It's Chevalier's Thread and He Can Do What He Wants To

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I wanted to do Game 6 in one post. But I didn't realize how hard it is to do this game justice. In fact, after the Wild Card Game and the Miracle at Minute Maid, this is probably the best playoff game I've seen in the last couple of years. So we're gonna split it up and do it in a couple of posts, to tell the story the right way. 

ALCS Part 4

Fun fact: As of 2014, 43 teams at one point or another had held 3-1 leads in the World Series. Of those, 9 had failed to win Game 6. And every single Game 6 loser had gone on to lose Game 7. Of teams to hold 3-1 leads in the League Championship Series, just 2 (the 1992 Atlanta Braves and the 2008 Rays) had gone on to win Game 7 after losing Game 6. Both of those teams had then lost in the World Series. Fully 6 had gone on to lose game 7 after losing game 6.

So, despite holding a 3-2 series lead over the Toronto Blue Jays, the pressure was on the Royals to finish the job in Game 6. A loss would put the shaky Johnny Cueto back on the mound for Game 7. A loss would almost certainly mean defeat in Game 7. In other words, Game 6 of the 2015 ALCS was for all the marbles. Both teams were desperate for victory. Both teams were tough, skilled opponents. Both knew that there was basically no tomorrow - literally, in the Jays’ case. The result was one of the toughest, hardest-fought, brutal playoff games ever.

It was a cold, fitful October night. A line of thunderstorms was crowding down upon Kansas City, but for now, the night was clear and crisp. The Royals got rolling early. Escobar swung at the first pitch - and grounded out, hard. But Ben Zobrist, who had opened scoring in Game 4 with a 2-run homer, drilled a 1-1 pitch from David Price into the left-field bleachers. The Royals were scorching the ball against Price. Cain and Hosmer both hit hard line-drives that found their way right into defender’s gloves. Meanwhile, Ventura was sharp, putting down the Jays in order in the first.

In the second, Morales flew out to the warning track, bringing up Moustakas - again, the man who had been drafted just behind Price in 2007, the man who had beaten Price in Game 2. Now, Moose beat him again - and the first controversy of the game erupted.




On his 1-2 pitch, Price let just a little too much of his slider over the plate, and Moustakas - the 6th straight Royal to hit Price hard - gave hte Royals a 2-0 lead by hitting the ball over the right-field fence.

Or at least he hit the ball into the glove of a fan who was sitting beyond the right-field fence. Because the Royals hadn’t given us enough drama these last two postseasons, they decide to add some Jeffrey Maier-style controversy. Time to meet Caleb Humphreys:




The Jays protested, saying that a young fan had reached over the fence and caught the ball while it was still in play. They argued that it should be ruled fan interference and the home run nullified. But, while the ball wasn’t clearly OUT of play, it wasn’t clearly IN play when Humphreys caught it, either.

Some would have you believe that there’s photographic evidence of Humphreys reaching into the field of play to snare the ball and pull it over the wall. However, most don’t realize that that photo was taken a few milliseconds after the ball had struck Humphrey’s glvoe and was rebounding out. Here’s the moment the ball hits:




And the same moment, seen from above:




The ball was going to strike the top of the wall and exit play. If the umpire on the field had ruled it a double, it probably would have stood as a double, without sufficient video evidence to overturn. But they hadn’t called it a double. They had called it a home run. And there wasn’t sufficient video evidence to overturn.

The Jays fumed, but there was nothing they could do. And Humphrey’s play seemed to loom larger and larger as the game progressed. Price recovered his equilibrium and struck out the next batters he faced. In the 4th, the Jays slashed the lead in half when Jose Bautista - who else? - smashed his own home run to left field. In the 5th, they threatened again.

Ventura walked two men on base, at the bottom of the Jay’s order. He faced the top of the order with the tying run at second and the go-ahead run at first. However, Ventura rallied. He got Ben Revere to pop out, then induced another from Tulowitski. That brought up League MVP Josh Donaldson. Donaldson, whose season last year had ended when Salvador Perez’s hit had snuck past him at third base in the Wild Card Game, smashed a hard grounder towards the third base gap. Two feet further to Moose’s left and the game was tied.

But it was not two feet to Moose’s left. Moustakas dove - and somehow came up with the ball, leaving the stunned Donaldson still watching at home plate.

The game stayed close, 2-1, through the bottom of the 5th and through the 6th. Then, in the bottom of the 7th, Moustakas - who was ubiquitous in this game - singled to lead off. Salvador Perez then squared up on Price’s pitch and sent yet another ball soaring out to the warning track - where Ben Revere made a game-saving leap to catch the ball and save a put-away homer.

