World Series

The World Series opened in 1979 in Boston (American League City) with no DH in the odd year.  In my opinion, using the DH is always odd, but that's just a personal thing. 

Game 1 opened with Craig Reynolds driving home Jose Cruz in the top of the 2nd.  But in the bottom half of the inning, the skies opened and memories of 1975 flooded the stadium, along with several inches of rain.  Rainout.  We will try again tomorrow.

The rescheduling of Game 1 helped the Sox on paper.  J.R. Richard was scrapped and would not show up until Games 3 and 6, if necessary.  Not since the M&M boys had home run power been displayed like Rice (52) and Lynn (51) showed in the regular season.  But in the ALCS against Minnesota, the two failed to leave the yard at all.  That changed in Game 1, as Lynn homered twice and Rice blasted 1 and the Sox win 5-4.

HOUSTON 4 - 7 - 1

BOSTON    5 - 5- 1

W- Dennis Eckersley

L- Joe Niekro

HR: Enos Cabell, Fred Lynn (2), Jim Rice (1)

Game 2 became a Houston type game.  Ken Forsch  goes 8 innings allowing only 1 unearned run for the win.  Jose Cruz's single brings home Cesar Cedeno for the Astros in the 9th inning, and they win by a 2-1 final.  Steve Renko pitched 9 full for Boston, but takes the hard loss.

HOUSTON  2 - 5 - 1

BOSTON     1 - 2 - 2

W- Ken Forsch

L- Steve Renko

S- Joe Sambito

HR: none

Everyone was excited about heading to the Astrodome, even the Bad News Bears.  The series moved to Houston where rain would not be an issue.  J.R. Richard would be.  The NLCS MVP pitched 10 innings allowing 0 runs in Game 3.  He earned a no decision.  on the Red Sox side, Mike Torrez pitched 9 innings also allowing 0 runs as the team battled into extra innings.  In the bottom of the 11th, Jeff Leonard singled and stole 2nd base.  Enos Cabell singled him home, for the games only run, to put Houston up 2 games to 1.

BOSTON    0 - 5 - 1

HOUSTON 1 - 7 - 0

W- Bert Roberge

L- Dick Drago

HR: none

Boston shows their power had not been extinguished, scoring 7 runs and clobbering Houston 7-1 in Game 4.  Fred Lynn busts a 2 run homer in the 3rd that helps lift Boston to the highest run production of either team in a game in the series, so far.  Bob Stanley gets the complete game, giving up only 1 run on 4 hits and 2 BB.

BOSTON    7 - 8 - 1

HOUSTON 1 - 4 - 2

W- Bob Stanley

L- Joaquin Andujar

HR: Fred Lynn (3)

Houston out performed Boston's mark from the night before, and enjoyed home cooking for the last time in the series.  Jose Cruz picks up his first home run, along with 2 more RBIs, and the Astros take the pivotal Game 5 by blasting the Red Sox, 8-2.  The series heads back to Boston with the Sox backs against the wall, trailing 3 games to 2.

BOSTON    2 - 6 - 0

HOUSTON 8 - 14 - 1

W- Rick Williams

L- Chuck Rainey

HR: Jose Cruz

The series returned to Boston where Sox fans hoped for another magical Game 6, as they had enjoyed in 1975 against another National League West team.  In that year, Game 6 lives in infamy for me and my fellow Reds fans.  As Johnny Bench best put it, "They (Boston) beat us 3 games to 4."

Joe Niekro pitched well for 2.67 innings, but had to come out of the game with a shoulder injury.  Randy Niemann pitched 4.33 innings allowing 2 runs, 1 earned while going 1 for 2 at the plate with a 2 RBI single.  Jose Cruz picks up another home run, and Houston wins the finale 6-2 to take the trophy.  A team that that could not win a game in the last 2+ weeks of the season, will be taking a trip to the White House.  Jimmy Carter is ready to greet the Champions of baseball...and more importantly, he's very ready to resume his Cards & Dice tournament.  

This BBW project was started by my son and I over 2 years ago and life sort of made us forget about it.  I intended to finalize it over Christmas weekend, but I got a little caught up in it, and it ran a longer than I had anticipated.  That's one of the great thing about APBA, it's always there and waiting on your schedule to clear up some time to spend with it, just like an old friend.

HOUSTON 6 - 12 - 1

BOSTON  2 - 6 - 0

W- Randy Nieman

L- Mike Torrez

HR: Jose Cruz (2)

COMBINED TEAM STATS

WORLD SERIES MVP - Jose Cruz

Forsch and Ashby celebrate the Championship in style

Sometimes the facts of life are just hard to understand

NLCS - Games 3-4 - Astrodome

The 8th Wonder of the World hosted the NLCS for the first time.  Scott Sanderson's injury in the 4th, resulted in an unusual use of 3 pitchers for 3 innings each.  But the micromanager did a good job and beat me and the Astros 3-1.

Game 4 saw the aces for both teams take the mound again and the 9th Wonder of the World (J.R. Richard) took center stage in the 8th.  Steve Rogers could not make it out of the first inning as the Astros rock!

Houston Astros Series Stats

Montreal Expos Series Stats

N.L.C.S. MVP - J.R. Richard

ALCS - Games 3-4-5

The series moved back to Minnesota where the Twins needed only 1 win to clinch the Pennant.  Steve Renko, with some help from Burgmeier and Drago shutout the Twins.  Hobson homered and Yaz picked up his 2nd of the series as the Sox win 5-0.

