THE HOT CORNER
Baseball coverage from the inside — Sacramento Prayers and the FBL
By Claude Playball | Baseball Insider & Analyst | Host, "Hot Corner" Podcast
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October 10 – October 17, 1996 | American League Championship Series Final | Columbus Heaven defeats Sacramento Prayers, 4-2 | End of Season
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THE SEASON IS OVER. COLUMBUS GOES TO THE WORLD SERIES.
There are things I want to say about this team, about this season, about three years of covering a franchise that won two consecutive World Series championships and then came within two games of a third. I want to say those things clearly and without the kind of sentimentality that makes bad journalism. I will get there.
First: the specific fact that defines this entire postseason. Rich Flores, Columbus Heaven starting pitcher. Regular season record: sixteen and five, 4.20 ERA. Against Sacramento in the regular season: three starts, fewer than four combined runs allowed in his final three appearances. His record in this year playoffs: three starts, three wins, a 2.74 ERA, six and two-thirds innings in Game Six with the season on the line.
The Hot Corner identified this problem in July. It spent the rest of the year watching for an answer. No answer came. Flores dominated this specific lineup with an offspeed command pattern that produced soft contact against pull-heavy hitters, and in the three most critical games of the season — Games Two, Five, and Six — Sacramento could not produce enough offense to overcome it.
The Columbus Heaven defeated the Sacramento Prayers four games to two. They go to the World Series. Sacramento goes home.
This is the final Hot Corner of the 1996 season.
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DID YOU CATCH THAT SERIES?
Game One — October 10, Cathedral Stadium — Sacramento wins 11-4
Musco hit a three-run home run in the first inning on a Montalvo slider. Then tripled in the third. Then singled twice. Four for five, three RBI, and for one night the Hot Corner believed this was going to be a different kind of ALCS than the numbers predicted. Rubalcava held seven innings and allowed four. The lineup scored eleven. Perez homered. Florez homered. Eleven to four. Sacramento led the series one game to none.
The Hot Corner wants to note the specific thing Musco did in Game One: nine total bases, which is the most any Sacramento player has produced in a single postseason game in the three years this column has existed. Thirty-six years old. Wrecked health. Nine total bases in an ALCS opener.
Game Two — October 11, Cathedral Stadium — Columbus wins 8-3
Flores. Seven and a third innings, three runs, zero walks. The Sacramento lineup went nine for thirty-three with one extra-base hit — Musco's fourth-inning double. Andretti was actually excellent for five and a third innings and allowed only one earned run. The collapse happened in the Columbus eighth: Lawson entered with the bases loaded and allowed a two-run double and a sack fly, then Scott allowed three more in the same inning. Eight to three, Columbus. Tied at one game apiece.
The specific game-over moment: Lawson, who was six and zero in the regular season and had been the most reliable setup arm since August, allowed four runs in two-thirds of an inning. The Hot Corner predicted in the ALDS preview that the Benson absence would be most acutely felt in the seventh inning of a close game. Game Two was that scenario.
Game Three — October 13, Columbus Grounds — Columbus wins 8-7
Strickler allowed six runs in three and two-thirds innings in forty-five-degree weather in Columbus. The specific instrument of damage: an Aguilar triple in the fourth with two on, Aguilar scoring, followed by the Columbus sixth-inning run. Then Aguilar again in the seventh with a two-run home run off Prieto that broke a six-to-six tie. The lineup scored seven — Mollohan homered, Perez homered, Florez had a sack fly, Cruz drove in two — and it was not enough. Eight to seven, Columbus. The series shifted to Columbus leading two to one.
This is the moment in the series where the Aguilar problem became visible. He entered the series on a seven-game hot streak at .423 with four home runs. He homered again in Game Three. He would not stop.
Game Four — October 14, Columbus Grounds — Sacramento wins 9-8
Espenoza allowed four home runs in four and a third innings: Aguilar solo in the first, Manzo solo in the second, Aguilar three-run in the fifth with two on, in't Veld solo in the fifth. Columbus led eight to six entering the ninth. Then Cooney blew the save — Musco singled, Rodriguez singled, the inning opened — and Cruz hit a game-winning single with two outs. Nine to eight. Tied at two games apiece after a thirty-two-minute rain delay in the fifth.
The Hot Corner logged Aguilar's two home runs in Game Four as the moment his ALCS performance crossed from notable into genuinely alarming. Six home runs in four games. He is the best player in this series by a wide margin and it is not even close.
Game Five — October 15, Columbus Grounds — Columbus wins 9-4
Rubalcava allowed five runs in four and a third innings. Fujimoto tripled in the first with two on. Caballaro homered immediately after. Aguilar homered in the fifth. Three home runs in the first five innings against the pitcher who led all of baseball in ERA this year with a 2.85. Montalvo held eight innings and gave up two runs. Lozano hit a three-run home run in the ninth that made the final look more respectable than the game felt. Nine to four, Columbus. The series went back to Sacramento with Columbus leading three games to two.
This game is the one the Hot Corner will think about longest. Rubalcava against Montalvo. Twenty-one and seven versus seventeen and eleven. The regular season evidence was overwhelming in Rubalcava's favor and he was gone in the fourth inning. Postseason baseball does not ask for credentials.
Game Six — October 17, Cathedral Stadium — Columbus wins 6-5
Flores. One final time. Six and two-thirds innings, five runs, one home run allowed — Lopez homered in the seventh — and Sacramento could not produce the rally that the home crowd and the trailing score required. Andretti allowed four runs in five innings. Dutch phenom Cor in't Veld tripled in the fifth. The Aguilar solo home run in the sixth put Columbus on top. Bruce closed two innings without a run. Six to five, Columbus.