Moustakas raced back towards first, as first base coach Rusty Kuntz (seriously) screamed, “Down! Down! Down!” He slid as the ball flew past him and into the mitt of Chris Colabello - who dropped the ball. Colabello was the last person in the stadium to realize it, though, until Moose pointed to the ball lying on the ground nearby.

Saved from the double play, Moose moved to second on Alex Gordon’s groundout, and then Alex Rios, just like he did in Game 2, beat Aaron Sanchez by rifling a single. Moustakas scored, the Royals led 3-1, and they were just 6 outs away from winning back-to-back pennants for the first time in their history.

But the Jays were still alive, and the rain was looming. As the thunderstorms galloped down towards Kauffman Stadium, the ALCS reached its climax.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Another 2-turn day! It actually sat with me for about 6 hours because I didn't check my computer this evening - wasn't expecting a turn, since it usually reaches me at about 8 am each morning. 

Turn 38




Celebrate! We're dead last to Craftsmanship!   But that's what we get for going settler first. I wish I knew how everyone else had such strong early culture. Archduke I'm almost certain took a culture pantheon since he's SO far ahead of everyone, but what the heck is Emperor K doing to get so much early culture? He settled AFTER me for goodness' sake! Japper is in line with me, but Rowain also is well ahead. It's the main reason my score has seemed laggardly. Some of it i could do nothing about - Foreign trade, for example - so I'm not gonna be too ashamed. I just don't like being last in anything.

Probs for the best so all my neighbors don't gang up to murder me. Maybe Emperor and Rowain will both gang up on Archduke instead to murder him. He can't act like he doesn't have it comin'. 




Agoge for now, but I might keep rolling on the monument at Zobrist. It's a 9 turn build for the warrior, while a monument is only a little bit more at this point. And I'd rather have the monument up sooner, the warrior isn't urgent now that we're using galleys instead. As soon as I find a foreign continent, I'll swap into Maritime Industries, but right now culture is too precious to waste. 




I finally kill the scout that was annoying me 20 turns ago. In the meantime I've killed a warrior, a spearman, another warrior, a slinger, and a third warrior, all from that camp, before finally getting this little guy. I also find land's end. 




Boy will my face be red if there's a huge peninsula there with lots of culture and science city states! But I don't think there is. I think the island just ends, so we can fit one more city down here beyond Cain. Not a bad city spot, either. 




This island looks cozy. Horses, copper, two crabs, a mine, third ring fish...even a lone jungle for mild chopping. Settling here with shipbuilding will be a priority. Good potential for a naval base here to guard the approaches to my island. 






We continue to bump along near the bottom. Tech is at parity, but we're behind by 6 points in Civics and 1 in Empire, and 2 in Era score. Not too worried about anything. Civics needs to be faster, Archduke's gotta be getting near Early Empire and Magnus by now. 

Also weighing the merits of going for the Pyramids on Escobar's patch of desert, THEN going settler crazy. Each settler will also mean a 4-charge builder, so that's a LOT of potential improvements. Hmmmmmm...

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

ALCS Part 5: Game 6, 8th inning

Ned Yost had a dilemma.

In 2014, he had had without a doubt the best bullpen in baseball, maybe one of the best ever assembled. Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland were all basically untouchable. Most teams would kill to have even one reliever of that caliber - Kansas City had three.

But in 2015, while on the whole the bullpen was stronger - Luke Hochevar, Danny Duffy, Franklin Morales were all better guys than the middling ones they had replaced - the top end was a little more leaky. Greg Holland had gone down to injury just before the playoffs started, so Wade Davis had stepped into the closer’s role (where he was just as flawless as had been the year before - in fact, no reliever in history has had as dominant a 2 years as Wade Davis did in 2014-2015, and that includes Mariano Rivera and the current game’s big names like Chapman, Miller, and Britton). Hererra could still handle the 7th, and occasionally the 6th. But the 8th was a gap now.





Yost had been plugging the gap with Ryan Madson, a decent enough reliever - weak by the standards of the KC bullpen, but good enough that he might have closed for other teams. Madson’s issue, though, was a distressing tendency to leave his changeup hanging in the strike zone - which resulted in lots of home runs. It was Madson on the mound when Carlos Correa hit a 2-run homer in Houston to all-but eliminate Kansas City from the playoffs in the ALDS, and he’d still been on the mound when Colby Rasmus followed up to reduce the Royals to a snowball’s chance in hell of moving on. To use Madson now, in the 8th inning, meant trusting him with a 2-run lead against the heart of the Toronto lineup - including one more appearance from Jose Bautista, the home run king.

Wade Davis could stretch two innings. He had before. Most relievers dramatically decline in effectiveness the more they are used, though, as hitters adjust to them and their arms tire. That’s why they’re relievers and not starters. Two innings was about the limit for Davis. In a high-pressure situation like this, going to Davis was a no-brainer.

