to go at a moment's notice, and Madison Bumgarner had told reporters the night before that he was available for "maybe 200" pitches. After scoring 2 runs in the second inning against starter Jeremy Guthrie, the Giants would allow 2 runs in the bottom of the inning before pulling Tim Hudson from the game, having recorded just 5 outs. Jeremy Affeldt would come into the game, pitching 2.1 innings of scoreless relief. Guthrie was allowed to start the 4th inning, only being pulled after giving up back to back singles and a flyball out. Flamethrowing Kelvin Herrera would come in to try to neutralize slugger Mike Morse, but Morse would fight off a 99 mph fastball for an RBI single into right field. In the bottom of the 5th inning, with the Giants clinging to a 3-2 lead, Madison Bumgarner came jogging out of the bullpen. A pall settled over the Royals fans, as the 3-2 deficit started to feel more like 30-2. After giving up a leadoff single, in the 5th, Bumgarner would settle down and retire the next three hitters. The 6th inning came, and Bumgarner cruised through the Royals 4-5-6 hitters. In the bottom of the 7th, the Royals would go quietly again, and then Bumgarner went through the top 3 hitters in the order in the 8th inning. On came the 9th, and Bumgarner came out for a 5th inning. After getting the first two hitters, he faced Alex Gordon. Gordon lined a single into left field that was badly misplayed by Gregor Blanco. As Gordon flew around second base, fans wondered if he might try for an inside the park home run. At the last minute, he was held by the third base coach, bringing up Salvador Perez, who had the only World Series run scored against Bumgarner in his career, with a game 1 solo home run. As an aside, it was written about many times, but from all available angles, it appears that if Gordon had tried to go home, Brandon Crawford, who has maybe the second best shortstop arm in baseball behind Andrelton Simmons, would probably have thrown him out by at least 30 feet. Bumgarner got Perez to a 2-2 count, and then Perez popped the ball into foul territory, where Pablo Sandoval caught the ball and collapsed in some mixture of joy and exhaustion, giving the Giants their third title in 5 years, leading to discussions of a dynasty. Bumgarner would be named World Series MVP, as his brilliant 52.1 postseason innings capped off an excellent season, lowering his career World Series ERA to 0.25, and ultimately leading to a Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year for 2014. The Giants built 3 world champion teams using an exceptional coaching and development staff, keeping many of the same players through 2 or all 3 championship teams. In particular:
The Giants have been probably my favourite franchise for the nearly the last decade. But the team that started it all waits in the last two entries, and has been coming back into my range of focus over the last couple of years as well. That's coming in the next part. While waiting for the new season (and partially mentioned as an idea before), I had an idea, partly inspired by Jonah Keri's "BestCoolest" series where he highlights some of his favourite teams, batters, and pitchers. I started following baseball in 1992, becoming a Blue Jays fan at a young age. My favourite teams have changed over the years, and I've always like individual players for their stories, their playing styles, or their outrageous statistics (and sometimes all of the above). Given that, I'm planning to do the following posts over the next little while.
I've followed Jonah Keri's primary rules in his teams post: namely, the team has to have been good, and I have to remember watching them. So, as above, that's 1992 on. But rather than just making it a list of the 10 best teams of the last 24 seasons, I want to focus on teams that I enjoyed watching for some reason or another. 10. 2004 Boston Red Sox This was a team that I really followed for one playoff series, and for most baseball fans, it will be obvious which one. This may give you a hint that I have not been a Yankees fan during most of my time following baseball. I admit that I did cheer for the Yankees in the 1996 World Series, mostly because two of their primary starting pitchers were ex-Toronto Blue Jays (David Cone and Jimmy Key), and at the time I still saw the Atlanta Braves as "opponents" from the 1992 World Series. In retrospect (and not long after), I got to really enjoying the Braves pitchers, a couple of who will make appearances in the next post. But back to 2004. Boston sports were a lot different back then, and a little easier to root for if you weren't from the Boston area. The Patriots had won 2 of the last 3 Super Bowls, but the Red Sox hadn't won a championship in 86 years, the Bruins hadn't won a Stanley Cup in 32 years, and the Celtics hadn't won in 18 years. Of course, since then, the Patriots went to 4 more Super Bowls, winning 2 of them, the Red Sox won 3 World Series, and the Bruins and Celtics each added one. The last 15 years have been a heck of a time for Boston, in retrospect. At the time, though, the Yankees had won 4 of the last 8 World Series, and played in 