Playoffs

[CardsFan2006]

In 2014, the second year of the World Baseball Association, the Montreal Mudbugs had an incredible run. This is their story.

September

Tony Stephens, 1B: We were pretty much guaranteed a playoff berth. I mean, we were only a game up of Mexico City, but there was a ten-game gap between them and Phoenix, who were in third. We had a four-game win streak going in, I’d just won Batter of the Month, David Carrazedo was proving that Jim Smith had made the right move in trading for him... I kinda thought that maybe our jockeying for first with Mexico City, which we’d been doing for two months, was done. Then we’d be better-prepared for the initial series against them.

Warren Ruggles, RF: It was a weird clubhouse dynamic that year because of the free agents. And you really can’t overstate their impact – here you had these six guys who, for the most part, spoke just about no English. I’d be lying if I said there was no racism against them, especially Okba [Missaoui], Afaghis [Ajayi] and Wakil [bin-Isra’il], but it wasn’t a big issue, though having five or six translators always around was kind of odd. The part that I think made a lot of people mad is that Smith took over as GM, he signed these four amazing players – Petre and Kvana, my apologies to you when you see this, but you have nice personalities – who ended up being the main stars of the team. We went into September and Afaghis had 21 wins, WAR upwards of 8, and an ERA below 2.5. Okba was hitting .314 with 35 home runs or something, and Wakil had somewhere near 50 home runs. Tony and Alonso [Trujillo] were both having great years, and I wasn’t doing badly, but I think a lot of others who’d been on the team since the beginning were unhappy with how this was working out, especially Bob and Shane.

Bob Wilson, CF: Yeah, I was mad. But why wouldn’t I be? I was hitting .240. I should’ve been doing better. I didn’t hate Okba or Wakil – both were nice guys. It was Cosmo [Proussalidi] who annoyed me. I felt like I was as good as he was, and I didn’t understand why he got so much attention when I got none. I mean, yeah, he was hitting better than I was, but not that much better, and I thought a lot of the run production had to be just because he was higher up in the lineup. And he walked around like he was a god, when he was something like the fifth-best hitter on the team.

Tony Stephens: We finished up the sweep against Toronto to start the month, although, unfortunately, Mexico City won their games those two days two. Then we played Seattle, and, after winning our first game, lost our second, putting us in a tie for first with Mexico City. Again, this didn’t matter all that much, because we were twelve games up on Phoenix with nineteen games to go, but it was a nasty loss. Afaghis didn’t pitch badly but lost anyway, because we couldn’t manage to hit. But we won the next game and they lost, so we were a game up again. This was nerve-wracking, because we did all really want the regular season title, but this is how it had been for two months, with both teams just completely failing to pull away. We won our next series 2-1, with our wins being 12-2 and 17-1, staying a game up.
Javier Moran, CL: I got our hundredth win. Afaghis started the game against Phoenix, gave up three runs in eight innings, and then I took over and pitched the ninth and tenth. It was a pretty dramatic game, because I gave up a run in the bottom of the tenth, but then struck out the next guy. Phoenix’s elimination number for winning the division went down to two. So if we beat them the next day, we’d clinch being in the playoffs.

Mark Herman, SP: I pitched that game against Phoenix. The game started out pretty well, with Tony and Cosmo both scoring in the second inning. We tacked on another on in the third, and then one more in the fourth. Meanwhile, I’d only allowed one hit. Then things got pretty nasty. A walk, a single, a fielder’s choice, and Phoenix had runners on the corners with two outs. The next batter, William Allen, worked the count to 3-1, and then hit a grounder to third. I was out of the inning. In the bottom of the seventh, with the score still 4-0, I walked the leadoff man. The next batter crushed a two-run homer to left. Luckily, I got the next three batters out, and left the game after that inning. The score stayed 4-2. We were in the playoffs. Mexico City clinched a berth a couple days later, so we knew who would be in the series, though of course we had all along. Right now, we were just playing for home-field advantage, which was important to us.
Tony Stephens: With four games left, we fell into second place after a four-game losing streak. This was especially painful because three of the four were one-run losses in extra innings. The third-to-last day of the season, we won, and Wakil got his 50th homer. But Mexico City stayed in first by a game. The next day, thanks mostly to an eleven-run inning, we won 15-2. Mexico City lost. We were tied up.