Except for the looming storm.

By now, the line of thunderstorms was racing through the western parts of Kansas City and would soon be over the stadium. They might get through the 8th - but they might not. And then the rain would force a delay of the game for minutes or hours. And the longer it stretched, the more Davis’s warmed-up arm would tire. If Davis was out there when the storm hit, and it was shut down for an hour, he was not coming back into the game.

So, Yost decided to gamble. He went with Madson, trusting him to get 3 outs and preserve the lead. The rain would pass, Davis could take the mound for the 9th and the Royals would be on their way to the World Series, drama-free.

Since I’ve spent so long on this point, you know that’s not how it happened.

Madson came out. Hererra had held Toronto scoreless through the 6th and 7th innings. Ben Revere, at the top of the order, hit a high chopper to Alcides Escobar. He beat the shortstop’s throw and Toronto had the tying run at the plate. That brought up Donaldson, who Madson was able to strike out. And so Jose Bautista came to bat, able to tie the game with one swing.

With the Royals 5 outs from the World Series, Madson hung a changeup.

Bautista did not miss it. The ball soared out of the park - hell for all I know it’s STILL flying out there into the night - and the game was tied.




In the dugout, Yost visibly cursed.

Madson then walked Edwin Encarnacion, and Yost was forced to do the one thing he didn’t want to do: He brought in Wade Davis. Davis got Colabello to pop out, but Encarnacion moved to second on a wild pitch. The go-ahead run was in scoring position while Davis battled Tulowitski. Davis ended the threat by striking out Tulowitzki on a full count fastball in the perfect spot, just beyond the outside corner, too close to take but where Tulo could do nothing but wave at it. The Royals were out of the inning, but the damage was done.

In all the games I’ve written about, not once had the Royals lost the lead after 6 innings. In fact, in any game that they led or tied at any point beyond 6 innings, the Royals had gone on to win. Now, for the first time, they had blown a late lead. The game was tied, Davis had been used, and now the rain swept in. Fans huddled under their tarps, the teams withdrew to their clubhouses, and for 45 minutes the whole stadium waited. The momentum was all with Toronto.

45 minutes later, the game resumed. John Gibbons had brought in his closer, Roberto Osuna, to keep the game tied so that Toronto could blast past KC’s spent bullpen in the 9th to take the lead and force Game 7 (which the Jays would then in all probability win). It was crisis time for the Royals. Fortunately for them, they had Lorenzo Cain at the plate. Cain, the star centerfielder. Cain, the flat-out best player on the Royals that year (he would finish 3rd in league-wide MVP voting, behind Donaldson and Mike Trout). Cain, who never lost his cool. Cain didn’t try to win the game with one swing of his bat, but instead he battled Osuna for 8 pitches, and then - finally - drew a walk. The go-ahead run was on base for Eric Hosmer.

-------

In Game 7 of the 1946 World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals led the Boston Red Sox, 3-1, going to the top of the 8th inning before Dom DiMaggio drove in two runs to tie the game. In the bottom of the inning, Enos Slaughter led off with a single. With two outs and Harry Walker at the plate, the Cardinals put on the hit-and-run; Slaughter took off on the pitch, and Walker lined a ball into the left-center field gap. Slaughter was just past third base when the centerfielder’s relay throw reached shortstop Johnny Pesky, and his third base coach had put up the stop sign, but Slaughter ignored the sign and kept going. Pesky hesitated for just a moment before throwing home, and his throw was slightly off-line, and Slaughter scored the go-ahead run. While this has ever since been reported as “Enos Slaughter scores the winning run from first base on a single,” Walker in fact hit a double, and it was a real double: as the video shows, Walker didn’t move up to second base on the throw home, he was sliding into second base when Pesky caught the relay throw.


The Red Sox would get the first two batters on base in the top of the 9th, and had the tying run on third base with one out, but failed to score. The Cardinals won the game, and the Series, 4-3. Ever since, Slaughter’s run from first to home has been memorialized as “Slaughter’s Mad Dash.”



On October 23, 2015, 70 years after Slaughter’s Mad Dash, Roberto Osuna faced Eric Hosmer in the ALCS. It was Game 6, the bottom of the 8th. The Jays had just done the impossible, coming back against the Royals’ fabled bullpen to tie the game. Now they just needed to get through the 8th so they could take the lead.

On a 2-2 pitch, Hosmer swung - and pulled the ball towards right field. At first base, Cain started to run. He made it to second base in 11 steps, or about 3 seconds. He rounded the bag and headed for third.