2 others. They were the big-money villain of the MLB, and had been the hammer to Boston's nail several times, including the infamous Grady Little game in 2003. When the Yankees beat an injured Curt Schilling in game 1, slipped by Pedro Martinez in game 2, and then thrashed the Red Sox 19-8 in game 3 of the ALCS, things looked exceptionally dire. It looked worse when the Yankees took a 4-3 lead into the bottom of the 9th in game 4 with their seemingly unbeatable closer, Mariano Rivera, on the mound. Boston entered that inning with a 23% chance of winning, which probably seemed very high given the circumstances. What happened next is legend. After Kevin Millar drew a walk against Rivera, pinch-runner Dave Roberts immediately stole second base and scored on a single by Bill Mueller. The held on until the 12th inning, when David Ortiz started building his playoff legend with a 2-run walkoff home run at 1:22am. Later that evening, the teams met again for game 5. The Yankees took a 2 run lead into the bottom of the 8th, but a leadoff home run from Ortiz, followed by a walk and a single chased Tom Gordon and brought in Rivera again. This time the tying run scored immediately on a sacrifice fly, and the teams battled into the 14th inning. Cue Ortiz again, with 2 men on and 2 out, he delivered, ending a game that took just under 6 hours to complete. Game 6 saw Curt Schilling come back to the mound, with a sewn together ankle. And Schilling was dominant. He went 7 innings, allowing 1 run, and helped the Red Sox win a close game to get to game 7. For those hoping for another close game, this game was a bit of a disappointment. However, for Red Sox fans, it probably felt good to slay the dragon quickly. And a 6-0 lead after 2 innings, which increased to 8-1 after 4 innings, did just that. The World Series was a bit of a letdown afterwards, as the Red Sox quickly swept the St. Louis Cardinals, but for their fans, it was huge. For me, the drama of the ALCS and the satisfaction of the outcome was enough to get this team to number 10 on this list. 9. 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks The reasons for this entry are pretty similar to number 10, but without the tortured franchise history. Because, frankly, the Diamondbacks had no history. They were in just their 4th season of existence, and their purple-pinstriped vests were an... interesting sartorial choice. In fact, the franchise liked the look so much that they ditched it completely just 6 years later, changing the colours, logos, and even the general wording of the team name (which, please fix that). My reasons for cheering for the Diamondbacks were two-fold. First of all, the Yankees had won 4 of the last 5 World Series, and second of all, they had ruined the 116-win season of the number 7 team on this list, the Seattle Mariners, in the ALCS. But a bit more on that later. Unlike the Red Sox, the Diamondbacks came into this series with a very real chance of winning. And the reason was primarily two men: Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson. The numbers were a little terrifying. Regular Season Schilling - 22-6, 2.98 ERA, 256.2 IP, 293 K, 1.075 WHIP, 7.51 K/BB, 8.8 rWAR Johnson - 21-6, 2.49 ERA, 249.2 IP, 372 K, 1.009 WHIP, 5.24 K/BB, 10.0 rWAR Playoffs (first two rounds) Schilling - 3-0, 0.67 ERA, 27.0 IP, 3 CG, 30 K, 13 H, 4 BB Johnson - 2-1, 1.88 ERA, 24.0 IP, 1 CG, 28 K, 16 H, 5 BB The Diamondbacks decided to set up their rotation to have Schilling start up to 3 times in the World Series, giving him games 1, 4, and 7, and Johnson in games 2 and 6. Games 1 and 2 went exactly to plan for Arizona. Schilling went 7 innings in a 9-1 victory in game 1, and Johnson threw a shutout in a 4-0 victory in game 2. Game 3 featured a tight pitching performance between Brian Anderson and Roger Clemens, but the Yankees took the game 2-1 at home. Games 4 and 5 featured tough extra inning losses for Arizona behind blown saves from closer Byung-Hyun Kim despite 7 more innings of 1-run ball from Schilling in game 4. The series moved back to Arizona for game 6, and Randy Johnson provided 7 innings of strong 2-run pitching, but it was barely needed as Arizona scored 15 times in the first 4 innings and cruised to a victory. Game 7 brought Schilling back for his third start of the series, and 6th start of the playoffs overall. He would set a single-playoff innings record that would stand until 2014, and held the Yankees to 1 run through the first 7 innings opposite Roger Clemens. He came back out for the top of the 8th, but allowed a leadoff home run to Alfonso Soriano to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead. After he got an out, and Miguel Batista got a second out, Randy Johnson was brought in and ended up giving his team 4 outs to get them to the bottom of the 9th as Mariano Rivera came back out for a second inning. And then Rivera had a rare unraveling. After a leadoff single by Mark Grace, Damian Miller put down a bunt and Rivera couldn't make the force at 2nd, putting two men on. A second bunt was unsuccessful as the lead runner was thrown out at third, but then Tony Womack doubled to bring in the tying run, and Craig Counsell was hit by a pitch. This brought up Luis Gonzalez, and he got just enough. It was an exciting end to a tense World Series, but as with the previous entry, it was really the only time that I closely followed this franchise. By the way, the final playoff numbers for Johnson + Schilling: 11 GS + 1 relief game, 9-1, 89.2 IP, 13 ER, 1.30 ERA, 50 H, 14 BB, 103 K, 0.714 WHIP, 10.3 K/9 8. 