Game 4 gave Minnesota another chance to clinch the series in front of their hometown fans.  Jerry Koosman goes the distance, but only gets a 9 inning loss.  The home team has lost every game in the series and the Twins hope the trend continues as the teams head back to Boston for the decisive Game 5.

Fred Lynn and Jim Rice were very quiet during the series.  Combined, they slugged 103 home runs during the regular season, and had 0 during the ALCS.  But in the bottom of the 10th, Lynn singled home Carlton Fisk to clinch the American League Pennant for Boston.

BOSTON RED SOX SERIES STATS

MINNESOTA TWINS SERIES STATS

ALCS MVP - Carl Yastrzemski

NLCS - Olympic Stadium - Games 1-2

Olympic Stadium packed to the gills.  Sort of.  But everyone expects the Expos to make quick work of a team that couldn't win a game if the other team didn't show up in the last two weeks of the regular season.  Another easy pick for me.  Expos in 3.  As bad as the Astros have played lately, they may beat them 3 out of 5 in only 2 games.  Wrong.  Again.

J.R. Richard is a stud.  Craig Reynolds scratches out 2 RBIs without benefit of a hit, and Houston wins Game 1.  Maybe they only have trouble winning in the United States.

Rafael Landestoy goes 5 for 10 in the two games and adds some spark to the top of the lineup.  The Joes (Niekro and Sambito) hold down the Expos, as Houston takes both games in Montreal.  They may refuse to cross the border and go home.

ALCS - Games 1-2 - Fenway Park

It's what I get for trying to handicap games in advance.  Over 162 games, the Red Sox out hit the Twins by a LOT.  And they have better pitching.  Easy pick.  Sox in 4 games, maybe 3.  Wrong.  

In Game 1, The Twins jumped out to a 11-1 lead going to the bottom of the 8th.  3 Twins errors led to 7 unearned runs, but they were able to hang for the 11-9 win.

The Twins got 9 scoreless innings from Zahn and Marshall in game 2 to shutout Boston 1-0.  They head back to Minnesota up 2 games to none.  I would never make it in Las Vegas.  Maybe I'll do better picking the National League.

Playoff Preview

The American League East was competitive from opening day. Boston, Baltimore, New York, Milwaukee and Detroit were all in the race until the final weeks of the season.  The Red Sox held off a final effort from the Orioles down the stretch to clinch the division title.  Fred Lynn flirted with .400 until the final weekend, but fell short at .392.  Jim Rice was on track to catch Roger Maris' single season home run mark for most of the summer.  But September was not a good month for the slugger who almost lost the home run title to teammate Lynn, as Rice's power numbers faded.  Boston out hit (.296) and out homered (231) all of the other 3 division winners

Boston is expected to start Torrez, Eckersley and Renko in the post season.  The Red Sox team ERA (3.54) is lower than the Twins (3.72).  Nothing less than a curse should keep Boston from heading into the world series.

The Twins hit only .014 points lower than the Red Sox, but 100 fewer hits on the season translated to over 200 fewer runs scored.  Boston out slugged Minnesota by .072 points, and bashed an even 100 more home runs than the Twins.  Minnesota's lineup has some surprising performers.  They will all have to produce at a high level in the series for Minnesota to have any chance of picking up the pennant.  Boston has 6 players with more than 20 home runs.  The Twins have only one, Roy Smalley (25).  

The pressure is on the Twins pitching staff to keep the balls in the yard and the Sox off the bases.  Every batter in the Red Sox lineup has the ability to turn the game around with one swing.  For that reason, the Twins projected starters, Koosman, Zahn and Redfern, will have their hands full with every Boston batter.

Montreal is led by third baseman, Larry Parrish, who batted .312 with 33 home runs and 110 RBIs.  He will need help at the dish from Dawson, Valentine and Carter to solve Houston's pitching staff.  

Montreal had a difficult time trimming down to 25 men for their post season roster.  Their pitching staff was very deep and a couple of guys that might have been useful had to be cut.

The Expo starters will be Rogers, Lee and Sanderson with grades of 12, 11 and 11 respectively.  If they encounter any difficulty, the Montreal bullpen does not have anyone graded below a 13.  It could be a very difficult and short post season appearance for the Astros.

Houston didn't limp or hobble into the post season.  They sort of dropped and fell into it.  The Astros lost 14 of their last 15 games of the season.  If not for a final weekend sweep of the Cincinnati Reds by the Atlanta Braves, they might not be making their first post season appearance in franchise history.  It's not the way they wanted to get here, but they're here no matter how badly the regular season ended.  

Houston had 42 home runs on the season as a team.  5 different players (Rice, Lynn, Schmidt, Kingman and Gorman Thomas) hit more home runs by themselves than the Astros did as a team.  Rafael Landestoy has been inserted into the lineup replacing Art Howe at second base in an attempt to spark the top of the lineup.  Other than that, the Astros don't have a lot of options to shake things up.

But everyone knows that when you are talking about the Astros of the late 70s and early 80s, you are talking about pitching.  They have lots.  With J.R. Richard (17-XY), Joe Niekro (15) and Ken Forsch (14-Z), they maintain the strongest starting rotation of any team in the playoffs.  Sambito (19-XYZ) provides a solid closer and they have sufficient middle relief to offset Montreal's strong bats.  The question of the series is going to be if Houston can jump on the Montreal starters early and put some runs on the board before getting into the Expo bullpen.