September 20-26, 1971 --- PENNANT RACE GLORY or crappy NL teams you be the jury
## Standings / Recap / Comments
WE'RE COMIN TO American League
Code:
LEAGUE STANDINGS EAST
Team W L WPct GB R RA
Boston Red Sox 100 59 .629 - 691 528
Detroit Tigers 90 70 .562 10½ 668 607
Washington Senators 81 75 .519 17½ 644 574
New York Yankees 79 80 .497 21 677 668
Baltimore Orioles 75 80 .484 23 581 585
Cleveland Indians 72 88 .450 28½ 685 740
LEAGUE STANDINGS WEST
Team W L WPct GB R RA
Oakland Athletics 89 70 .560 - 614 614
Minnesota Twins 79 78 .503 9 649 652
California Angels 79 80 .497 10 638 612
Kansas City Royals 75 84 .472 14 664 739
Chicago White Sox 69 90 .434 20 598 650
Milwaukee Brewers 62 96 .392 26½ 536 676
WHOA WHOA MERCY MERCY ME THE National League AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE
Code:
LEAGUE STANDINGS EAST
Team W L WPct GB R RA
St. Louis Cardinals 85 74 .535 - 688 684
Philadelphia Phillies 85 75 .531 ½ 709 621
New York Mets 83 76 .522 2 656 633
Pittsburgh Pirates 80 80 .500 5½ 593 594
Chicago Cubs 75 84 .472 10 715 770
Montreal Expos 67 91 .424 17½ 615 727
LEAGUE STANDINGS WEST
Team W L WPct GB R RA
Atlanta Braves 91 69 .569 - 771 652
Houston Astros 89 70 .560 1½ 718 695
Los Angeles Dodgers 78 81 .491 12½ 666 654
San Francisco Giants 75 84 .472 15½ 611 646
San Diego Padres 74 84 .468 16 637 655
Cincinnati Reds 73 87 .456 18 644 692
Power Rankings
Code:
Rank Team Pts Td Record PCT AVG ERA Pyt.Rec Diff
1st (1st) Boston 119 o 100-59 .629 .272 3.00 99-60 1
2nd (4th) Oakland 111 + 89-70 .560 .266 3.41 80-79 9
3rd (5th) Houston 106 + 89-70 .560 .266 3.98 82-77 7
4th (3rd) Detroit 102 - 90-70 .562 .261 3.36 87-73 3
5th (6th) Atlanta 99 + 91-69 .569 .261 3.66 92-68 -1
6th (12th) St. Louis 99 ++ 85-74 .535 .270 3.89 80-79 5
7th (20th) Cleveland 95 ++ 72-88 .450 .255 4.11 74-86 -2
8th (10th) New York 95 + 83-76 .522 .247 3.74 82-77 1
9th (8th) Los Angeles 93 - 78-81 .491 .255 3.49 81-78 -3
10th (14th) New York 92 ++ 79-80 .497 .254 3.84 80-79 -1
11th (22nd) Chicago 90 ++ 75-84 .472 .261 4.39 74-85 1
12th (23rd) Kansas City 90 ++ 75-84 .472 .241 4.40 72-87 3
13th (9th) Minnesota 89 -- 79-78 .503 .260 3.75 78-79 1
14th (11th) Washington 87 -- 81-75 .519 .259 3.15 86-70 -5
15th (16th) Pittsburgh 87 + 80-80 .500 .254 3.28 80-80 0
16th (17th) San Francisco 87 + 75-84 .472 .252 3.59 75-84 0
17th (2nd) Philadelphia 85 -- 85-75 .531 .256 3.62 90-70 -5
18th (24th) Chicago 83 ++ 69-90 .434 .248 3.77 73-86 -4
19th (7th) California 82 -- 79-80 .497 .252 3.44 83-76 -4
20th (19th) Montreal 79 - 67-91 .424 .256 4.20 67-91 0
21st (15th) San Diego 78 -- 74-84 .468 .253 3.77 77-81 -3
22nd (18th) Cincinnati 76 -- 73-87 .456 .247 3.99 75-85 -2
23rd (13th) Baltimore 72 -- 75-80 .484 .250 3.34 77-78 -2
24th (21st) Milwaukee 58 -- 62-96 .392 .244 3.82 62-96 0
In spite of itself, it's really turned into a race in the National League, and in spite of what I thought would happen, the AL West is now all locked up, with the Twins and Angels not even playing all that well. The Angels in fact are the dirty hippies of the American League, slipping from 7th to 19th. That said, though, I'd be remiss in discussing dirty hippies at all without mentioning the Philadelphia Phillies, who as recently as September 20th - this time last week, even - were sitting 4 games up on the St. Louis Cardinals and looking like an easy shoo-in for not only the NL East title but a 90 win season. Now the latter is completely in the gutter and they'll have to fight their way out to even get the former. Their lone saving grace is that they have 2 games left against the recently-eliminated Pirates while the Cards have 3 games left against the Mets, who are still, somehow, mathematically in this one - basically, if they win out and the Phillies drop one of two, they can force a playoff.
