@fadeaway - PART 2 Spoiler Second-Chance World Series 1994 Montreal Expos vs. 1977 Kansas City Royals (Best-of-seven series; Expos hold home-field advantage) Game 1: All good things One thing that has emerged from this tournament is that 1970s reliever Mark Littell has almost certainly been written about on a national website more this week than at any point of his life. And for good reason: His computer-generated counterpart has spearheaded a lockdown Royals bullpen through their run to the Second-Chance World Series. In a topsy-turvy Game 1 at Stade Olympique, Littell's spotless tournament was finally besmirched. The matchup pitted Royals lefty Larry Gura against Montreal's Pedro Martinez. Neither starter reached the fourth inning. You know all about Pedro's career. Gura, if you're not old enough to remember or are only casually interested in baseball history, was one of the AL's best lefthanders from 1978 to 1984, a span during which he went 99-73. A classic late-developing lefty, that run began with Gura's age-30 season. He pitched well in 1977 as well, but mostly as a spot starter who also closed games. It's an odd-sounding combination now, but that season, he started six games and saved 10. Herzog used Gura as a starter in the ALCS in 1977 against the lefty-laden Yankees lineup in place of 18-game winner Jim Colborn. Alas, Gura went only two innings in that playoff start and lost. This time, 42 years later on a computer against the '94 Expos, he went 2⅔, but ended up with a no-decision in a wild game. Both teams came out bashing, with McRae homering in the first against Martinez and Darrell Porter adding a three-run shot in the second. Meanwhile, Walker got Montreal going with a two-run shot off Gura in the first. Lenny Webster's two-run double in the third capped a three-run rally to put the Expos up 7-4. But Kansas City's bullpen went to work, with Marty Pattin, Doug Bird and Steve Mingori keeping Montreal at bay. The Royals evened the score in the fifth with a three-run rally built on singles. In the seventh, Kansas City went ahead 8-7 on Brett's homer to right field. So Herzog went to Littell with two outs in the seventh to finish it off. Littell had strung together 14⅓ scoreless, often dominating, innings through the AL bracket. This time, Littell walked Webster to lead off the eighth. Lou Frazier looped a drive into the right-center gap and Amos Otis laid out for it ... and missed. The ball rolled to the wall for a tying triple. Herzog brought the infield in to try to cut off the lead run, but Grissom slammed a double off the fence, then scored on Moises Alou's groundout. The Royals loaded the bases on a single and two walks to start the ninth against Montreal closer John Wetteland. They cut their deficit to one run on Al Cowens' grounder, but Wetteland recovered to strike out Otis and pinch hitter Tom Poquette to end it. Crazy game. Advantage Expos, who improved to 8-1 in one-run games in the tournament. Final: Expos 10, Royals 9 Game 2: Splitt Paul Splittorff was a Kansas City institution. He was selected by the Royals in the 25th round of the 1968 draft, the one the franchise participated in before it had ever played a game. He earned some Rookie of the Year support in 1971, and from 1972 to 1983, the only lefties in baseball who won more games were Steve Carlton, Vida Blue and Tommy John. He pitched for postseason teams in 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981 and 1984, though he actually pitched in the playoffs in only the first four of those campaigns. He went 2-0 with a 2.79 ERA over 38⅔ postseason innings. After retiring, Splittorff spent several years calling games on television for the Royals and earned a much-deserved reputation as an unfailingly nice guy. He died in 2011. Splittorff never started a World Series game, nor did he ever play for a title team. His career ended before Kansas City took its first title. And after all those bad teams he called games for between the 1985 and 2015 championships, he was gone before he got to see the Royals' rebuilding plan come to fruition. It's arguable, but Splittorff may be the best player in Royals history who never won a ring with the team. In Game 2, Splittorff's digital alter ego got to enjoy the World Series start that he never made, and he was ready. It didn't look like it at the outset, as the Expos jumped on him for a quick run in the first. But Splitt wriggled out of that jam with just one run on the board and proceeded to hold Montreal hitless over the rest of his outing, which ended when Herzog pinch hit for him in the seventh. Pattin pitched the last two innings for the save. Cowens paced the offense with a two-run homer and three RBIs overall. The series was headed back to Royals Stadium knotted at one game apiece. Final: Royals 4, Expos 1 Game 3: Speed kills Most of the time, when you're talking about a great team, it's usually misleading to fixate on any one category. There might be one area in which a team truly stands out, but if they are good enough to be called great, then there are many things that club does well. The Herzog-era Royals were known for team speed, and they did steal 170 bases in 1977. But they also had five regulars hit at least 15 homers with a long-ball-stingy ballpark as their home venue. In this matchup, the Royals' speed advantage was largely negated by an Expos team that led its league in stolen bases -- a claim that Kansas City couldn't make. (Oakland stole six more bases than K.C. in '77.) Montreal swiped 137 bags in 1994, which, prorated for a full schedule, translates to 195. Of the many things that were special about the '94 Expos, it was their speed that made the difference in Game 3. Frazier was a switch-hitting speedster who didn't debut in the