The most highly contested regular season in Salt City Strat season history (only one playoff seed determined at the 78ish game mark) has reached the playoffs. More than just the seeding, it was a season that saw four different teams hold sole possession of first place at least once... a new record! Also a far cry from last season where the 98 Jays pretty much held first place from regular season start to finish. And speaking of crying, the Jays manager will be absent from this season's playoffs and spend an offseason crying about Jim Rice. Maybe crying isn't the word? Bemoaning? Bellyahcing? Anyways...almost every playoff team has rode a decent winning and losing streak at some point in the season. Some enter the playoffs with some sweet momentum while others, maybe just the Cubs, limped to the finish line.
We'll look at playoff matchups using the regular season numbers for context, but we all know the playoffs are a different animal. I won't be as bold as to, say, "it's the playoffs, throw history out the window" but let's just have have grains of salt at the ready (should be abundantly available given the league name) for some of these numbers. I mean, let's face it, as managers, if you're not adjusting or revamping based on your previous performance, well, those who don't learn history and whatnot. So get ready for the Salt City Strat League 2023-24 playoffs, where you'll have to pay for the whole seat, but you'll only need...the edge!
We only have two matchups set right now and one of them is the big one-game playoff between George Foster's Big Red Machine and Tony "Tiger" Perez's Detroit Tigers! Anything goes in a one game playoff as both teams will try and prevent it from being their last game of the year. Needless to say, both managers will be pulling the levers like it's their last game...
So let's get to it. The Redlegs took the season series five games to three, taking three of four in the Carverfront series. That being said the Reds won by three, four and two in that series. In fact in the eight regular season meetings, five were decided by three or less! Sweet sassy molassey this is fixin to be a good one! Let's take a quick look at the Tale of the Tape:
Head-to-Head
Tigers
Reds
Wins
3
5
ERA
4.74
4.21
WHIP
1.487
1.545
K/9
6.87
6.19
OBP
.346
.349
SLG
.421
.410
BA/RISP
.252
.312
Seems pretty evenly matched, so what will make the difference with everything on the line?
For the Tigers they will need to do their best to contain those big bats across the field. "More than Okay, Boomer" Scott has especially grabbed the kitties by the tail and here's the tail (see what I did there) of the tape on that to prove it... .556/.636/1.000 in 22 plate appearances.
Yikes! Overall though, this high powered offense has been somewhat kept in check by Tigers pitching, slugging just .410 over their eight games. They slugged .461 on the season as a team, so it's been a solid effort by the Tigers' arms. Of course that is stretched out over all Tigers pitching, but let's see how rumored game one starter, Ed "Figgy" Figueroa fared against the Machine.
Figgy has looked very respectable in his two outings against Cincy, posting a 3.45 ERA and a 1.38 WHIP and in the home outing he pitched a complete game, two hit, shutout! More importantly, Figgy allowed only one extra base hit and no dingers this season vs the Reds. In case you didn't know this, the Reds hit more dingers than any team in the league, while the Tigers had the honor of allowing the most dingers in the league. Are we set for some fireworks at Craverfront? Well, in eight games against the Tigers this season, the Reds hit 8 homers, five of those were surrendered, by...(drum roll, please) Bob Shirley you can't be serious. Except I am. Serious that is.
Now on the other side of things, the Tigers had more hits than any team in the league and have a nice .291/.346/.421 line against the Reds. Pudge Fisk, Tony the Tiger led the way, each with double digit hits in the season series! We don't know who will start for the Redlegs yet, but rumblings out of Cincy are pointing towards Rudy May, who not only has two quality starts against the Tiggers, but he's the only Red to have any quality starts against the Tigers!
Starters could be very important, as both bullpens have dealt with some inconsistency. A late season change by the Reds to insert Len Barker as the closer has been paying off this far, but, whoops, Barker was pretty ineffective against the Tigers on the season. Barker has faced 13 Tigers batter and allowed 7 hits, including four doubles. He also walked two, so nine of the 13 Tigers Barker has faced have reached base. Does Craver go with the recent regular season goodness, or put the ball in someone else's hands in crunch time, because of these eye-popping numbers? Let the overthinking begin!
On the other side, well, Dunford probably wants his starter to go as far as he can, or have a sizeable lead headed into the later innings. Kent Tekulve leads the bullpen with a 3.72 ERA. In fact, Tekulve and Rick Wise were the only Tigers on the regular season to post sub-four ERAs. That being said, it has been a different tale vs Craver's squad, and it's a tale less of woe and more of human triumph. LaGrow, Todd, and Wise have combimed for 10.2 scoreless innings out of the pen for the Tigers and Tekulve has only allowed a run over five innings worked. Looks like both managers could very well have some tough late inning decisions in this chess match for the ages!
Will Craver's Big Red Machine stay hot against the Tigers or will the tenacious Danny D have what it takes to advance?!
Tune in Wednesday and find out! Our prediction, Tigers 7-5
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