You may have thought that the 2006 ARBA season ended a long time ago, but for 2 teams it didn't end until late this evening. The Surprise Zombies looked like the team of destiny for 3 games and 8 innings. However, a 9th inning meltdown turned a 7-2 lead into a tie game that they finally lost in the 14th. Could Surprise bounce back from such a brutal loss or would that collapse haunt them forever?
Game 5: Pettitte vs. Bonderman. Andy pitched great in G2 when Surprise pounded Marquis. Not surprisingly, Buda decided to try someone else this time. In the 1st, Mora missed a homer chance and Iguchi led off with a successful homer for Buda. Surprise put 2 runners on in the 2nd, but killed the rally with a DP. Buda actually loaded the bases in the 2nd, but Bruntlett hit into a huge DP. Surprise duplicated their 2nd inning failure in the 4th. Buda finally broke through in the 4th on 3 doubles and a single. 3 runs scored, 2 on Bruntlett's redemptive double. Surprise finally scored a run in the 5th, but left 2 more on base. On to the 7th, when the Zombies chased Bonderman and scored another run, but also stranded another one. In the 9th, Francisco Cordero got 2 outs easily, but then allowed a double and walk. Would Surprise pull out a dramatic win this time? Nope, Giambi continued his slump with a K and Buda won 4-2.
So, now we only led the series 3 games to 2 as it headed back to Surprise. I could feel the chilly aura of doom hanging in the air as I pondered various suicide options.
G6: Patterson vs. Clement. I didn't really want to use Clement, but my top 3 starters were all tired. He quickly validated my doubt by serving up a 2-out 2-run homer to Floyd followed by a solo shot to Jones. Oh yeah, the epic collapse was feeling inevitable at this point. However, Patterson was very wild early. After 1 out, he walked 3 straight and then threw a wild pitch. Roberts hit a weak grounder that somehow didn't score a run, but Rollins delivered a big single. 1 run scored easily and Manny headed home. It was close, but Mauer managed to block the plate for the out! (75% chance? not good enough!) Well, that could certainly be costly. I was just starting to hope again too. Buda put 2 runners on in the 2nd, but Clement escaped and actually shut down the dangerous Pests for a few more innings. In the bottom of the 2nd, Ichiro! picked on his opposing RF as Floyd's out of position antics were scored as SI+E. The inevitable passed ball brought Ichiro! home to tie the game. In the 5th, Hunter led off with a double and Giambi shocked me with a clutch single. Of course, even the speedy Hunter couldn't score without a throw. Surprise sent the slothlike Giambi to 2nd, drawing the cutoff to gun him down. However, Hunter scored to make it 4-3 Surprise. Would that sacrifice pay off? A-Rod led off the 6th with a single and Surprise decided not to push their luck with Clement. Lefty Shackelford took over and let the runner reach 3rd on a WP and groundout, but held the lead. Both teams stranded a runner at 2nd with 2 outs. In the 8th, Shackelford easily retired 2 batters before making the home fans VERY nervous with a single and walk. Buda sent in lefty killer Eduardo Perez. The Zombie manager went to the mound to chat with Shackelford. Knowing that a pitching change would probably result in Wilson Betemit replacing Perez, we stuck with Shack. He got the job done and the 4-3 lead held up. Manny led off the home 9th with a single and was replaced by PR Castro. Lefty Villone entered and Surprise countered with Cirillo's 50% OB chance. He missed a BP single chance and then Rollins hit into a DP. So much for insurance runs. Shack was tired, so we needed a closer? Cordero? Nope, don't trust him. It's Shields, even though Scot earned a big share of the blame for the Game 4 debacle. Young flied out...continuing his long playoff slump. Surprise considered going to Cordero against the lefty Morneau, but stuck with their man. Morneau immediately found the replacement LF Palmeiro...or more accurately, found a gap past him for a double on the failed X-roll Oh no! But wait, we just imagined that play. Yes, the dreaded pitcher injury popped up in the 9th inning of a 1-run World Series game. So we had to delete the play. Morneau hit a deep fly ball...but it's caught. Of course his second chance roll would have been an RBI extra base hit for Iguchi. Instead, Iguchi hits another LF-X, but Palmeiro grabs it this time to end the game! What's this? Surprise wins? It's really over?
