Santa Fe advanced to the LCS by overcoming a scrappy Sewell team that knocked out three-time defending Champs Surprise, while Redwood battled their way past the 112-win division winners from Camden. Who would win the right to represent the Federal League in the World Series?
Game 1: Gio Gonzalez (16-9, 4.81) vs Matt Scherzer (21-3, 2.66)
Santa Fe had the advantage of Redwood needing a full 7 games to defeat Camden, which meant that their top two pitchers would not be available to start until the series returned to Redwood. That looked like an important factor when the Geckos scored 2 off Gonzalez off a 2-run Freeman double, chasing him after a paltry 3 innings. The Pioneers finally broke through against Scherzer with a manfactured run in the 7th and Cano tied it up with a long blast off Danny Otero in relief. And then.....the game went on. And on. And on. And on. The precise details have been lost to time, but at one point (the bottom of the 14th maybe?), the Geckos loaded the bases with none out, and yet proceeded to not score allowing the game to go on. Finally, in the 17th inning, Melvin Upton Jr. doubled off of Otero and defensive replacement Tyler Holt singled him home to give Redwood a 3-2 lead. The Geckos still had hope, as the Pioneers were on their 11th pitcher of the game, a tired Josh Tomlin, with only the tired Fernandez and Arriata in the pen. But Tomlin managed to work around a Bogaerts single to put Redwood up 1 game to none.
Game 2: Felix Hernandez (12-7, 3.03) vs Rich Hill (11-2, 2.45)
Santa Fe jumped on King Felix early via a 3-run LuCroy homer in the first and another run scored in the second when Redwood was victimized by a bizarre play (one of many in this series) where a Betts ballpark single gave McCutchen a chance to advance to third and Upton threw the ball away for an error trying to catch him advancing. Hill was just about perfect for 6 innings but was finally chased by a 2-run shot by Cano in the 7th. With Oh tired from too much work in the game 1 monstrosity, Otero stayed in for a seven-out save and Santa Fe tied up the series with a 4-2 win.
Game 3: Aaron Sanchez (18-6, 2.88) vs Jose Fernandez (12-7, 3.03)
Both teams scored a run early but the Pioneers took a 2-1 lead in the 5th on a deep homer by Pedro Alvarez. Santa Fe had a chance to tie it up in the next inning on a Jarrod Dyson leadoff triple, but the heart of the Geckos' order left him stranded. Stephen Drew left nothing to chance with a solo homer in the 8th to tie it, and in the 9th Dyson again led off with a triple, but this time....Brett Gardner bounced into a fielders' choice and Dyson was out at home. But Mookie Betts slapped a single, Gardner had a chance to advance to third, and once again a Redwood outfielder (Holt this time) threw the ball away to let the run score. Diekman and Oh worked a scoreless 9th to preserve the 3-2 Santa Fe win.
Game 4: Scherzer vs Jake Arriata (14-10, 2.55)
Arriata retired the first 8 Gecko batters, but Dyson hit what looked to be another triple...until the raced all the way around the bases for an inside-the-park homer! Belt had a more conventional blast to tie the game and it was tied at 1 for the 7th-inning stretch. In the bottom of the inning, pinch-hitter Tony Kemp drew a walk off Scherzer and scrambled home on a Belt double to give Redwood a 2-1 lead. Santa Fe loaded the bases with one out in the 8th (including a Bogaerts single on a SI1 GB 2-20) and Franklin Gutierrez tied the game with a pulse-pounding RBI walk. Betts then gave the Geckos a lead with a 2-run single. Career-long SFE vet Mike Napoli added a solo homer in the top of the 9th and Buster Posey added a shot of his own in the bottom of the inning, but then Oh came on to seal down the third consecutive Santa Fe win 5-3.
Game 5: Sean Manaea (9-3, 3.14) vs Gonzalez
The Geckos disreprected their home fans by refusing to let the series return home to them. The offense got all the rolls and Manaea was fantastic and the series ended with the only game that wasn't extremely close, a 13-0 Santa Fe victory.
Congratulations to Rick for a great season and vanquishing a very tough Camden squad. It just proved too difficult for Redwood to beat both Santa Fe and some viciously abusive dice (seriously, it's been a long while since I've seen split rolls that seemed so one-sided; the 20-sider felt that Rick had done something very bad for which he needed to be punished). Thanks also to him for being very good natured about the whole thing and being a lot of fun to play against even while the split pulls were attacking him.
In the absence of a traditional series hero, the entire Santa Fe pitching staff was named MVP after gathering a 1.70 ERA in the 5 games and holding a very talented Redwood attack to a collective .218 / .252 / .363 line.
Gratz to Tom and Santa Fe on advancing to the ARBA Championship Series. Those first four games were tight, close, and could have gone either way, but Tom's team is strong and deep, and was able to pull out three of them. Netplay worked well and it was a fun series with Tom, who is a great sport as he patiently put up with my incessant comments about split card chances. Nicely done Tom, thats a good team that I'm sure will represent the FL well in the upcoming series.
Redwood on the other hand will lick its wounds after successive losses in the FL Championship series. Time to retool!