In right field, the ball fell towards Jose Bautista. Bautista had grown famous as a player of strong emotions. After 5 years bouncing around the majors, in 2010 he had at last unlocked his latent power. Since that year he had hit more home runs than anyone - each one driven by fury. People called him a cheater. They said he didn’t play the game the right way. They said he was an ass. Each one simply drove Bautista harder, until, a few days earlier, during the craziest playoff game you’ll ever see, he had come up big when his team had needed him. He unleashed a titanic home run and an even more titanic bat flip and sent Toronto into a frenzy.

And again, when the team needed him Friday while everyone else quietly succumbed to the Royals’ will, he hit an even more titanic home run and then, with his team down two runs, turned on a high-fastball and powered it over the wall for his second home run. This tied the game. And then rain began to fall.

After a delay for the rain, Bautista was in right field when Hosmer hit his line drive. He had only one thought: Cut the ball off and hold Hosmer to a single. It would take everything in his power to do that. He had to chase down the ball, catch it on a bounce, somehow stop his momentum and turn and fire the ball back into the infield. He caught the ball, took four mini steps, whirled and threw toward second base. It was a marvelous throw, and it forced Hosmer to skid to a halt and head back to first base.

With nobody out, Bautista was certainly not thinking about Lorenzo Cain running.

With the ball in the air, Mike Jirschele made some quick calculations.

It’s not often that third base coaches become famous. Their job is to stay in the shadows, and make sure the players know when to run, when to hold up. Generally the only time you hear their name is when they’ve screwed up.

The whole baseball world knew Mike Jirschele, though. The previous year, it had been Jirschele’s decision to hold Alex Gordon at third. Gordon held at third, and then watched as Madison Bumgarner beat Salvador Perez to seal the Giant’s third World Series in five years and deny the Royals their destiny. In the long 11 months since, Jirschele’s decision had been debated time and again. Was he right to hold Gordon?

Now, as Cain rounded second, Mike saw Bautista spin and hurl the ball to second base, and he made his decision. He started to spin his arm like a windmill.




Cain covered the distance from second to third in 10 steps, still accelerating as he saw Jirschele frantically waving him home. When he reached third, the ball was still flying from Bautista to Ryan Goins at second. Hosmer was only just reaching first base. But Cain was rounding third - and home plate was only 9 steps away.

Enos Slaughter had gone from first to home on a double. He had been running with the pitch, with a lead, and had scored the decisive run for his team that year, the only run that mattered in the end.

70 years later, as Eric Hosmer hit what should have been a routine-single, Cain ran 88 yards in just under 9 seconds. He slid home, the desperate throw from Goins to Martin never had a chance to catch him. In the broadcast booth, even Joe Buck was stunned.

“Cain to third easily, holding at first - now Cain coming to the plate! Royals lead! He can fly!”




The Jays stood stunned in Kauffman, as around them the hostile crowd roared. The organist started playing Queen, and within seconds the sound of forty thousand voices chanting “We will! We will rock you!” thundered down on the Blue Jays. The Royals were proving why they were the best team in the American League that season: Don’t strike out. Put the ball in play.

And run like hell.

Once again, the Jays were three outs away from elimination. If momentum exists in baseball, it had swung back from the Jays over to the Royals. But there is no such thing as momentum in baseball. The 9th inning was still to come.

And as the bullpen gates open, the whole crowd saw something impossible happening:

Wade Davis was coming back out to pitch.

[Banzailizard]

Couple of coments from the last few turns.

1. I would not raze the city states of your neighbors just because you can.  Either take them and keep them as part of an invasion or leave them alone.  Just destroying them will make you a bit of a pariah this early on.  

2. Another option for early culture could have been a cultural city state.  Or a financial one that let one of them buy a mounment sooner. If archduke had a very early Pantheon it's probably a religious city state for him.

Hopefully that galley finds you some good land or city states.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Couple of coments from the last few turns.

1. I would not raze the city states of your neighbors just because you can.  Either take them and keep them as part of an invasion or leave them alone.  Just destroying them will make you a bit of a pariah this early on.  

2. Another option for early culture could have been a cultural city state.  Or a financial one that let one of them buy a mounment sooner. If archduke had a very early Pantheon it's probably a religious city state for him.

Hopefully that galley finds you some good land or city states.

Archduke got a pantheon right after Japper did, so he's almost certainly got a religious state, I think. Japper has the +faith from coastal cities, but the Dutch have nothing like that to my knowledge. 

And I dunno, denying my opponents a potential city is a big gain, and it stops short of outright war. It doesn't scuttle their chances to win the game, but it does set them back a bit. They won't like me, but I don't expect it will permanently ruin relations. Maybe I won't create a special hunter-killer squadron, but if I see a target of opportunity, I'm going to take it. 