Shane Cannon, SP: It was the last day of the season, and I was starting. If we won and Mexico City lost, we’d get home-field advantage, but otherwise, they had won the season series, so they’d win the tiebreaker. In the second inning, Wakil delivered with a monstrous two-run homer. But in the third, I gave up a base hit to score a run. In the bottom of the inning, I singled to start things off. So did Alonso. Warren walked to load the bases. Okba came to the plate. Their pitcher – this guy Zapata, you probably haven’t heard of him – bore down. And Okba just jumped on the first pitch. It looked like a double, but it just kept going. Just like that, we were up 6-1. Wakil followed it up with another home run. And we just kept tacking on runs. It was a 14-1 win, a great way to end the regular season. I didn’t exactly mind that it was my 20th win, either. After the game, I finally checked the score of the Mexico City game. They’d lost, 6-0. We’d won the division and would get home-field advantage in the first playoff series.

[CardsFan2006]

NALCS: vs. Mexico

David Carrazedo, SP: They gave me the ball for game one, which was a lot of pressure. I’d pitched in high-pressure situations before, but not like this. Montreal and Mexico City... big rivalry. This was for the continent’s championship. I was the new guy on the team, too. I’d done okay in the bit of the year I played for Montreal, but I didn’t want to choke now.
Warren Ruggles: Oh, I had total confidence in David. Really excellent pitcher, and he was a great guy to be around. He had come through for us before, and I had every reason to believe he would again. Plus, there wasn’t some big reason he started. He and Lewis Munro were the only ones who were rested, and Lewis wasn’t going to start game 1.

Kai-Xi Xie, SP: I was born and raised in Quebec, so it’s a good thing the WBA wasn’t around then – I think I would have been a big Montreal fan, and that wouldn’t have helped me pitch against them. I was only on three days rest that day, but I’d had a good year, and I thought I could probably get through it. Plus, Carrazedo wasn’t someone I thought was going to be all that much better than I was.

David Carrazedo: We didn’t think they’d start Xie. We’d imagined he’d pitch game 2, with someone less good, like Todd Carvalho, pitch game 1. They announced it an hour or two before the game, and I just turned to the guy next to me and said “Aw, ****.” We were all a little more worried, but I was especially, because I knew that meant I’d have much less room for error.

Bob Wilson: No, I don’t think it started too well. Routine pop-up to center, and I drop it for an error, and suddenly they’ve got someone who stole 43 bases on first. And then he did steal the base, when Petre and Alonso both thought the other was going to cover the bag. But David is a pro, and he got the three outs.

David Carrazedo: The first hit of the game came from, of all people, Cosmo, who singled with two out in the second. Nothing happened, but at least we got a runner on. Nothing really happened until the fourth, when Shunnar bin-Isra’il – no relation to Wakil, by the way – doubled. So their cleanup guy, Howard Schneider, came up with nobody out. And he singled up the middle to score the run. So we’re losing, it’s totally my fault, and there’s nothing we can do offensively. Then in the fifth, Cosmo hits a long double to right, but even though he can’t run, he tries to go for three. So that could have been a runner in scoring position, but instead, it’s an out.

Tony Stephens: In the bottom of the seventh, with the score still 1-0, it looked like we were getting something started with one out, when Okba doubled. So Wakil was up, and he hit a fly, which advanced the runner, but meant there were two outs for me. I was in a bit of a rut, but I could recover here. I hit two fouls, and then Xie comes around again. It looks outside, so I don’t swing. The ump said it was strike three.

David Carrazedo: It was definitely strike three.

Kai-Xi Xie: I come out to pitch the eighth, and Proussalidi – who else? – hits one to left for a base hit. That was when they took me out. Raul Reynoso, who was a seriously great reliever, came in, and immediately gave up another single. So there was a runner in scoring position with nobody out. Luckily, Petre Randa was up next, and he couldn’t hit. Or so we thought.

Tony Stephens: Petre crushed the ball to right for a stand-up double. Cosmo scored easily, but Bob stayed at third, though I think he could’ve scored too. It was a whole new ball game. Dan Reed came up next, pinch-hitting for David, and he grounded out. Alonso was intentionally walked.

Warren Ruggles: They loaded the bases with one out to face me. And it’s not like I’d done badly that year either. I hit a long fly to right. It didn’t get down, but it got the run in from third easily. Suddenly, we’re winning the game. Shaw Oliver came in to pitch the ninth, and they went down 1-2-3. We were up 1-0.

David Carrazedo: You had to kind of feel bad for Xie, because from the couple times I'd met him, he wasn't a bad guy, and he really had pitched well. But there was time for anything to happen in this series.