The yuppies of the week are the Cleveland Indians, who are riding Ernesto Garcia's historic season to kinda sorta hike their way out of mediocrity. I mean, they're still 12-13 for the month, which goes to show how awful things were before they kicked off this 8 game winning streak that they're currently on. The Cards moved up 6 spots for their part, which, you know, ain't bad. It'll be interesting to see who emerges in the East. In the West, it's looking more and more like Atlanta's going to back into it but whether Houston slips past them or not, I don't give either of those teams a lot of chances in the postseason - both of those pitching staffs are bad, with the Braves' being maybe only playoff team bad but Houston's is like expansion team "how is this even possible in the Astrodome?" levels of bad.
## Major Transactions
September 21: The Reds returned P Pat Pierson (0-0, 1.59) to the Orioles following his purchase in June. Pierson had good results in his September call-up but didn't strike out anyone in 5.2 innings and the O's decided they wanted him after all.
## News
September 20: Billboard's Top 5:
1. "Go Away Little Girl", Donny Osmond
2. "Maggie May / Reason to Believe" Rod Stewart
3. "Ain't No Sunshine", Bill Withers
4. "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", Joan Baez
5. "Spanish Harlem", Aretha Franklin
Pretty close to unchanged, with the pro-Confederacy ballad making it into the top 5 and finally knocking that crappy Paul "and Linda" song out. I'm not a super huge fan of the message but hey, The Band did a really nice version of it so I'll give "Dixie" that. Otherwise, yeah, my dislike of Rod Stewart has been noted and at least there are 2 1/2 bangers on that list.
September 20: Speaking of bangers - nope, not a good segue - the Phillies will have to bang through October without starting pitcher Billy Ording (10-15, 4.22), who will miss the next 3 weeks with a calf strain. That miiiiight get him back in time for the World Series but I am doubtful. Ording to be fair was pretty solidly the #4 starter anyway with the emergence of Ringo Starr (19-7, 3.50) as an effective winner on this team. With the 4 man rotation leading the way the Phillies can probably get away with a 3-man rotation in the playoffs. For now, veteran Dale Parks (0-1, 3.90), who spent most of the season in AAA after splitting time between Washington and Montreal last season, will get that last start or two as the bottom man on the totem pole.
September 20: Not so much an injury update but a downgrade: Houston's 2B/SS Jordan Green (.275, 9, 56) has been nursing a sprained wrist, with the 'Stros still pushing him into the lineup because he's still the best man available. That injury has now devolved into a chronic one. In all probability he'll have plenty of time to rest it in a week and a half. In the long term, Houston has a really thin pitching staff whose badness is masked by the Astrodome and their defense, particularly up the middle, is not helping matters much.