Turn 39

Exciting turn! Sort of. A lot of units moved, a few more tiles revealed, but no improvements made or buildings finished yet. Let's take a look around. I'll go ahead and lead with the big event of the turn:




That's right, we've made landfall. Beyond the small island is the foreign continent of "Pannonia" (Our own is North America, for reference. Hmm, perhaps I should explore the south seas more?). This unlocks the foreign trade inspiration at the perfect time. Well, we had 1-turn of leeway. Basically, next turn I'll hit 24 faith, which means that on turn 25 I want a civic swap to minimize my time in God-King. Thus, next turn I can swap research to Foreign Trade - the same turn the settler finishes, not QUITE ideal but not terrible - and then get my swap the same turn I get my pantheon, turn 41. That's why it was so important to get the galley out as quickly as I could: Because otherwise I couldn't make this happen. As it is, I'll be about as efficient as I possibly could be with governments. 

To the north, we have a new barb wave incoming:




A slinger already in view, means there's warriors prowling around. My warrior is finishing up scouting in the south - nothing interesting but an offshore mountain - then he'll march north to backup the slinger. The slinger is already in a great spot - fortified on this hill, nothing can get past without him engaging. I don't have Discipline anymore, but I do have volley, and the terrain boost. I'll fort up here and repel invaders until the warrior and other slinger get up. The second slinger will do a quick escort run of the settler down to Cain - it'd be damned stupid to lose the settler to a rogue scout or something just to save a few turns on getting the slinger to the front - then all 3 units can push, clear, and scout the northeast. 






Score is still tight. Everyone's about even, save Archduke's culture lead. 

Next goals: use the galley to find a NW/2 more city states, build galleys for the Grenada operation, including a holy site chop. Need to squeeze in a builder at some point but we've got time. 

Cain will need a builder as well. Don't think I can spare the production from Escobar, though. Hmm. We'll look at the timeline to Early Empire to decide.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

ALCS Part 6: the 9th inning

Video Summary: Here.



An hour earlier, Davis had sat an on exercise bike in the Royals clubhouse, pedalling hard. He needed to keep sweating, he needed to stay warmed up as the rain poured down. Dave Eiland, pitching coach, continually came in to check on him.

“You still good, Wade?”

Davis looked him back in the eye. “Yeah. I’m good.”

The Royals had the lead, 4-3. But the Jays had the best offense seen in baseball in years, decades even. And no reliever in history had ever before pitched on both sides of an hour-long delay. The wait cooled the muscles, threw off the mechanics. No one thought it was possible. If Davis pulled it off, it would be one of the greatest relief performances of all time.

But then, Davis was already proving himself to be one of the greatest relief pitchers of all time. 

When the Royals acquired Wade Davis before the 2013 season, the thought process was simple: General manager Dayton Moore believed Davis could be a back-of-the-rotation starter on a team starved for starting pitching. If he burned out as starter, Davis could move to the bullpen.

The Royals could not know, of course, that they had landed one of the greatest relief weapons in the history of baseball. They could not know that more than three years after that, the James Shields Trade might as well be named for Wade Davis.

“Dadgum,” Yost says, “who would have known back then that he was going to be the absolute best?”

Yost remembers the meeting like it was yesterday. In the weeks before the 2014 season, he summoned Davis to his office. Hochevar had blown out his elbow. He needed Tommy John surgery. The Royals wanted to move Davis to the bullpen. Davis listened for a moment, then spoke.

“Whatever I do,” Yost remembers Davis saying, “I just want to be good at it.”

Two years later, Yost shrugs at the story. How could anyone know?

“The best ever,” he says.

0.97: Wade Davis’ ERA the past two seasons, making him the first reliever to post a sub-1.00 ERA in at least 100 innings over two consecutive years
Inside the Royals’ clubhouse, the admiration is the same. Teammate Kris Medlen calls Davis’ dominance “just incredible.” Hochevar spends Davis’ outings in the bullpen, guessing the number of strikeouts he’ll record. Eiland says he’s never seen a reliever this good — and that includes a stint in New York with closer Mariano Rivera.
This may sound like hyperbole or bias. The numbers suggest it is not.

In the last two seasons, Davis has recorded a 0.97 ERA and 187 strikeouts in 139  1/3innings. His WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) has hovered under 0.9. He has allowed just three home runs in 164  1/3 innings, including the postseason. He has gone from also-ran starter to an All-Star reliever to closer for a world champion after supplanting the injured Greg Holland. After two seasons in the bullpen, his place in Royals lore is secure.

“Everybody was expecting the regression,” Medlen says. “And last year, it wasn’t there. It was like: ‘This is who I am. This is how good I am.’ It’s incredible to see.”
Consider: In the history of baseball, no relief pitcher has logged more than 100 innings across two seasons with an ERA under 1.00. No reliever has matched Davis’ skill of suppressing homers. In a new era of bullpen dominance, no reliever has matched this blend of pure power and kinetic mastery.