2015 Toronto Blue Jays Spoiler alert: The next three entries did not win the World Series. In fact, none of them made it to the final round of the playoffs. But they were tremendously fun to follow. I started this blog just before the Blue Jays started their first playoff appearance in 22 years, and though the ending felt disappointing, it was an exciting season and a fun playoff run to the end. The Jays were a trendy pick to make the playoffs after some big additions before the 2013 season, and fell very flat, finishing with just 74 wins. People were slightly hopeful going into 2014, and the Jays improved by 9 games, but still finished well out of the playoffs. On July 28 of 2015, the Jays lost 3-2 to the Philadelphia Phillies to fall to 50-51 on the season. That day, they traded Jose Reyes, Miguel Castro, and two minor leaguers and added Troy Tulowitzki and LaTroy Hawkins, signaling that they were going to raise the stakes on their season. Two days later, they raised the stakes and traded for David Price, and then added Mark Lowe and Ben Revere in separate transactions on July 31, plus Cliff Pennington on August 8. They won their last 3 games in July, entering August at 53-51, then went 21-6 in August, plus 18-9 in September before a slight stumble in the last week of the season took them to a 93-69 finish, and an American League East title. I covered their team in some detail in October, but they went into their first round matchup with the Texas Rangers as heavy favourites, but stumbled out of the gate, losing the first two games at home before winning two straight games in Texas, and then famously winning game 5 in explosive fashion after a wild 7th inning. This set them up for an ALCS matchup with the Kansas City Royals, who had finished 2 games ahead of the Jays after their stumble at the end of the season, giving them home field advantage. I can't say for sure that the series would have turned out differently if the roles had been reversed, but it is a slight question for Jays fans who felt that the season ended prematurely. I covered this in some agonizing detail last October, but the Jays (and everybody, ultimately) fell to the Royals when they either failed to put them away, or failed to come through on offense. This team was a lot of Canada's reintroduction to playoff baseball, and hopefully it will help build a new generation of fans, as I really got hooked on baseball at a young age when the Jays won their back-to-back World Series in the early 90s. It was a fun team, full of characters and character. Fans of other teams didn't always like the emotion that Jays players displayed, but I like a team that looks like they're having fun playing and cares about the outcome. This group might have jumped a couple of levels if they had managed to win a championship, but I will remember them as one of my favourite single season teams in a while. 6a. 1999 New York Mets While I'll go into this in some more detail further down this list and in a future entry, my first favourite player in baseball was John Olerud, who was a key member of the back-to-back World Champion Blue Jays. When he was traded away to the New York Mets after the Jays suffered through 2 poor seasons in 1995 and 1996, I shifted my focus to New York for the 1997 to 1999 seasons. The Jays mistakenly thought that Olerud's best days were behind him, and he rewarded the Mets with three excellent seasons before moving on to Seattle. I chose the 1999 version of the Mets to represent that group of teams mostly to fulfill the "Good" portion of the criteria listed above. While the Mets played pretty well in 1997 and 1998, winning 88 games both years, they also missed the playoffs both years. In 1999, when they added third baseman Robin Ventura to solidify the infield, things really came together. Led by what some were calling "The Best Infield Ever?", the Mets infielders were worth 81 runs defensively, and by Baseball-Reference, totaled just over 21 WAR combined. That combined with another excellent season from slugging catcher Mike Piazza and ageless wonder Rickey Henderson, who put together a .315/.423/.466 slash line at age 40, and the Mets finished the season at 96-66 to tie the Cincinnati Reds for the wild card after winning the last game of the season on a wild pitch. This set up a one-game playoff with Cincinnati, and Al Leiter was brilliant, throwing a 2-hit shutout to help the Mets advance. In the Division Series, they faced the Arizona Diamondbacks, who had won 100 games in just their second season, and featured ace Randy Johnson. Johnson struggled a bit in game 1, however, giving up a 1st inning home run to Edgardo Alfonzo, and a rare home run to a left-handed hitter when Olerud took