September 20: And we're down to the final week! Well, the final full week anyway. 3 of the 4 races have yet to be decided but it's well within the realm of possibility that all of them will be over with by Sunday. All three remaining leaders have at least a 98% chance of winning, too.
September 20: Guess who won the AL Player of the Week? Yeah, it was Ernesto Garcia (.273, 63, 145) again. That's his 2nd PotW in the last 3. He clobbered 6 more HRs with 12 RBIs and hit .343 overall for a sad-sack Indians team. At least the fans have a reason to go to games in the Forest City. Surprisingly, this was only his 4th career PotW.
September 20: In the NL, it was another slugging first baseman who won the Player of the Week award: the Dodgers' Justin Stone (.291, 36, 108). There was a period of time in May when it looked like Stone wasn't acclimating well to the bright lights of LA but he's come on lately whether you want to call that in the clutch of September or after the games stopped mattering for his team. In any case. Stone hit .406 last week - 13 for 32 - with 5 HRs and 12 RBIs. He's now 3rd in the NL in both of those latter two categories as well as OPS+ for the stat nerds. This is Stone's 3rd PotW this year and 22nd of his storied career (which means that I won't be showing baseball cards for either guy -- wow).
September 20: The Twins got a W from Angelo Ramos (13-19, 3.92) today, which I wanted to bring up because he's getting wildly close to going from 20 wins to 20 losses in one year. I haven't checked to see if that's ever been done before but I'm going to guess no. Even here with my own self at the wheel, a 20 loss season is not going to be super common; you need a pitcher who either is having extraordinarily bad luck (which isn't really the case for Ramos; he has an ERA+ of 96, which, the Twins support guys a bit better than that but that's not a number you'd expect to get a winning record out of) or else a guy with a history of pitching well from whom his team needs starts. I've shut down a bunch of guys already but Ramos, who was 21-2 last year and could have been the Cy if he'd pitched the whole season, is definitely in the 2nd group (and even there I'll probably shut him down once the Twinkies get eliminated).
September 21: Pakistan declares a state of emergency, although Wikipedia is unclear as to what for, exactly. There was a big, um, civil issue that encroaches on genocide going on within its borders but at the time but I'm not sure that's it.
September 21: It feels bad that Red Sox SP Michael Pesco (20-14, 3.21) is up among the league leaders in complete games the year after he missed all but 9 starts with a combination of two major injuries, but if the man's pitching well, what do you do? Tonight the 2 time Cy Young Award winner threw a 6-hit shutout, striking out 9, to win the game 7-0 against the recently eliminated Detroit Tigers. "Mister Snappy was snapping," said Pesco after the game, referring to his trademark curveball. "and I just had to let him eat."
Pesco also managed to win his 20th game for the 2nd time in his career - somehow, he won the Cy in 1968 in spite of "only" winning 17 (17-8, 2.00 in the Year of the (Relief) Pitcher). The Red Sox now sit at 98-57, just two wins away from 100. They've already set a franchise record for wins so anything more is gravy at this point (they went 93-70 in their pennant-winning season of 1968, which included a 1-game playoff), so anything from here on out is gravy.
September 21: The Expos played a big, big spoiler role today and in doing so clinched losing less than 100 games for the first time in franchise history. That's kind of a big deal considering how hopeless they looked at times the past 3 years. In any case they jumped on 1970 Cy Young winner Marius Gaddi (16-19, 3.34) for 5 runs in 6 innings en route to a 6-2 win and then 29 year old minor league veteran Andy Tudor (1-0, 2.25) made his 3rd career major league appearance and 2nd career start a great one, scattering 4 hits over 8 innings before giving the ball up to stopper Ernesto Hernandez (5-12, 3.42) for his 21st save of the season. Montreal is now 64-89 so even if they lose out - and for some reason a rainout that they aren't expected to make up gets played - they can't finish with more than 98 losses. Philly meanwhile falls to 85-70 and gets the Cardinals, whose game hasn't finished as of this writing, to within 3 games of the lead.
