[JayW UK]

2037 Playoffs

Divisional Round

In the east World Champions Boston would begin their title defence with a mouth-watering matchup with high powered Indianapolis, while playoff new boys St. Louis would face fellow 2027 expansion team Charlotte. Over in the west, favourites for the WL pennant Las Vegas would get another crack at San Jose, the team that had eliminated the Gamblers in both 2033 and ’36, while Denver, back in the playoffs again, would face wildcard team Houston and have the chance to avenge their 2025 playoff exit at their hands.

Defending NABL champions Boston opened their much-anticipated series with Indianapolis on the road, aiming to avoid being the latest champions knocked out of the playoffs at the first hurdle (the previous four champions had all fallen this way). Game one didn’t go to plan as starter Greg Bailey ran into trouble early, surrendering a three-run homerun to catcher Guillermo Nodal in the second before conceding two more runs in the fourth, his night was done after just five innings with the Pilgrims in a 5-0 hole. The Racers kept up the pressure, scoring four more runs against the overwhelmed Boston bullpen as Indianapolis took game one in dominant fashion. A much-improved performance from Boston pitchers Gerald Helton, Mark Lyons and Ralf Conrad in game 2 restricted the Racers to just two runs on seven hits, but the Pilgrims hitters could get nothing going against Indianapolis pitchers Dave Lockhart and Harvey Widdowes who combined for a three-hit shutout leaving defending champs Boston on the verge of elimination. Indianapolis jumped on Boston starter Brett Knight in game three, scoring three time over the opening two frames, Knight managed to put the brakes on the Racers after their early success and with Ralf Conrad keeping Indianapolis in check once he took the mound there was still a chance for Boston to save their season, and save it they did with an eighth inning rally capped by a Lucio Rodriguez homerun. The momentum had clearly swung in Boston’s favour as the Pilgrims shot into an early lead in game four up 6-0 after two innings highlighted by Lucio Rodriguez’s first inning Grand-Slam, Boston uncharacteristically took their foot off the gas allowing Indianapolis to make a comeback narrowing the gap to 6-4 entering the ninth inning, Mike Mayfield, worked around a pair of walks to close out the game and send the series back to Indianapolis for a winner-takes-all game five. In a tight pitching duel it was Boston’s Gerald Helton that blinked first when he surrendered a go ahead solo homer to LF Marc Smith in the fifth, Boston’s veteran RF Jared Guest tied the scores with a homerun of his own in the seventh, before the hometown Racers got themselves back on top with Craig McKillop’s RBI single in the eighth off reliever Mike Mayfield. Closer Harvey Widdowes kept his cool in the ninth to retire the Pilgrims in order and secure the narrow 2-1 victory. Boston failed in their aim of avoiding elimination at the first hurdle joining Charlotte, San Jose, Tampa Bay and Dallas in making it now five years in a row the defending champions had been dumped out in the divisional round.

The other eastern league divisional series was a battle of the expansion teams with Charlotte hosting St. Louis for the Reds first ever playoff game. The Express cruised to victory in game one on the back of Greg Marshall who pitched a strong seven innings (7IP, 4H, 1ER, 9K) and homeruns from 1B Andres Romero and 3B Alfonso Alvarez, the following night it was the turn of the visitors with a pair of homers from catcher Gregg Connolly and a two-run blast from LF Jesus Alarcon propelling St. Louis to a 5-2 win. With the series tied at one apiece, the city of St. Louis hosted its first ever playoff game, unfortunately for the home side things began to go awry early, a first inning error from 1B Glenn Hansen extended the frame long enough for LF Daron Murphy to blast the Express ahead with a three-run homer. After St. Louis starter Darrell Haney left the game in the fourth with two men aboard, reliever Pedro Ruiz proceeded to make things worse by walking 2B Anibal Trueba to load the bases before surrendering a Grand-Slam to 1B Andres Romero pushing Charlotte’s lead to a healthy 7-0. Although the Reds bullpen managed to restrict the Express to one run the rest of the way their offense was held at bay by the pitching of Jim Jacques and Steve Walls as Charlotte romped home 8-0. Game four was a pitching duel between Les Scott (STL) and Greg Marshall (CHA) with both men exchanging zeros for the first five innings, a sixth inning RBI single from 1B Glenn Hansen broke the tie and gave St, Louis the lead, the Reds padded that lead by adding a further run in the seventh before the visitors got on the board in the eighth on a LF Michael Miller RBI single. St. Louis called on veteran closer Kikaku Aoki for the ninth and he delivered pitching a clean inning to force a game five. The decider was a closely fought contest until the seventh inning, when Charlotte’s bats woke up battering the St. Louis relievers for six runs, including a 3B Alfonso Alvarez Grand-Slam off 21-year-old Nathan Cortez (a welcome to the playoffs moment for the youngster) as the hometeam Express eased into the ELCS with a 7-1 victory.