him deep in the 3rd inning. The Mets would end up winning game 1 by a score of 8-4. The Diamondbacks came back and took game 2 by a 7-1 score, but when the series moved to New York, the Mets cruised to a 9-2 victory in game 3, setting up a dramatic game 4. The Mets took a 2-1 lead into the top of the 8th before the Diamondbacks scored twice in the top of the inning. They tied the game on a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 8th, and both teams were held scoreless in the 9th inning. In the bottom of the 10th inning, Todd Pratt came up with 1 out and nobody on, and took Matt Mantei deep to center field, letting the Mets win the series in a walkoff. In the NLCS, the Mets faced their nemesis, the Atlanta Braves. The Mets had gone 3-9 against the Braves in each of the last two seasons, and the Braves were in the middle of a run of 14 consecutive division titles. Game 1 saw Greg Maddux handle the Mets in a 4-2 victory for the Braves, and game 2 went no better as Kevin Millwood took care of the Mets on the way to a 4-3 Braves victory. In game 3, things went from bad to worse for the Mets as Tom Glavine shut them down completely, leading to a 1-0 Braves victory, and putting them on the brink of elimination. In game 4, the Mets had to face 1998 Cy Young award winner and annual playoff star John Smoltz. Rick Reed was able to match zeros with Smoltz through the top of the 6th before Olerud gave the Mets their first lead since game 2 and only the second of the series with a solo home run off of Smoltz. In the top of the 8th, with Reed having allowed just one single all game, Brian Jordan and Ryan Klesko broke the tie and took the lead on back-to-back home runs to start the inning. Things looked dire for the Mets going into the bottom of the 8th with Smoltz still pitching before a leadoff single and a failed bunt chased Smoltz. Mike Remlinger came in and got a strikeout but then gave up a walk. Lefty John Rocker was brought in to face Olerud, a seeming advantage for the Braves as Rocker had chewed up lefties all year long. After a double steal by Roger Cedeno and Melvin Mora, Olerud came through again with a 2-run single to center field, which would hold up for a 3-2 win after Armando Benitez shut down the Braves in the top of the 9th. Game 5 brought Greg Maddux back. This time, the Mets wasted no time in taking the lead, when Olerud took Maddux deep for a 2-run home run in the bottom of the 1st inning. The Braves would get the runs back in the top of the 4th before the teams settled into a scoreless groove that took them all the way to the 15th inning. In the top of the 15th, the Braves scored a go-ahead run on a triple by Keith Lockhart. In the bottom of the inning the Mets put the first two hitters on with a single and a walk before sacrificing them over to 2nd and 3rd. An intentional walk to Olerud loaded the bases with one out, and an unintentional walk to Todd Pratt tied the game at 3, bringing up Robin Ventura. Ventura would finish his career with a line of .340/.376/.676 with the bases loaded, including 18 grand slam home runs, good for a tie for 5th all time. Ventura took pitcher Kevin McGlinchy deep for what would eventually be called a grand slam single as he was mobbed so thoroughly after passing first base that he never finished rounding the bases. In game 6, the series was back in Atlanta. Al Leiter was pulled in the first inning after allowing 5 runs without getting a single out. In the 6th, the Mets scored 3 times to pull closer at 5-3, but the Braves would score twice in the bottom of the inning to lead 7-3. In the top of the 7th, a double by Rickey Henderson scored one, then a single by Olerud scored another, before Mike Piazza tied the game at 7 with a home run. The Mets took an 8-7 lead in the top of the 8th, but the Braves tied it in the bottom of the 8th. That held to the 10th inning, where the Mets took a 9-8 lead against John Rocker. The Braves, however, tied the game back up in the bottom of the inning. In the bottom of the 11th, the Mets run finally ended when the Braves won 10-9 on a walkoff walk. This was John Olerud's last game in a Mets uniform, and his next franchise is the second part of the tie for 6th place 6b. 2001 Seattle Mariners After the 1999 season, Olerud went home to Seattle, where he would play until mid-2004. Fun fact (if you're not a Yankees fan): Olerud went to the Yankees in 2004, and was their starting first baseman in the playoffs. He was injured in game 3 of the ALCS, and the Yankees would not win another game (as previously documented). I chose the 2001 Mariners to represent this 3 and a half year run, as it was by far the most successful. The Mariners won over 90 games in 2000, 2002, and 2003, but just missed the playoffs in 2002 and 2003. In 2001, they had come off consecutive seasons of losing future Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson, future Hall of Fame center fielder Ken Griffey Jr, and future Hall of Famer (if not for all of the scandals) Alex Rodriguez. The Oakland Athletics had an incredible season, winning 102 games. The Mariners would win the American League West by 14 games. Behind