The Pirates, however, had other things in mind. Jeremy Battaglia (22-14, 2.61) shut the Cards down for 8 innings and Paz Lemus (11-11, 3.55) slammed the door shut for save number 25 as Pittsburgh took down St. Louis 4-2. The Bucs have the tiniest glimmer of hope right now at 79-76; basically they need to win out the rest of the way, the Phillies have to lose out (I guess they can win 1 game the rest of the way) and then they need a bunch of help with the Mets and Cardinals. So I'm saying they have a chance!
September 21: Meanwhile in the NL West race the Astros got a lot of help from both the Padres and their own opponents the Giants in pulling to within 3 games of the Braves. First, the Braves ran into a young-ish starter playing for a major league job in Brian Johnson (2-1, 1.55), who pitched 7 innings of 1-run ball and picked up a 4-1 win. Then, the Astros, down 3-2 in the bottom of the 8th, benefitted from a complete Giants meltdown in the field - 3 errors - and came back to win 5-3. Robert Rivera (13-15, 3.03) picked up the toughest of tough losses for San Francisco, striking out 10 but allowing 5 runs (3 of them earned). That loss also pushes his all-time record to 1 game below .500 - 100-101.
September 22: Justin Kindberg (26-6, 2.07) got outpitched tonight by Jimmy Goddard (18-8, 2.60) and now has at best a chance at tying the wins record but more importantly - and SHAME ON ME for not noticing this! - this also broke a 17 game win streak which has got to be the MLB record. Kindberg's last loss was a 6-0 shutout at Washington on June 18th that dropped his record to 9-5. What a season.
September 22: Even when they win, the Braves are struggling. Tonight it took a solo shot by SS Jon Reid (.268, 6, 61) in the bottom of the 8th to tie the game at 2-2 and then some extra-inning heroics by OF Chris Ward (.292, 11, 46), who came in to pinch-hit for Mikhail Baryshnikov (2-0, 3.38) and delivered an RBI single off of Padres stopper Darius Parchman (6-7, 2.51). The win breaks a 6 game winning streak and, well, dying off or not, the Braves are still 3 1/2 up on Houston with 7 left to play.
September 22: In an 8-2 win over the Reds, Dodgers 1B Justin Stone (.288, 37, 110) reached a major milestone, picking up his 2,000th major league hit with a 2 run homerun in the 5th off of starter Manny Rivera (2-1, 1.98). "It was awesome to reach that point," said Stone after the game. "I hope to get my 3,000th with the Dodgers too."
The hit also put him ahead of Ben McPhail, a middle infielder with the Cubs from 1946 to 1962, into 28th in the modern era. McPhail retired with 1,999 hits and to be fair he barely hit over .200 his last 4 years in the league so the Cubbies gave him plenty of opportunities to get over that hump.
September 23: Time is officially up for the Angels, as they lost game number 77 today 4-2 to the Chicago White Sox. Chicago put out 23 year old debutant Mick Fleetwood (11-12, 3.17 in AAA Tucson) on the mound and he stymied California for 7 innings, allowing 8 hits but only 2 runs. Malcolm Post (5-4, 2.32) then shut the door for his 24th save to play the spoiler role for these guys. With 6 games to play, the 79-77 Angels still hae a great chance at earning a +.500 record for the 4th time in 5 years.
I don't know if this would be soothing but the A's came back from a 4-3 deficit to blow out the Brewers late, 10-4. Even if the Angels had won today they'd have been KO'd, as the A's are now 86-70. Incidentally the A's record for wins in a season is entirely reachable; they won 89 games in 1964 while they were still in Kansas City. That season they still finished a full 14 games behind the pennant-winning Baltimore Orioles, so this is definitely their most competitive year. Going down the old rabbit hole, their best position player that year was the recently retired 1B Alex Cardenas (.366, 30, 90 and an MVP award) whereas their best pitcher was Bill Lucas (18-11, 3.89 and his only All-Star appearance), who is currently pitching his way off the Cubs' roster.