Damn, it just figures that the damn game would somehow find a way to cheapen winning teh championship that I've wanted for so very long. That 9th inning was just wrong and I'm surprised that Don's head didn't just explode. Oh well, I guess that was destiny taking a too obvious role in things at the end.
I'll save further postmortems for later. Right now I just want to sleep. Congrats to Don for putting together a great team and giving me several heart attacks in this agonizing series. He'll have to settle for taking revenge by picking some awesome prospects directly ahead of me in the draft order.
Whew! I was deathly afraid that our luck had run out 3 outs too soon. Instead, my 19th ARBA season is the one that finally ends with the stadium rocking to Queen's anthem We Are the Champions. If only I'd known that moving the team out of Laramie would be the key to breaking the curse, perhaps we'd have a few more trophies for the case instead of a lot of broken dreams. Oh well, that was Laramie. Surprise is 1-0! Too bad they won't have a chance to repeat since most of the team won't be back. I'm still in shock. Time to go and lie down...
Buda series goats and heroes (such as they can be in a losing effort):
Goats:
1) Joe Mauer--hit .143 in 4 games, sb allowed to Rollins in game 1 led to winning run; pb in game 6 allowed tying run to score. He hit .179 for the whole playoffs, with one double. 2) Jason Marquis--one start too disastrous to give details in a family setting. 3) Tadahito Iguchi--first inning, two out error in game 3 followed by 3 run homer, couldn't handle range check (1) in following inning, leading to another 2 out homer, putting Surprise up 5-1 in a game in which Buda never really challenged. Hit .208. 4) John Patterson and Freddy Garcia--ineffective throughout series; Patterson couldn't shake off Iguchi's shaky d and allowed the 2 HR in game 3 and allowed 20 hits in 14.0 ip. Garcia surrendered 2hits and sb to allow go ahead run in game 1, immediately after Buda had tied it. 5) GM--not getting a 3rd playoff caliber sp after Bonderman, Garcia, and Patterson all had their ERAs rise a full point in September 2005. 6) Manager--not pulling SP in time--see "Heroes" below. 7) The left-handed platoon guys--Mauer, Floyd, Morneau combined to go 7 for 47 with 0 walks. 8) Michael Young--hit .200 with one double and 1 walk. Managed to hit all of .186 with 2 doubles in the playoffs. 9) Umpire who ruled he had called for time before Morneau's rope off the left-center wall, even though all players were fully engaged in the play. Replay showed clearly that Morneau had already swung, and ball was in flight to the gap when the beachball came over the rail in RIGHT field. Even though the foreign object had no chance of interfering with the play, even though it was Surprise's home field, and even though the ball was in play and obviously in for extra bases, the on field protest, leading to the ejection of the manager, third base coach, and bat boy were disallowed. One can only hope the commissioner will step in to correct this travesty or the league will become the laughing stock of computer simulation baseball leagues.
Heroes:
1) Justin Duchscherer--9.2 ip, 1 single. Yep, that's it. 2) Rest of bullpen not named Chris Hammond--unscored upon in 8.2 ip; Scott Munter allowed the only score by an inherited runner.
Deciding factor was Surprise's pitching and defense. Buda hit groundball after groundball to Adam Kennedy and flyball after flyball to Hunter and Ichirowiththeegregiouslypretensiouspunctuationattheendofhisname. Surprise held Buda to a .232 average and .267 obp, committed just 3 errors, and allowed only 1 sb. Yep, Javy +2 Lopez starting every game.
