After splitting at Shiner, the teams travelled to New Monmouth for the next 3 games. In case you've somehow forgotten, NMO lost 2B Neil Walker for the series in G2, which will make things more challenging for them going forward.
G3: Blackley vs. Fister. Really? Shiner is starting Travis Blackley in this game? Well, it was partly to exploit the absence of Walker, but the rest of the starters after Dickey and Hamels aren't that different anyway, so what the heck. He rewarded my faith by pitching 5 1/3 with only 1 run allowed on a Morales HR. He left with the lead thanks to a Markakis 2-run HR, but NMO erased that lead against some bum impersonating Casey Janssen. Patton at least preserved the 2-2 tie and then Fister suddenly lost it in the 7th. Shiner loaded the bases with no outs and abused 3 NMO "relievers" to score 4 runs. The demoralized Mosstroopers did little after that and Pat Corbin made a rare appearance to close out the 6-2 Shiner win.
G4: Hamels vs. Latos. The first matchup between these two went to extra innings and SHI eventually prevailed. This one got ugly rather quickly. Cabrera led off the game with a homer and Markakis soon followed with a 2-run shot. Shiner chased Latos in the 6th and increased their lead to 7-3. They added 5 more against the beleaguered NMO bullpen. Hamels went the distance, despite allowing 13 hits. The 12 strikeouts did help him get out of trouble. SHI won 12-4 and was on the verge of another World Series appearance.
G5: Dickey vs. Collmenter. Dickey pitched FAR better than in G2, but Collmenter somewhat surprisingly rose to the occasion. Saunders robbed SHI of a 2-run HR in the 5th to preserve the scoreless tie, but nobody could catch Cabrera's 2-run shot in the 6th. Dickey had his knuckler dancing and rolled into the 9th with a shutout. However, Harper hit a solo homer to send him to the showers after a 17 K effort. It looked like Shiner's failure to score more runs might come back to haunt them, but Janssen struck out the side to save the 2-1 win for Shiner.
Congratulations to Warren on assembling another great NMO team and for making it this far. Hopefully he'll find some more playoff luck one of these years. That Walker injury really hurt, but they still could have easily won a couple more of these games.
So Shiner heads back to the World Series for the 3rd consecutive season! Will they face Santa Fe there yet again or will Brooklyn claim the spot? Will Shiner just be awarded the championship by default? Only time will tell...
I can guarantee that Shiner won't make it 4 years in a row, so you should really do what you can to ensure that Surprise gets there instead to keep my personal streak going. I mean, who wouldn't want that to happen, right?