September 23: The Phillies are reeeeeally backing into the playoffs now. They just got swept in Jarry Parc by the Expos. Tonight's big loser was closer "Hippie" Tom Grohs (9-6, 3.71), who inherited a 3-1 deficit, got the first out in the bottom of the 8th, and then proceeded to give up back-to-back-to-back homeruns to 3B Andy Owens (.305, 12, 53), 1B Willie Morales (.265, 26, 86), and RF Matt Williams (.284, 18, 46). They've suddenly gone from the hottest team in the senior circuit to a club where I'm kind of rooting for the Cardinals to overtake them because at least then we'd have a non-cratering team in the playoffs.
Speaking of St. Louis, starter Vince Bachler (14-15, 3.44) had to be removed in the 3rd with a blister on his finger, leaving the bullpen to pick up the slack. They did... well enough, with stopper Billy Munoz (10-6, 2.78) picking up the vultured victory after squandering a 2-0 lead in the 8th (his 5th blown save of the season) thanks to a RF Casey Satterfield (.303, 13, 67) homer in the bottom of the 10th. The win over the Pirates keeps the Phillies' magic number at 5 games and perhaps more importantly pulls the Birds to a game and a half behind the leaders with a 3-game weekend series against those Expos in Busch Stadium. Montreal can be the biggest poops in the world this week...
Oh and also that Cardinals win officially knocked the Pirates, last year's NL East winners, out of contention, as they fall to 79-78 with the loss. Frankly it was a little amazing they got this far, as they seemed woefully undermanned in the second half.
September 23: And man, it's a good thing the Braves didn't play today because today was Upset Thursday, at least in the NL. Houston also lost to the Giants 4-1 thanks to the first career complete game by San Francisco hurler / Milwaukee Bucks center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1-2, 2.45), who just changed his name from Lew Alcindor this past July. The loss to the man whose name means "the noble one, servant of Allah" puts the Astros 3 1/2 back with a tragic number of 3.
September 24: Britain expels 90 KGB and GRU officials, 15 of whom are not allowed to return.
September 24: The American Association and International League both ended their season yesterday and with that came a spate of retirements. Mostly these guys were career minor leaguers but there are a couple names I remember AND THEREFORE YOU DO TOO:
LF Brian Milton: Milton was a lifetime farmhand for the Cardinals before being selected by Kansas City in the expansion draft. He provided a roughly league average bat for KC for two years, the first as a platooned right fielder, the second mostly as a pinch-hitter. He was released by KC after last season and toiled in the Twins' system for a year before calling it quits.
1B John Chapman: Chapman was the Yankees' starting first baseman throughout the 60s, making 4 All-Star Games and winning 3 Gold Gloves. He aged quickly and in 1968 he fell to .244/10/57, which prompted first a move to part-time / pinch-hitting duties as the Yankees searched for better bats at that spot and then in 1970 he was released out of spring training and signed with the Padres, where he hit .181/5/16 in 138 at-bats. Still only 33 that season he tried to get his swing back in the minor leagues but could not, hitting only .248/1/11 for Portland's AAA squad. Chapman retires with 1,199 hits, 148 runs, 592 RBIs, and an OPS+ of 119. He's by no means a Hall of Famer but could find himself in the Yankees' Ring of Honor.
CF John Hackett: Another guy who was a solid starter in his 20s, this time with Cincinatti, who aged really quickly and found himself out of the league. In Hackett's case, he was never a very good hitter, with a career .198 average, but was maybe the face of offensive futility in 1968 when he hit just .147 for the Reds. In spite of that he started 114 games for them. He was exposed in the expansion draft and the Expos used him for about a month in center but decided to move on. Hackett led the league in Ks 3 times in his career; the more I look at it, the more I wonder why he ever got as many opportunities as he did.