All kidding aside, Buda succumbed to the superior team after getting by Har, thanks only to the huge break of not having to face Clemens 3 times. Undoubtedly, this was Eric's plan all along in stringing Har out to 7 games in the CL, so Clemens couldn't face Buda three times, so Buda could just sneak through, and so he could get the opponent he feared less in the WS.
There's some more fuel for the get rid of dual ownership fires.
It took me a hell of a long time to reach this goal, so I might as well indulge in further postmortem nonsense. I finally had a chance to shake off the shock and peruse the series stats a bit. Here are some observations...
1) Surprise outscored Buda 34-24, but that gap can be covered almost entirely by the 10-1 blowout in Game 2. Otherwise, the games were excruciatingly close.
2) Although Don remembers my defense dominating and there's some evidence to support it, I have to point out that we hit into 10 DP to only 2 for Buda. Iguchi did manage to turn quite a few of those himself.
3) I'll also note that we hardly ran wild on Mauer and Olivo. Despite the presence of some premium basestealers and 2 starts from John "+9 hold" Patterson, Surprise was only 3 for 5 on steals.
4) Homers were a big part of the story. Buda cranked a staggering 305 in the regular season to "only" 229 for Surprise. However, the champions led 11-7 in this series.
5) The pitching staff's team ERA of 3.63 is pretty impressive against Buda's offense. If you take out the 5-run meltdown in the 9th inning of G4, they posted a 2.73 in 56 innings. Perhaps inevitably, the only dominant start came from Pettitte in G2 when Surprise had their best offensive showing. However, our starters kept it close, never allowing more than 4 runs. As for the bullpen, they coughed up 7 runs in the G4 debacle, but none in the other 5 games.
Now for some notable individual performances:
1) Rollins sparked the offense by hitting 10-23 with 3 DO, 2 BB, 2 SB, 5 R and 1 RBI. He did almost all of that damage in the 3 home wins, going 8-11 in those games.
2) Manny hit .316 with an OBP of almost .500, but still managed to disappoint. We expected a lot better than a .368 SLG with 2 RBI from him.
3) But he still was a lot better than Giambi who somehow followed up his dominant 1.140 OPS in the regular season with a lame .817 for the playoffs. Against Buda, he was only 4-21 with 5 walks. However, he did drive in the first and last runs of the series. His only homer started the scoring in a close G1 win and his single scored the winning run in the very tight G6 clincher. So he wasn't a complete failure.
4) So how did Surprise hit 11 homers with their 2 big sluggers combining for only 1? The other guys spread it around with Mora, Hunter, Ichiro!, and even Dave Roberts each hitting a pair. Mora led the team with 7 runs scored and his 4 RBI tied with 3 others at the top. Roberts was 1-17 other than the 2 unlikely blasts. He had 6 in 404 PA for us during the regular season.
5) The other 2 homers came from Wilson and White, whose 5-10 with 6 RBI showing led a group of very productive part-timers.
6) All the pitchers had a balance of good with the bad. Pettitte completed both starts with a 2.65 ERA, but was still 1-1. Peavy had a 3.14 ERA in 2 starts, but both were no decisions. Sheets and Clement picked up big wins, but allowed 4 and 3 runs, respectively. Shackelford picked up a win and had a 1.93 ERA in 4.2 IP over 3 games. However, he did contribute 2 runs to the G4 debacle. Shields saved a pair of close wins, but also participated in G4. Cordero saved the other close one, but finished with a 10.8 ERA thanks to G4 again. Seanez had 3.2 mostly brilliant IP in G4, but finally lost in on A-Rod's homer. The other 5 members of the pitching staff never got into a game.
Okay, that's enough. It is very odd to think that I've already traded away 12 members of this team. 9 of those players were only here for this one season. 9 more are expected to be 1 year and out. I'd be surprised if more than 5 of the 30 are on next year's "rebuilding" roster. Damn, that's a lot of turnover!
