With SFE up 3 games to 2 could they go to Shiner and pull off the road win?
Game Six: Wainwright vs Lilly
After Pujols and Bautista traded early solo homers, Shiner went ahead on a Pujols groundout in the 3rd. Napoli tied it up with a solo shot in the top of the 4th but the wheels really came off for Lilly in the 5th when he loaded the bases with none out and had to be relieved by Ogando. Not used to being called on quite so early, Ogando left a fastball up over the plate and Uggla crushed it for a grand slam! 6-2 SFE!
The Blondes were not finished, however, clawing back with a Willingham homer and a Prado sac fly to make it 6-4 before the Geckos added another run off Axford in the 7th. Although the Shiner closer let the first three men he faced on base, he escaped with only the single run allowed. The Santa Fe closer, however, would not be so lucky - called on early to prevent another SHI rally, Mariano Rivera allowed three singles to start the 7th inning before hitting the showers, and all three ultimately scored to tie the game at 7-7.
The Geckos wasted another bases-loaded opportunity in the 8th and then true disaster struck when Joe Thatcher walked Pujols and Dunn and pinch-hitter Ramon Hernandez slapped a 2-run single into right to put the Blondes on top! Huff mashed a solo homer to start the 9th, but it wouldn't be enough and the Series would go to a 7th game!
Game Seven: Lincecum vs Pineiro
David Wright led off the game with a homer and Santa Fe added 3 more solo shots (2 by Uggla) in what was ultimately an anticlimactic game compared to the rest of the series. Lincecum turned in the first truly good start for Santa Fe in the series, going 5.2 innings with only a single unearned run, while Thatcher tosses 2 almost-perfect innings and Rivera collected his second save of the series despite an 11.12 ERA (including a 9th inning homer to Molina), giving the Gecko Lizards their fourth ARBA Championship!
The nigh-unstoppable Pujols was named series MVP for his .423/.467/1.154 performance, including 6 HR and 10 RBI.
Congrats to Eric for assembling a great team that obviously could've easily won the whole thing!
Congrats to Tom on winning yet another championship with yet another great team. Shiner came so painfully close to pulling this one out, but my WS record isn't quite as successful as his.
Other than the big SHI win in game 2, all the other games were decided by 1 or 2 runs. Inevitably, there are several key plays that could have changed the final outcome had they gone the other way. The ones that will stick with me the longest are G4 - Renteria's defensive fail, G5 - Thames missing a 75% shot at a 3-run HR in G5, G7 - Molina's CS on a 90% chance that was immediately followed by a triple in a scoreless inning. Of course, we had some luck go our way also and SFE was probably the better team on paper, but still.
It would have been so great if that epic Game 6 comeback had decided the series and haunted Tom for a while. Alas, it was not to be.