SP Justin Jones: Jones was mostly a farm guy / 7th starter for the White Sox organizxation. He had basically 2 seasons in which injuries or what have you allowed him the opportunity to play lots of games in the majors: 1962, when he went 11-12, 4.21, and 1967, when he went 13-2, 2.21. Amazingly, at least to me, the Chisox just plain sent him right back down to AAA following that performance and he spent essentially the entire season in AAA before signing with the Giants in the offseason. By then 34 years old, he was still pretty effective in the 7 starts they gave him in '69 but they weren't looking for old man reclamation projects so they released him and that's the last Jones saw in the majors. He finishes with a lifetime record of 36-22, mostly as a starter, with a 3.35 ERA which is even a little bit above average. You have to wonder what could have been...
September 24: The Twins just got dealt what's probably a death-blow to their playoff chances, as 3B and reigning MVP Mike Brookes (.275, 27, 72) was diagnosed with a strained PCL that will leave him out for the rest of the season. Brookes avoided the injury bug last year, playing in 151 games but now he's missed significant time in 2 of his last 3 seasons. Man, you'd really hope with a guy like this that some kind of rule change is made in which a guy gets to, like, be a designated hitter for the pitcher or something...
September 24: BURIED DEEP IN THE NEWS, I figured that hey, since I already have cards out for both of the Players of the Week this week, I'd use a couple guys from teams I (probably) haven't represented this year just so people can see Silvam's great unis on fully fictional players. For the AL I'll choose the Milwaukee Brewers and 1B Kozue Nakamura (.317, 4, 63) who made the All-Star game this year but hasn't quite managed to win a PotW award. From the NL I'll choose Expos 3B Adam Owens (.305, 12, 53), also an All-Star and also with no PotWs this season (he did have one last year). That Brewers' jersey is still very reminiscent of the old Pilots' unis but hey, they'll switch it up some time, I guess, maybe after they move to the AL East.
September 24: After going 0 for Washington (well, he had hits, just not the kind that count), Indians 1B Ernesto Garcia (.269, 63, 145) failed to homer today as well in today's double-header against Baltimore (the Tribe won both games via shutout, 3-0 and 2-0) and so now he has 4 games left to break the MLB record of 65. He already holds the all-time AL record and as I'm sure I've stated he's one of 2 players in modern history with more than 60, but who needs AL records when the MLB one is right there for the taking?
September 24: The A's won the 2nd game of their 4-gamer vs Milwaukee 6-4 to put the Twins on the brink of elimination. Minnesota has a twin doubleheader series against the Royals starting tomorrow and, with a magic number of 2, they could mathematically eliminate themselves tomorrow. 1B Ray Hawkinson (.364, 7, 31) went 3 for 4 with 2 runs and 3 RBIs, including a 6th inning triple off of Brewers loser Joel Youngblood (6-2, 4.17).
September 24: Phillies "stopper" Tom Grohs (9-7, 3.81) gave up his 4th HR in 2 days and 0.2 IP to send the Phillies down to the Cubs 3-2. The HR was by, of all people, Helio Salgado (.171, 2, 4), a minor league vet who was hitting .156 heading into this game. And to top it off, the Cardinals once again used their entire bullpen to eke out a 5-3 win over the Expos. For the 2nd straight day their starter - now Franklin Medrano (0-0, 3.38), who'd also been pulled early in his only other appearance this season, retired after just 1 inning. All the Cards did was use *6* pitchers the rest of the way - September rosters, huh? - including an actual non-meltdown by Todd Thiesen (3-3, 6.00 and 2-0, 7.04 with STL), who earned his 1st save as a member of the Cardinals after getting blown up in his previous 5 appearances with the club.
St. Louis is just a half game behind Philly now. The odds still say Philadelphia has a 73.5% chance of winning but the odds do not know what momentum is. I guess on the other hand the odds don't know what a starting rotation is and isn't taking into account the fact that St. Louis kind of doesn't have one right now.
