Game 6 was a face-off between Brett Myers, who was completely and utterly not trusted by Sewell management despite pitching 4+ scoreless innings in his prior start and Jorge de la Rosa, who was completely and utterly not trusted by Sante Fe management because he allowed roughly 314 runs in his regular season start against the Tadpoles.
Obviously, this resulted in a pitchers' duel to start the game as neither team scored in the first three innings and the Geckos had only managed a single walk and a reached-on-error. Things fell apart for De la Rosa in the fourth, however, as he hit Granderson with a pitch, allowed a single to Lillibridge, and walked Ruiz to load the bases with one out. After a lengthy mound conference, he was left in to face Blake...who singled in a run. Desperately needing a strikeout or double-play grounder, SFE summoned mercurial wild-card Carlos Marmol. Unfortunately, the bad Marmol showed up as he walked good-field no-hit Clint Barmes to force in a run and then provided the best play in baseball - the RBI HBP. At least he was good enough to injure Donald for 8 days though! Marmol managed to regroup to strike out Bay and then Oliver came in to retire PH Varitek.
That inning was good for a 3-0 Sewell lead though....and did I mention that Santa Fe was being no-hit? Myers retired the first two men in the fifth and then, with 2 out and nobody on, with a 3-run lead, and needing one single out to qualify for the win, while no-hitting Santa Fe, the ruthless Sewell manager yanked Myers from the game! Would this brazen flaunting of all that is good and holy come back to bite Sewell?
Well, not in the fifth, anyway, as Bastardo struck out PH Arencibia.
The parade of relievers for both teams got the job done until the 7th when, after a Bautista walk, SFE finally collected it's first hit of the game...a long Napoli homer to make it 3-2!
Craig Kimbrel, who had collected 4 decisions in the 5 previous games, came on to start the 8th in hopes of preserving the slender 1-run lead. After striking out Casilla, he walked Cabrera and PH Wright stepped to the plate...and squeaked a fly ball over the wall in right for a 4-3 Geckos lead! 4 runs on only 2 hits! Rivera made things a little interesting in the 9th by walker Abreu with 2 out and then allowing a Konerko single to put the tying run on third, but Granderson lined out to end the threat, the game, and the series.
So, great series as Sewell put up a spirited fight and there were some great games. Pitching completely dominated the series, as demonstrated by the composite batting lines:
SEW: .189 / .277 / .242
SFE: .177 / .290 / .320
Kimbrel had the dubious (at best) distinction of collecting 5 decisions in the 6 games, going 2-3.
Halladay was named series MVP, winning both of his starts with a 2.25 ERA, allowing 15 baserunners in 16 innings with 17 strikeouts.
The series was won in the late innings, with Sewell's great relief corps slumping at the wrong time, allowing 13 runs in 20 innings while the Geckos relief squad, despite Marmol's ineptness with respect to inherited runners, didn't allow any of their own runs in 14 innings.
Congrats to Kevin on putting together a great team and better luck next season.