Alex Aguilar: series MVP, eight home runs, seventeen RBI, .372 batting average. He hit four home runs in the four Columbus wins. He hit thirty-eight home runs during the regular season and needed only six games of October to become the defining player of this ALCS.
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THE HONEST ACCOUNTING
The Hot Corner has covered this franchise for four years. Two division titles before this one. Two World Series championships in 1994 and 1995. One hundred and eight regular season wins in 1996. And now a four-to-two ALCS loss to the best team in the American League.
The Flores problem was real and went unsolved — The Hot Corner documented this starting in July. Flores made five starts against Sacramento in 1996, counting the ALCS. Sacramento scored eleven combined runs across those five starts. Three wins. I can not explain why this specific pitcher at this specific lineup produces this specific outcome. What I can document is that it happened consistently and that it was the definitive factor in the series.
The rotation that was the best in baseball in the regular season did not perform in the ALCS — Regular season ERAs: Rubalcava 2.85, Strickler 3.35, Andretti 3.52, Espenoza 3.35. ALCS ERAs: Rubalcava 5.30, Strickler 10.38, Andretti 5.62, Espenoza 6.35. All four starters performed worse than any projection from the regular season would have predicted. The Aguilar factor explains some of this — he hit eight home runs — but not all of it. Postseason adjustments by the Columbus lineup produced elevated results across the board against pitchers who had been dominant for five months. The Hot Corner can only acknowledge this without a clean explanation.
Aguilar was the best player on the field and he was not supposed to be — The Columbus scouting report entering this series identified Aguilar as dangerous. His regular season numbers were forty-two home runs and a .328 average. He was clearly an elite player. The Hot Corner still did not anticipate eight home runs in six games. That performance exists in a category of individual playoff production that transcends normal analysis.
The twenty-one-year-old in right field hit .250 in the ALCS and held his own — Choi's ALDS performance (.500, three home runs) did not carry over at the same rate against Columbus. He hit .250 across the six games. He is twenty-one years old and played in his first ALCS. The Hot Corner is not going to write this off as a disappointment because a twenty-one-year-old playing six ALCS games at .250 is not a disappointment — it is a foundation.
Musco hit .325 with three home runs and was the best position player on the Sacramento side — Thirty-six years old. One hundred and eight regular season wins. Postseason injuries managed carefully all year. He hit .325 in the ALCS. In October of 1996, Edwin Musco performed at a level that no actuarial analysis of a thirty-six-year-old wrecked shortstop should be able to predict. The Hot Corner documented it all year. It held through October.
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SACRAMENTO SEASON IN ONE FINAL PARAGRAPH
One hundred and eight wins. A first-round bye. A four-game ALDS victory over a ninety-seven-win Detroit team. An ALCS that went six games against the best team in the American League before Sacramento lost in the building where they have won two consecutive championships. The best rotation in baseball. A thirty-six-year-old shortstop with thirty-one home runs. A twenty-one-year-old right fielder with twenty-seven home runs who should not have been in the lineup at all by any reasonable preseason projection. The best ERA in baseball from a pitcher who has two hundred and fifty-two career wins at thirty-three years old. A trade deadline catcher who hit four home runs in the postseason. A second baseman who stolen fifty-five bases and hit .311 while committing twenty-four errors. Great season overall, that just happened to end one series short.
Columbus goes to the World Series. The Hot Corner wishes them nothing but the best.
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THE INBOX — FINAL EDITION
From Kofi Acheampong of Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood, a librarian who has spent twenty-six years helping people find things they did not know they were looking for, who asks: "What do you remember most about 1996?"
Kofi, three things. Musco hitting a walk-off home run in Game Two of the ALDS at thirty-six years old in the ninth inning of a playoff game that was about to end the season. Choi in July, walk-off three-run homer against Columbus to win the streak. Rubalcava getting his two hundred and fiftieth win at Cathedral Stadium on a warm July night with Shinohara hitting a grand slam in the same game. A season is made of hundreds of individual moments and those are the three I will keep.
From Vivienne Hartwell of Davis, a wine importer who tastes things for a living and who says the best bottles are always the ones that needed more time, who asks: "Is this a disappointing end or an impressive run?"
Vivienne, both. The two are not mutually exclusive. One hundred and eight wins is impressive. Losing to the best team in the American League in a six-game ALCS is disappointing. A season that produces both outcomes simultaneously is the specific condition of being a very good team that was not quite good enough in October. Sacramento has experienced this before — 1993, one hundred and five wins, first-round exit. The 1994 and 1995 teams made it past that barrier. The 1996 team could not. The difference, on examination, was a pitcher named Flores who threw approximately forty-six innings against this lineup in 1996 and was essentially unbeatable in all of them.
From Yusuf Demirci of Rancho Cordova, a mechanical engineer who designs things that are supposed to work reliably under stress, who asks: "Does the rotation come back next year?"
Yusuf, the contracts are what they are. Rubalcava is under contract through 1997. Andretti is under contract through 1998. Strickler and Espenoza are under contract. The core comes back. What changes is that everyone in that rotation is one year older, which matters more for some than others. Rubalcava at thirty-four pitching the way he pitched at thirty-three is not guaranteed. What is guaranteed is that this franchise has built something real and that the foundation for a fourth October run exists. Whether the foundation produces another championship depends on October, which is always the variable that the regular season cannot control.
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Thank you for four years. 1993. 1994. 1995. 1996. Two championships, two exits. The Hot Corner will be back in the spring.
Columbus plays San Antonio in the World Series. The 1996 Sacramento Prayers won one hundred and eight games and came within one series of a third consecutive championship.
They were magnificent.
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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California. The Hot Corner will return for the 1997 season.