September 24: And instead of Upset Day, maybe it's just Upset Week. The Dodgers continued their red-hot performance, downing the Braves 10-4 at the Launching Pad, and the Astros swept a doubleheader against the Padres to pull to within 2 games in the NL West. The odds guys still give the Braves a 97% chance and a look down the schedule makes me agree with them for once: Houston gets just one more game at San Diego before closing out the season with a 3-gamer vs. those same Dodgers while the Braves, who are by no means in a position to call any series "easy", face the Reds at home after this weekend. Also Houston has like no starting pitching and was down to using 24 year old Don Henley (2-3, 4.93) tonight.
Henley did deliver a good enough start to give Houston the W but it wasn't great - 4 runs in 6 innings, 3 walks, 3 Ks - and it's emblematic of the Astros' pitching struggles this year in general. This team has the 3rd worst defense in the NL - 694 runs allowed and a team ERA of 4.00 which they've only done worse than in one season, their inaugural year of 1962 (5.23 that year, plus of course it was played in Colts Stadium) in spite of playing half their games in the Astrodome. Like, I'm still rooting for the Braves here, not just because the Astros are Team Evil in real life but also because man, that pitching staff and for that matter the guys playing behind the pitcher on defense do not deserve a postseason berth. Also the Braves have the best run differential in the NL with +119; that's also #2 in all of baseball (Boston is +157) whereas Houston's is just +18.
September 25: In more "man, there should be a storyline about this" news, IRL the Tigers push a kid named Les Cain out for 6 innings in a 10-7 loss to the Yankees. He later contends that manager Billy Martin forced him to pitch with a sore arm in this game, ruining his career. He went on to sue Detroit; the Michigan Bureau of Workman's Compensation orders the Tigers to pay Cain $111 a month for the rest of his life (although apparently they eventually settled on a lump-sum payment).
September 25: The Twins gave it a hard run but they were swept in the doubleheader today vs. the Royals to bow out of the playoff race. In Game One, their hitters just could not get to 24 year old fireballer Rick Rodriguez (3-2, 3,.55), who's been solid after spending most of the year in AAA Omaha (12-12, 3.26). They lost 5-1 and even that 1 run came on a solo shot with 2 outs in the 9th inning by RF Lou Morgenstern (.249, 19, 69). In the nightcap - and boy was it a nightcap - starter Angelo Ramos (13-19, 3.96) was throwing a 1-hitter into the 7th but faded quickly and suddenly it was a 4-2 Royals lead. I was thinking "oh no, Ramos is going to get loss #20 like this". Then the Twins rallied against Royals stopper Victor Reyes (4-4, 4.86), who blew his 4th save in 14 chances, to tie it at 4-4. That was the score at the end of regulation and Minnesota leaned on the arms of closer Pete Lynn (6-9, 3.38), who threw 3 shutout innings, and Victor Ruiz (9-8, 3.50), who aaaaalmost did the same but surrendered the game-losing single to 3B Ryan Newton (.292, 5, 45) in the bottom of the 13th inning.
In real life that game surely would have been suspended, although the game says the game time was only around 4 1/2 hours so maybe not?
As it turns out, too, and as a side effect of my playing out every game, that nightcap loss was moot anyway as the A's won an easy one against Milwaukee today to clinch. Nate Lancaster (10-3, 3.11) delivered a 7-hit complete game as Oakland took down Milwaukee 7-1. 1B Ray Hawkinson (.379, 7, 31) was a big hero in this one, going 4 for 4 with 2 runs scored, and 2B Israel Gaytan's (.288, 6, 50) 2-RBI double in the 5th inning chase Brewers starter Edwin Garcia (1-0, 10.80) in the 5th inning and put the A's out to a comfortable 6-1 lead. The victory secures the American League Division Series; Boston, playing in their first playoff since 1968, will play Oakland, who've kind of been the laughingstock of the AL but who nevertheless will play in the postseason for the first time in franchise history.
