The road to the Iron League Finals for the two hopefuls could not have been more different. The American Conference Champion,
Taiwan, was a wild-card entrant that mowed down the 110-win Pittsburgh team (and another copy of perfect Christy Mathewson) 3 games to zip in the Division Series and then the Port Washington Express in the Sub League series 4 games to zip. This contrasts with my team, that won its division by 8 games, but struggled to get by its playoff opponents by the slimmest of margins.
Game 1 – Taiwan makes it 9 straight
Nolan Ryan was ineffective and the bats awoke too late. With 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th and the tying run on 2nd base,
Joe Cronin “stood there like a house by the side of the road and watched it go by.” to end the game. However, once again the relievers of choice were Moronta and Tuivailala, neither of whom did any damage this time although they tried. Moronta faced 6 batters in the 8th, walking 3 and striking out 3. I changed them to “use less often” and “avoid high leverage”.
Game 2 – Defense hands Taiwan first post-season defeat
The Hawthorn lineup took a new look with
Herb Score on the mound.
Michael Brantley replaced Ralph Kiner in LF and
Mike Matheny replaced Rich Gedman behind the dish. Both substitutes were made to improve the defense. Herb Score struck out 10 in 6 innings, walked 6 and gave up 2 hits. Finally, we saw some new blood from the bullpen,
Moe Drabowsky and
Reymin Guduan, were perfect in holding the game for Cody Allen to save. All the Hawthorn scoring came in the 6th inning, with a leadoff home run by Marshall, back to back doubles, by Maddox and Brantley, a walk to Cronin and a double by Howard scored 4.
Game 3 – 3 errors spoil the fun
Frank Howard staked his team to a 3 run lead in the first inning with his 3rd blast of the post-season and
Bill Madlock plated 2 with a 7th inning double, but the pitching and defense were unavailable for duty and a 6-5 loss was the result.
Game 4 – We are 3-0 in elimination games, (need to make that 6-0).
Willard Marshall homered in the top of the 1st , but
Oliver Perez allowed back-to-back jacks for 3 runs in the bottom of the frame. Perez would go on to strike out 10, but the damage could not be undone. An interesting note is that streaks from the regular season now carry over into the post-season, as this loss ended a 10 game win streak for Perez and I received 175p for it.
Game 5 – Riding the Bumps with a Grin
Larry Bowa was inserted into the lineup at the last minute, replacing the slumping Eddie Mayo.
Joe Cronin was deemed good enough to play 2B even though his training there was only half complete. Bowa responded with 3 hits, but once again the pitching was not sharp and the season ends without an iron level series ring for the trophy cabinet. Congratulations to our opponent for a well-played series.