“He can repeat his delivery,” Eiland says. “That’s why he’s able to command three pitches to both sides of the plate. It’s not something that just comes. It’s something he has to work at.”

The closest analog to Davis might be former Oakland A’s closer Dennis Eckersley, who posted a 1.03 ERA across the 1989 and 1990 seasons. Or perhaps it is former Braves closer Craig Kimbrel, who posted a 1.01 ERA in 2012 before logging a 1.21 mark the next season. Then there is Davis, who put up a 1.00 ERA in 72 innings in 2014, and backed it up with a 0.94 ERA last season.

“I spent three years with Rivera,” Eiland says. “And as great as he was, and not to take anything away from him, I never saw Mariano have a run like this.”

- Sam Mellinger
 
Now he entered the 9th inning, when his team needed him like never before. He took the mound, an hour after saving the game for the first time, let out a breath, and pitched.




Something wasn’t right.

Russell Martin, the Jays’ catcher, was hitting near the bottom of the order. He was one of the few weak points in the Jays’ lineup, hitless through the series. Not anymore, though. He ambushed Davis’s first pitch and punched it into right for a single. The Blue Jays had their own “break glass in case of stolen base” player: Dalton Pompey, a young kid with lightning speed and a terrible bat. They needed a base. They broke the glass and Pompey trotted into his first ever playoff game.

As Davis faced Kevin Pillar, the #8 hitter, Pompey took off for second. Salvador Perez is one of the best defensive catchers in baseball, but even he couldn’t match the kid’s speed. Pompey slid into second well ahead of the throw.


 


“Fuck yeah!” he screamed, punching the air. The tying run was in scoring position. But Pompey wasn’t done. Davis continued to labor, throwing another ball to Pillar - and Pompey was off again, this time stealing third without a throw. The tying run was only 90 feet away, Pillar, the go-ahead run, had just been walked, and there were still no outs. Pillar then promptly stole second. The tying and go-ahead runs were in position - and there were still no outs. Short of actually losing the game, the situation was as dire as it could possibly be for the Royals. The Jays’ win probability stood at 55% - meaning more than half of all teams in the Jays’ situation went on to win the game. And that probability did not take into account the Jays’ offense, nor did it account for Davis’s tired arm. The real odds were far, far worse.

Davis was mentally exhausted. “One is probably going to score here. But just keep it tied,” he later commented. In the ‘pen, Luke Hochever, the Royals’ best remaining option, was warming up. But for now, Davis was on his own. The Jays sent in Dionne Navarro to pinch-hit. A single would give the Jays the lead.

Navarro very rarely strikes out - 13% of the time. But Davis desperately needed a strikeout here - even a pop fly or groundout would tie the game. And on the 1-1 pitch, the Royals got the slightest break. Davis’s pitch was high and just a little outside. And the umpire called it a strike.

Davis didn’t miss his opportunity. On the next pitch, 1-2, he went back to the same location. He knew that Navarro would have no choice but to swing, with the ump calling strikes there. He knew that Navarro would have next to no chance to squarely hit the ball - all he could hope for was a foul. There are not many pitchers with the command to hit the same spot twice in a row, or as many as they need to. But Davis is one of the best for a reason. He nailed his spot, Navarro whiffed, and there was one out.

Ben Revere was, if anything, an even better hitter than Navarro. He struck out only 9% of the time - meaning there was a 90% chance he could make contact here, and a 90% chance to tie the game. Davis missed with a fastball for ball one, then with a cutter that cut just a bit too inside for ball 2. With 2-0, Revere knew that Davis would have to throw him a strike - or risk walking the bases loaded for Josh Donaldson. Revere reached base safely an absurd 53% of the time with 2-0 counts, hitting a .358 average - making him one of the best hitters in baseball when he had that count. Davis needed a miracle. So he got bold. He came set and unfurled a breaking ball that bit hard and spun across the zone for strike one. In the television booth above home plate, Fox Sports’ Harold Reynolds nearly gasped. “A little 2-0 slider,” Reynolds said. “I’m sure that Revere was not thinking that was coming his direction, that’s for sure.”

Revere growled, angry that Davis had snuck one by him. He would not miss another strike. But Revere had not noticed the generous strike zone that Davis got. Davis, though, still knew where the key to his escape was. On the 2-1 pitch, he went back to the outside corner. This time it was a little bit further out than Navarro’s strikes had been - and he still got the call.

It was not, objectively, a strike. Here’s a picture:




Here’s a schematic:




And here’s Revere’s reaction:




It wasn’t the worst called ball or strike of the ALCS. It wasn’t even the worst called strike of the game. But it came at a crucial moment - the 9th inning of a potentially deciding game, with the Jays threatening to take the lead, and the Royals’ best reliever turning in the gutsiest moment of his life.