Las Vegas and San Jose were meeting for the third time in five years with the Spartans holding a 2-0 advantage in series wins. Las Vegas sent veteran Angel Castro to the mound for game one while the Spartans countered with Pedro Rosario, both men played well, each pitching seven innings of two run ball before exiting, the Gamblers relief corps coughed up a run in the eighth before Spartans closer Dave Day took the mound for the ninth looking to close out the victory. Things started well when he struck out danger man Joseph Floores but when LF Pedro Gomez (only playing due to injuries to both Joe Clark and Doug Matthews) misplayed a seemingly easy flyball, turning what should have been an out into a two-base error, things began to go wrong. A wild pitch advanced the runner to third before a Bryan Dale sacrifice fly tied the scores, a mound visit from the pitching coach and catcher Daniel Walker failed to help as next man up Vaughan Synder launched the first ball he saw into the stands to give the Gamblers a dramatic walk-off win. The Gamblers were at it again the following night, with the scores tied at four heading into the bottom of the ninth, back-to-back doubles from LF Sloan Dickey and Porter Raines gave Las Vegas another dramatic walk-off win and a 2-0 series lead to take with them to California. A wobbly start by Franklin Smith (4.0 IP, 5H, 3ER, 4BB, 1K) put Las Vegas behind early but this time there was no coming back as Ivan Lopez combined with relievers Javier Valencia and Rick Sauer to restrict the Gamblers to just a single run, and see the Spartans home safely keeping the series alive. Game four was over as a contest by the end of the first inning, the Las Vegas lineup taking a liking to San Jose starter Pedro Rosario (0.1 IP, 6H, 6ER) and reliever Gil Nash (0.2 IP, 2ER, all 3 inherited runners scoring) as they built an 8-0 lead, Las Vegas starter Angel Castro on the other hand hardly had to work up a sweat as the Gamblers cruised to a 9-2 victory, dumping defending WL champions San Jose out of the playoffs in the process.

In the twelve years since Houston had swept Denver out of the playoffs, neither team had any postseason pedigree to boast of, Denver had qualified once losing 3-1 to Las Vegas in 2031, while Houston had made the postseason twice during that time, going down 3-1 to San Jose the previous season and being swept from the playoffs by Seattle in 2027. Denver entered this series as the favourites boasting the top scoring offense in the WL and solid pitching while Houston had the #3 offense and just a middle of the road pitching staff, so a high scoring matchup was expected. As anticipated both offenses showed up early in game one, SS Hector Soto hitting a 2-run homer to give Houston the lead while LF Ramon Vega slammed a 2-run shot of his own to tie the game. Both starters struggled with finding the strike zone and with their pitch counts mounting fast, the bullpens were called upon in the sixth, Houston found the change to their liking while Denver’s offense was
stymied by a combination of David Martinez, Gabriel Acevedo and Alex Allenby, Houston running out 8-4 winners to stun the home crowd. Neither starter brought their A-game the following night, and when both managers turned the game over to the bullpens in the sixth inning, amazingly the game was still tied at 1-1. That didn’t last long as Denver’s potent offense finally found its groove, plating five un-answered runs including homers from 1B Daniel Kirk and C Mack Peralta, as the Wildcats cruised home 6-1. Houston opened their two-game homestand by getting to Denver starter Caden Duncan early scoring four times over the opening two frames, Duncan however settled down to go the distance without conceding any further runs. Denver managed to chip away at the lead, eventually cutting it to one, but the Houston bullpen held firm with closer Pablo Hernandez striking out Ramon Vega with two runners aboard to end the game. The following night Houston once again jumped on the Wildcats starter, this time the unlucky victim was Valentin Morales who had surrendered homeruns to SS Hector Soto and LF Robert Harris before he had retired a single batter. Morales’ night ended after just four innings with Denver already behind 6-0 and try as they might the Wildcats couldn’t find a way back into the game, with their best chance of mounting a rally coming against reliever Sam Johnson Jr in the eighth, when they loaded the bases with no-one out only for Danny Hewes to strikeout and 3B Levi Bute to hit into an inning ending double play. Denver did finally manage to get on the board in the ninth when CF Jake Griffin blasted a solo homerun but it was nothing more than a consolation as Houston waltzed home 6-1 to take the series and book their place in the WLCS for the third time in their history.