September 25: Ernesto Garcia (.269, 64, 146) finally got off the schneid. After going 5 games and 6 days without a HR, the Cleveland first baseman belted a solo HR in a 5-1 win over the collapsing Baltimore Orioles to put him 1 away from the record with 3 games to play. "It's true," Garcia said after the game. "I'm the greatest player in history and soon everyone will be forced to admit it."
September 25: The sliding continues for the Phillies, as Marius Gaddi (16-20, 3.47) gives up a 2-run HR in the 8th to lose to the Cubs in Wrigley, 7-6. You can argue that I'd left Gaddi in too long in the past this year what with that record but today, even after that tater, he finished the game with only 103 pitches. In any case, the loss puts Philadelphia into a virtual tie with the Cardinals with their game yet to be played today.
For their part, the Expos, who'd just beaten the Phillies like a drum in the previous series, played their part tonight in spoiling the Cardinals' chances, rallying in the 9th to turn a 2-0 deficit into a 5-2 win. St Louis has their work cut out for them, as they have to play an extra game compared to the Phillies (hence the half-game difference in the standings) and that extra series comes against the Mets, who are not mathematically eliminated yet themselves.
September 25: Meanwhile the NL West continues to tighten up with the Braves falling once again to the surging LA Dodgers 7-6 and the Astros finally picking up some good pitching in the form of Jeff Graton (6-5, 4.03) in a 6-1 win over the Padres. Graton, the putative ace on the 1969 Pilots staff, has been in and out of the rotation for this team over the past 2 years. He's had 8 starts this year, with 2 of them going all the way; maybe the rotation was the best place for him all along. The victory puts the Astros just 1 game in back of the Braves, whose situation is beginning to look truly dire: they are just 8-13 for the month with a starters' ERA of 5.37.
September 26: Ernesto Garcia (.269, 65, 147) has officially tied the major league record in homeruns! And it's not even an expansion season (although to be fair Milwaukee is still pretty bad)! Today's hit was a solo shot off of former Mets prospect Dave McNicholas (0-1, 2.53) that also turned out to be the difference-maker in a 2-1 win. One thing that comes back around in favor of Garcia is that Cleveland Municipal is an extreme HR park this year: 93 of the Indians' 153 homeruns hit this year have come at the Mistake on the Lake. Garcia gets two more chances to break the record, both at home, against the Tigers. Incidentally, Garcia also has the 3rd highest RBI total in modern history, although he's got no chance of moving into first (Justin Stone drove in 164 batters in 1964 off of 58 HRs and a .371 average. That season he also set a modern record with 238 hits).
September 26: And the Braves fiiiiiiinally crack the Dodgers, winning 4-3 thanks to a strong outing by Trevon Dean (8-7, 4.48), a 21 game winner in 1969 who's fallen on hard times this year. CF Josh Damon (.259, 17, 59) launched a solo HR that put Atlanta in the lead to stay. With Houston's series somehow complete against the Padres, they aren't playing today (wonder how and why that happened? Baseball Chronicle is mum) and so the Braves' lead sits at 1 1/2 going into the final series of the year.
(I figured out why they didn't play and why the extra game had been rescheduled into a doubleheader over the weekend: the Kansas City Chiefs were in town to play the Houston Oilers and they were using the Astrodome as their venue. I guess even in the early 70s the NFL took precedence over mere baseball.)
September 26: But over in the East, the Phillies' collapse has reached epic proportions, as they lost 8-7 today to the Cubs in a very Wrigley-esque game. Starter Roger Quintana (17-14, 3.39) had an uncharacteristically bad control night, allowing 6 walks in 6.2 innings, and what's worse, he missed over the plate *4* times against a Chicago team who, bad record or no, will make you pay for doing that. St. Louis meanwhile more than got the job done against the Expos, 11-1, and so now, unbelievably, they lead the NL East by half a game. Philly has lost seven in a row. They still have the plurality chance of winning, according to the odds, but it's under 50% for the first time all September, it seems.
## Teams in Review
It's September. EXPECT NONE OF THESE