Against Navarro, Davis followed with pretty much the exact same pitch, figuring that Navarro would have no choice but to swing at it. Against Revere, he went a different course, either because he was afraid that Revere’s slap-hitting ability would allow him to fight off another pitch in the same spot, or because he figured that – after what happened to Navarro – Revere would be looking for the same pitch on a 2-2 count. So instead he threw a hellacious dive-bombing curveball – at least I think it was his curveball, based on its movement and its sharpness, but the broadcast measured it at 88 mph, which is way above his average curveball velocity (84.5 mph). If it was his curveball, then it was one of the hardest, best curveballs Davis threw all season, because it started out heading for the strike zone but finished its journey inside and just an inch or two off the ground. Revere swung, and not even Revere – whose career high in strikeouts is 64 and whose career K rate of 9.4% is the fourth-lowest of any active player – could make contact with that pitch.

Afterwards, he did make contact with something:



Two outs, and Wade Davis was one out away from completing the greatest performance of his life.

The whole crowd was on its feet now, torn between elation and anxiety, as Pompey danced back and forth at third, and Pillar stood stoically at second, the two representing the worst threat to the Royals’ pennant chances since Edison Volquez had escaped the 6th back in Game 1.

After striking out Dioner Navarro, and striking out Ben Revere, all that was left for Wade Davis to do to get out of one of the biggest jams of his career, complete one of the gutsiest relief performances of all time, and secure the pennant, was to retire Josh Donaldson. The soon-to-be-named AL MVP Josh Donaldson, who had hit .297/.371/.568 on the season. The MVP of the league vs. the best reliever in baseball, with two outs in the 9th, the tying run on third base, and the go-ahead run on second base, in Game 6 of the ALCS. It’s possible to draw up a more perfect final battle for the American League championship, but it’s not likely you’ll actually see one. In short, this was one of the most important at-bats in the entire 47-year history of the Kansas City Royals.

Sam Mellinger wrote afterwards:

In seven career meetings, Donaldson had managed just one hit off Davis. In his previous four at-bats, Davis had struck him out four times, including once earlier in the series. As Davis cradled the baseball in his hand, he knew one thing: Donaldson could not catch up to his four-seam fastball. That knowledge would give him the edge.

“He generally has to cheat,” Davis says. “He has to start earlier on my fastball, so anything I throw other than that has worked out pretty well.”
Davis started the at-bat with a 97 mph fastball. He missed down and away. Ball one. The at-bat, Davis says, would turn on the next pitch. He came back with a 97 mph fastball on the outer half of the plate. Donaldson swung late. In that moment, Davis says, he knew his next move.

“I got one by him, and I knew he was probably going to cheat a little bit more on the next pitches,” Davis says.

Davis knew Donaldson would swing early at a strike. He knew that here was the MVP’s vulnerability. And so, on the 4th pitch of the at-bat, Davis’s 22nd of the long inning, his 30th of the night, he got exactly the reaction he wanted from Donaldson. Davis’s 94 mph cutter cut towards the outside of hte plate. Donaldson, already swinging, couldn’t hold up, and rolled over the top of the pitch, sending it into the ground in front of home plate.

And with all that, Donaldson hit it hard enough that if he had hit it 10 feet to the left or right, it might have gotten through the infield, and the Royals would have gone to the bottom of the 9th down by at least a run.

But it didn’t. He hit it right at Moustakas, more proof that baseball isn’t fair given that a groundball that wasn’t hit right at Donaldson had ended his season the year before. Mike Moustakas, exactly as he had done in the previous ALCS, smothered the ball, fired it to Eric Hosmer at first base, and the Royals had just won their second straight AL pennant. 

One at-bat, one pitch, one swing could have put the Blue Jays in the driver’s seat to win the game and possibly the series, and instead it triggered a dogpile at Kauffman Stadium.




The Blue Jays, widely proclaimed the best team in baseball, were beaten. The Royals, for the first time in their history, had won back-to-back pennants. All that stood between them and redemption for the heartbreak of 2014 was a 7 game series against the New York Mets.

Sources for this game, which grew a lot in the telling:
https://www.kansascity.com/sports/mlb/kansas-city-royals/article69437522.html

https://www.si.com/mlb/2015/10/24/royals-blue-jays-alcs-clinch-pennant

https://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/the-royal-we/

https://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-co...03985.html

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

If you're sick to death  of the baseball, don't worry, we're almost done. But I am indulging myself a bit here because it's rare that I get to share something special to Grandpa & me with a new audience. We've got maybe 6-7 more posts left until I'm all finished. 

Turn 40

Situation, start of turn 40:




Sheesh, lotta barbs around. More,  in fact, than I have military units available. The builders are in no danger, since they both only have 1 charge left and will soon vanish. Then I'll need to prevent pillaging. Slinger attacked my own slinger - I may have overestimated my ability to hold this ground. I still have a safe line of retreat if necessary, but let's stay and fight it out on this line if it takes all summer one more turn. 

