I love the difficulty and randomness of OOTP in the playoffs

[22tbrads22]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm3

Oh man I love sharing my misery. My Rays, from a game started in 2012:

2016: First taste of the playoffs. We led 2-1 in the ALDS, and had the lead in the 9th inning of Game 4. Lost that one on a walk-off home run, lost the next game as well.
2017: Swept in the ALDS by an upstart Royals team.
2018: Rematch with the Royals in the ALDS. Trailed 2-1 but had a 6-1 lead going into the 9th inning of Game 4. The top of the 9th went as follows: Single. Walk. Single. E6 on a sure double play ball. Game-tying grand slam. 5 runs without recording an out. Then, top of the 10th, bases loaded again, a hit batsman drives in the go-ahead run.
2020: After a year out of the playoffs, we cruised back into them with the best record in the AL, and actually made it to the ALCS this time... where we ran into the Royals again. We took a 3-2 lead in the series, but fell flat on our face in the final two games to lose again.
2021: First-place team for most of the year until an epic collapse in August/September dropped us to the wildcard game, which we lost thanks to my ace pitcher laying an egg.

We finally won the World Series in 2022, a full 10 seasons after starting (I tend to play out most of my games). But for quite a few years, it was a game of "what crazy way can we lose this season?" On the plus side, it was real fun watching the Rays/Royals rivalry develop.

Man that had to be so relieving to finally in that world series!

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by 22tbrads22

Man that had to be so relieving to finally in that world series!

To be honest, it was storybook. We had to win a 1-game playoff against the Red Sox to avoid the Wildcard, then immediately rematched with Boston in the ALDS. Then we finally took down KC in the ALCS. The world series was a matchup against the Pirates, who were THE dynasty in my game - they'd won 3 out of the last 4 world series and were doing it with our former all-star closer. We won in 6 after a 9th-inning comeback against said closer. To cap it off, Eric Hosmer (made a blockbuster trade for him in 2018) made the final out unassisted at 1st, in the final game of his career with us (budget constraints).

I literally started up a new league because I couldn't imagine a better ending than that.

[22tbrads22]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm3

To be honest, it was storybook. We had to win a 1-game playoff against the Red Sox to avoid the Wildcard, then immediately rematched with Boston in the ALDS. Then we finally took down KC in the ALCS. The world series was a matchup against the Pirates, who were THE dynasty in my game - they'd won 3 out of the last 4 world series and were doing it with our former all-star closer. We won in 6 after a 9th-inning comeback against said closer. To cap it off, Eric Hosmer (made a blockbuster trade for him in 2018) made the final out unassisted at 1st, in the final game of his career with us (budget constraints).

I literally started up a new league because I couldn't imagine a better ending than that.

Yeah I have won 4 of the last 5 world series' with my Cubs Dynasty. The core of Bryant, Russell, and Contreras have been huge for me.