majors until he was 28, and he was out of the show by 1998. He had a career slugging percentage of .297. But he could run. Frazier accumulated 626 plate appearances during his career, which is around what you'd expect from a regular over the course of a full season. He stole 58 career bases, including 20 on 24 attempts in 1994. In the third inning, Frazier looped a two-out Texas leaguer in the direction of Royals right fielder Cowens. Earlier in the series, Otis, playing center, dived for a ball that he missed, playing it into an RBI triple. Perhaps in part because of that, Cowens played this one safe and while it looked like he might have made the play, the ball fell in for a two-out single. With righty Dennis Leonard on the mound, that dinker basically turned into a double when Frazier swiped second. Sure enough, Grissom laced a two-out single to score Frazier with the game's first run. Frazier's speed also played a big part in Montreal's second run. With Mike Lansing on second and two out, Frazier hit a bouncer toward the hole at short. Freddie Patek cut it off, but hurried his throw to first and it sailed over the head of John Mayberry, allowing Lansing to score the game's second run. The Royals got one of those runs back on Porter's RBI single in the seventh, but Wetteland threw two scoreless innings for his tournament-leading 10th save. Jeff Fassero held the Royals to that one run over 6⅔ innings, while Leonard went the distance for KC. Final: Expos 2, Royals 1 Game 4: Balk like a man In his "Guide to Baseball Managers," Bill James wrote, "Herzog had wonderful benches; this is one of the most important, but least recognized, features of his style. On his 1977 team in Kansas City, which won 102 games, he had Joe Zdeb and Tom Poquette, who platooned in left field, Pete LaCock, a left-handed hitting first baseman, and John Wathan, a right-handed hitting catcher/first baseman/outfielder who was always one step faster than you thought he was. All of these guys hit .290 or better, and they understood that their opportunities were limited, so if they wanted to stay in the majors they had better get in there and figure out some way to make something happen." The key name from that observation is Zdeb (pronounced: Zebb), who indeed made something happen in Game 4. That year, 1977, was Zdeb's rookie season and he played only two more after that at the big league level. A quick Google search tells us that Zdeb is now a financial adviser based on the wrong side of the state line in the Kansas City area (at least from the perspective of a true Missourian). As James wrote, Herzog used Zdeb as the righty half of a left-field platoon, and so has he here in our simulation. The real Zdeb went 0-for-9 in the 1977 ALCS, his only shot at the postseason. This one has seven hits in our tournament and scored three runs, the last of which won Game 4 for the Royals. Zdeb began the ninth by drawing a one-out walk from Tim Scott. Scott, a righty, should have forced Herzog to pinch hit except that Poquette had already been used in the previous inning. So Zdeb stayed in, got on base, and went to second on ... a balk. Scott did indeed balk during the 1994 season, but this was a heckuva time for the software to replicate that real-life feat. From there, Porter laced a single to center, scoring Zdeb and tying the series. Final: Royals 4, Expos 3
@fadeaway - PART 3 Spoiler Game 5: Wrong lever A few years ago, Colborn reminisced about his career in an interview and talked about Herzog's decision to bypass him the 1977 ALCS. It hurt, as you might expect, even though Herzog later told him that if Kansas City had held on to beat the Yankees, he would have drawn the Game 1 start in the World Series. In this matchup, Herzog did it to Colborn again, going with Gura because three of the five games Montreal had lost in the tourney came against lefty starters, and Gura seemed more apt to corral the Expos' potent running game. Gura has managed just 6⅔ total innings in his two Second-Chance World Series starts, and while the Royals recovered to win his shaky outing in Game 4, they had to use one co-closer (Doug Bird) for four innings and the other to finish the game. Herzog's Game 5 starter, Splittorff, worked around constant traffic into the sixth, but after Grissom drew a two-out walk with a runner on first, and with streaking Sean Berry due up, Herzog went to his tired bullpen. With Bird and Littell fatigued, he turned to Pattin, a veteran on the '77 Royals who had been a 250-inning starter for the Brewers and Red Sox. As in real life, Herzog might have been better off just sticking with his 18-game winner to soak up some innings. Berry greeted Pattin with a three-run homer, turning a 3-2 Montreal lead into a four-run chasm for the Royals. Things did get interesting in the eighth, as the digital Felipe Alou very nearly had his own Grady Little moment. Martinez had worked deep into the game with a good pitch count, so with the four-run buffer, it made sense to let him go as long as he could. But after Cowens and Otis drew two-out walks to load the bases, it was probably time to go to the bullpen. Instead, Martinez was left in and gave up a bases-clearing double to Poquette. Wetteland came on and walked Mayberry. Then Porter hit a bouncer that looked like it was headed into left field, which would have scored Poquette with the tying run. Instead, the ball hit Poquette on the foot, ending the threat. Montreal added a pair of insurance runs in the ninth. The Expos and Royals would head back to Olympic Stadium for Game 6, with Montreal one win away from the flag. Final: Expos 8, Royals 5 Game 6: Blowout There wasn't much drama in this one, with the Royals starting off with the style of baseball that would become