Rookie of the Year and MVP Ichiro Suzuki, and standout performances from Bret Boone, Mike Cameron, John Olerud, and Edgar Martinez, the Mariners exploded to a 20-5 record in April, and would not win less than 2/3 of their games in any calendar month. They rolled into the All Star Break at 63-24, and in front of Seattle fans, 8 Mariners would represent the American League in a 4-1 victory, including DH Edgar Martinez, 1B John Olerud, 2B Bret Boone, CF Mike Cameron, RF Ichiro Suzuki, SP Freddy Garcia, RP Jeff Nelson, and RP Kazuhiro Sazaki. In the second half, they would "slump" all the way to 53-22 in the second half, finishing with 116 wins, tied for the most all time in a season. They clinched the division with their 106th win on September 9, and after a hiatus following the events of 9-11, they earned their 116th win on October 6th against $254MM former Mariner Alex Rodriguez. Unfortunately one of the most memorable baseball moments of their season was blowing a 12-run lead in an August game against Cleveland. And if you remember entry number 9 up above, their season ended earlier than hoped. The Mariners faced those same Indians in the Division Series, and immediately struggled against then-young Bartolo Colon, losing game 1 by a 5-0 score. They came back and won game 2 by a 5-1 score to take the series back to Cleveland. The potent Cleveland offense destroyed the Mariners pitching staff in game 3 as the Indians won by a 17-2 score. Game 4 went better as the Mariners won 6-2, scoring all 6 runs in the 7th to 9th innings. They finally closed out the Indians in game 5, as a solid performance from Jamie Moyer got them a 3-1 victory and sent them through to the ALCS against the Yankees. Against the Yankees, the Mariners lack of a dominant ace pitcher came back to bite them, as they lost game 1 by a 4-2 score at home, then game 2 by a 3-2 score. The Mariners offense would wake up in game 3, as home runs from Olerud, Jay Buhner, and Bret Boone would give them a 14-3 victory. Closer Kaz Sazaki would falter in game 4, as the Mariners lost 3-1 on a walkoff home run by Alfonso Soriano. The series would end in game 5 in New York, as Seattle was blown out by a 12-3 score. They have not been back to the playoffs since. The team played well the next two seasons, but in the one wild card model, they missed the playoffs both years, before things fell apart and they let Olerud go during the 2004 season. This definitely ended up as a "what might have been" season given their extraordinary success in the regular season, but it was a fun run to follow. I had planned to do all 10 teams in this entry, but at nearly 4000 words already, I decided it might be best to split it here. The top 5 teams will come next. I hope this series is as fun to read as it has been to write and reminisce about so far. Now that it's February, most of the major signings and trades have probably happened that are going to happen. I'm going to do a little recap of them so that if you happen to be a casual baseball follower, you might be less surprised that "Wait, that guy's playing for THAT team now?". I'll bold some of the major ones.
Retired, thanks for the memories
Just as a quick catchup, here are some of the major league free agents that did not change uniforms.
6 teams have guaranteed over $200MM in contracts (Cubs, Tigers, Giants, Red Sox, Orioles, and Diamondbacks). 3 more teams have gone over $100MM (Royals, Dodgers, and Mets). The Blue Jays have guaranteed just under $64MM. The bottom of the spending pile? The New York Yankees, who have signed 0 major league free agents for $0 guaranteed. What a world we live in. In total, 106 players signed contracts for 220 years and $2,483.40MM, or an average of $23.43MM per player, and an average of $11.29MM per year. Summary So there's been a pretty good amount of changes, the biggest ones probably being Greinke, Upton, Heyward, Price, Cueto, Samardzija, Zimmermann, Kimbrel, and Simmons. There may still be some more, as the unsigned list above shows. It's an exciting time, full of hope. The projected standings on Fangraphs have just 3 teams winning more than 90 games (Cubs, Red Sox, Dodgers), and just 3 teams losing more than 90 games (Brewers, Braves, Phillies), putting 24 teams squarely in that middle range. Every team in the American League is projected to win between 78 and 91 games, so the races should be interesting all the way through. Meanwhile, the National League has 6 teams slated to win fewer than 75 games, suggesting that it will be 3-team races in all 3 divisions. Biggest projected improvements over last year: Boston +13, Oakland +11, Detroit +8, Seattle +8, Miami +10, Cincinnati +9. Biggest projected losses over last year: Toronto -9 (but still in the playoffs), Kansas City -16, St. Louis -16, Pittsburgh -15. Enjoy it all though, whoever you cheer for. The Royals were picked to go 79-83 last year, as they are this year, and look how that turned out. |
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Greg JacksonA baseball fan in general. Interested in statistics and analytics. Usually follow the Giants and Blue Jays, fan of all MLB in general. |