I counter attack:




But now I'm less sure that this was the right move. The slinger SHOULD win this fight, with Volley and the hill bonuses. But it'll be pretty wounded, and have no choice but to retreat when more units show up. 

Then again, we're 1 turn away from Escobar grabbing the sheep and building my pasture, so I do need to delay the barbs a little, long enough to get the pasture down. Sure. That was my plan. It's a heroic defense to buy time for, er, our shepherds to finish putting up that ramshackle stone wall so the sheep don't escape. 

Well, men have died for worse causes, so I won't worry overmuch about it. 

Exploring the new continent, my galley discovers that it's inhabited:




There's a city somewhere to the south. Thanks to the mountain and the lake, can't tell precisely where. Also can't tell if it's a player or a city-state. We'll shift around to the east and try to circle around the island. 

Let's see, other news...We swap to foreign trade, but I guess something screwy was happening with overflow, since it changed from a 1-turn completion last turn to a 2-turn completion this turn. I didn't finish any civics last turn, so I'm not sure what's going on there. Maybe the inspiration did something weird to the Predict-o-tron, or something. Anyway, we'll get our pantheon next turn, then swap out of God-King the turn after. We'll take Maritime Industries and start cranking out Grenada-galleys, while we work on Early Empire. 

Cain will be founded t45 - really thick terrain between here and there. It's a short walk as the crow flies but every tile is a hill. 

Scores:






Need to do a check-up on Era scores and reverse engineer what everyone else has been up to. Maybe later.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

So the western scout is, uh, 2 turns from his camp, and the camp is only 4 tiles from Zobrist's horses. I'm pretty sure that the barbs can and will use Zobrist's horses to spawn barb horsemen. Ugh. What a pain. Should probably have swapped to a warrior at Zobrist to get this thing under control. Next turn.

[Cornflakes]

I think a patch changed the barb camp horse radius to 3 tiles, so you may be ok ... hopefully

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I think a patch changed the barb camp horse radius to 3 tiles, so you may be ok ... hopefully

Well, that's a relief...hopefully. Guess we'll know in a coupla turns. 

Turn 41 

A two-turn day! Hooray, that means I get my pantheon! 




What? What gives!? No, there's no pantheon selection anywhere in any of the notifications, and it won't give me the option over the entire turn, in fact. I'm baffled as to how this could happen. Now, we all know by now that the game idiotically only allows one player per turn to choose a pantheon. Except...that can't be it, because only one player precedes me in turn order: Japper, who got his pantheon ages ago thanks to Indonesia's ability. Rowain and Archduke likewise picked a while ago, from era scores. Which leaves Emperor - who plays after me. If Emperor hit 25 faith last turn, he should have chosen last turn and I'm good to go. If he hit it this turn, then I precede him in turn order and I also hit 25 faith, so I should be good to go. 

So what gives? 

I'm baffled. I'll probably lose out on my choices because of this nonsense, too. Bugrit. Nothing to be done. 

Also, the slinger took way more damage than I expected - about 50% more, in fact. I'm rubbish at calculating damage, even though I stuck the damage table on the front page just to remind myself. It'd probably help more if I, uh, used it. Anyway, it's time to withdraw to the city-center. I violate my own wisdom from the previous turn and go ahead and pull the other slinger north - the scout is dead and my warrior has revealed no other camps down there. With one to the northeast and one to the west the odds against another one spawning are spectacularly unlikely. 

(Narrator: In weeks to come, he would look back at this statement as where it all began to go wrong.)

First things first, though: We finally grab the sheep, which means we can give Escobar its second 5 yield tile:




This makes me feel good about settler first. The builder only now had enough good improvement tiles to use all its charges. Next builder is gonna chop. 

Over to the northwest, Grenada has an injured warrior near Zobrist:




Honestly, I might want the city-state to clear the camp for me. I miss out on 50 gold, but I save on Era score, which is something I don't want right now. 

Especially because I move my galley and:




Right off the coast of the foreign island. I suspect that the unknown city is a city-state now, not a player, since it seems unlikely that a natural wonder has been sitting undiscovered within 10 tiles of a player's capital all this time. Then again, I have undiscovered tiles to Escobar's northeast, so who am I to judge? Then again then again, I suck, so what's the other guy's excuse? Nah, it's probably a city-state. 

Here's the reef:




And here's an overview of the known world:




Hoping the island ends soon so I can wrap around it. 

Scores. I am, regrettably, first in Era score now with 8:






Solidly middle of the pack overall. Culture is 1 turn from being caught up (until the other guys finish EE or SW, that is) and Empire score is 4 turns from being caught up.