known as Whiteyball in the 1980s in St. Louis, then turning to the long ball to pound the Expos into submission. Patek bunted for a single to start the game, stole second and scored on McRae's double. McRae came around to score on Brett's single. In the second, Porter hammered a two-run homer. K.C. added a run in the third to knock Montreal starter Ken Hill out of the game. McRae and Brett hit back-to-back homers in the sixth. McRae added another homer in the eight, while Brett later added a triple. With the Royals running away with the game by the middle innings, Herzog had plenty of buffer with starter Leonard, who worked around a lot of traffic but rang up nine strikeouts over six innings. Colborn came in to work the three-inning save and preserve the Kansas City bullpen for Game 7. For that matter, Alou's best relievers would be plenty rested for the finale as well. After 180 games in our tournament, it all would come down to one winner-take-all showdown. Herzog would turn to Gura for a third time as the Royals suited up for their 33rd game since the journey began. Meanwhile, Alou would send Fassero to the hill in pursuit of the title the Expos never got a chance to win. Final: Royals 12, Expos 3 Game 7: All the marbles While the Expos never got a chance to play in the postseason in 1994, and ultimately never reached the World Series before departing for Washington, D.C., there was another near miss in another strike season, one that had them on the precipice of a World Series berth. In 1981, the Expos won the second half of the NL East title in that year's screwy split-season format, edging the Cardinals by a half-game. St. Louis had the misfortune of having one fewer game left on the schedule when the season resumed after the '81 strike. These were the Expos of the Tim Raines-Andre Dawson-Gary Carter era, and they acquitted themselves well in that year's expanded postseason. They edged the defending champion Phillies in five games, then took the Dodgers to a winner-take-all Game 5 of the NLCS. That game went all the way to the ninth knotted at 1-1. Then-Expos manager Jim Fanning summoned his rotation ace, Steve Rogers, in for the ninth for his first relief appearance in more than three years. Rogers got Steve Garvey and Ron Cey, but then served up a 3-1 fastball to Rick Monday that just cleared the fence in right-center as Dawson watched helplessly. L.A. held on to take the pennant. That painful moment lingered as Montreal missed the playoffs year after year. Some years they were pretty good -- 91 wins in 1987 and 94 in 1993 -- and in many others they were mediocre or bad. But never could they get back to October. Then 1994 came along, and the cathartic season finally arrived. The Expos were young, talented, athletic and fun to watch. The Braves were already a dynasty in the NL East and began that season looking like a sure bet to repeat. The Braves won their first seven games and held first place every day until the day before the All-Star break, when the surging Expos caught them. The clubs were tied after the Braves split a doubleheader in St. Louis on July 21. The Expos had won three straight and pretty much stopped losing at that point. They won three straight at home to sweep the Dodgers. They took two of three at Atlanta, then swept three at Florida. They returned to Olympic Stadium to take three of four from the Cardinals, then won six straight at Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Finally, on Aug. 11, 1994, the Expos were shut out by the Pirates' Zane Smith, snapping their six-game winning streak. Still, their lead over the Braves had swollen to six games, with but a month and a half to go. But you know what happened. It had been shaping up as a historic season, with the rise of the Expos, the return to glory of the Yankees, a dual assault on Roger Maris' home run record by Ken Griffey Jr. and Matt Williams, an epic three-team race in the AL West, Tony Gwynn's bid to hit .400 -- so many amazing things. Instead, baseball stopped in its tracks and what was shaping up as one of the sport's most special seasons transmogrified into one of its most shameful. No fan base felt that sting as acutely as the one in Montreal. The Expos miraculously fielded some decent teams over the next decade before leaving town. But the wound opened up by that 1994 season was never cauterized. And we know that winning a simulated computer tournament doesn't fix anything. There are two ways to take it. Either it's a painful reminder of how special that 1994 Expos team was, or it's a statistical validation of the belief that they could have gone toe-to-toe with the best. However you take it, Montreal is our Second-Chance World Series champion, knocking off the 1977 Kansas City Royals in a Game 7 decided in the middle innings. In the end, in came down to the two-best performing bullpens in the tournament. Kansas City's faltered; Montreal's did not. The Expos plated the lead run in the sixth when Cliff Floyd drove in Alou with an unearned tally set up by a Patek error. That was a soft run, but there was nothing quiet about the Expos' two-run rally in the seventh, as Walker and Alou banged back-to-back homers. Jeff Shaw got five outs and Wetteland got the final six for his 12th save of the tournament -- twice that of any other reliever. The final out came when Wetteland got pinch hitter Willie Wilson to bounce one to Juan Bell at second. One short toss over to Floyd and in this one, tiny, virtual corner of the universe, the Montreal Expos were finally champions. World Series MVP: Jeff Fassero, Expos (2-0, 2.13 ERA over two starts, win in Game 7) Key stat: Marquis Grissom hit .440 with runners in scoring position during the tournament, including .571 (8-for-14) with two outs.
