So after having some New Year celebration brownies with the wife... no, not those kind of brownies. It was time for me to dive back into my 1978 A.L. Replay. It's May 15th, and I already played the Yankees-White Sox & Athletics-Indians game the night before, which left the following games all pre-prepped and ready-to-go....
- Seattle (G.Abbott / D-Z) at Detroit (Slaton / C)
- Boston (Ripley / D-Z) at Kansas City (Gale / B-YW)
- Baltimore (De.Martinez / B-Y) at Minnesota (R.Erickson / C-YZ)
- Milwaukee (Travers / C) at Texas (Jenkins / B-XZZ)
- California (K.Brett / D) at Toronto (Garvin / D-Z)
The Seattle Mariners would go on to defeat the Detroit Tigers, 4-1, with Glenn Abbott having his best game of the season, allowing 7 hits, 1 run & 1 walk through 7 frames. Rupert Jones batted 3-for-5 with a triple, RBI & run. The Mariners (17-19) are currently 5 games ahead of their real-life pace, I believe the major factor is that Bruce Bochte (.336, 4 HR & 30 RBI) has had an amazing start to the season. Another reason, while I do play real-life starting lineup players and use real-life game starting pitchers -- I do make my own lineups with those actual starters. Case in point, I am in no way going to bat DH-Leroy Stanton in the clean-up slot, when he batted only .182 with 3 HR & 24 RBI in 93 games for the 1978 MLB Season, not to mention his piss-pour .514 OPS.
The Tigers (16-12) have now lost 6 of their last 9 games. At the end of the day, Detroit is still in 2nd place, but are now 3 games back, after an 8-3 start.
The 1st place Boston Red Sox entered the day with an American League best 22-11 record, but had to face the Kansas City Royals in K.C. with Allen Ripley on the mound. Ripley is now reflecting his Grade D-Z card, after a 1-1, 2.70 ERA start in his first 20 innings of work. The Royals would score 8 runs between the 5th & 7th innings, with Hal McRae's three-run homer breaking the game open 7-1, after the 6th. Tom Poquette's two-run single in the 7th would make it 9-1.
Rich Gale made things a little too interesting for the Royals. The scoreboard may have reflected 1 run allowed through 8 innings, but he was far from perfect, and kept escaping big opportunities for Boston hitters. By the time the 9th inning came along, Gale's luck ran out, allowing a RBI triple to Jerry Remy, which was followed by back-to-back walks to Jim Rice and Carl Yastrzemski. With two outs, and the bases loaded, Carlton Fisk cleared the bases with a double. The Royals' skipper saw enough, and brought in Marty Pattin, in a non-save situation, 9-5 lead with a runner on second. Pattin would go on to strikeout Dwight Evans.
Gale (2-1, 4.57) would go on to earn the ugly win, allowing 11 hits, 5 earned runs & 7 walks, while striking out 4 players from Boston. Ripley falls to 1-3 with a 4.95 ERA.
For Boston, it might be an encouraging sign to see Fisk go 2-for-4 with a BB, 3 RBI & SB during the game. The hits got his batting average over the .200 mark (now at .207), while he finally got over 10 RBI (11)... but his OPS is still just a smidge below .600 for the season.
The 3rd game of the morning was between the Baltimore Orioles (15-15) and the Minnesota Twins (14-19). Pat Kelly back in action for the Orioles, got things rolling early with his 1st home run of the season, a two-run blast off Roger Erickson, to make it 2-0. Doug DeCinces would hit his 12th home run of the season, a two-run homer, giving Baltimore a 4-0 lead through 6 innings. DeCinces' 12 home runs, trails only Oakland's Gary Alexander (13).... Yes, you read that correctly.
The Orioles' Dennis Martinez was cruising through seven shutout innings, getting a grade-bump to an Grade A in the process, but would get touched up in the 8th, allowing a lead-off single & stolen base to Rob Wilfong. Three batters later, Roy Smalley (with 2 outs) would smack a two-run homer, which was then followed up with a solo home run to Mike Cubbage. The game was suddenly 5-3 Orioles, but Martinez would finish the inning without allowing any more damage, while Don Stanhouse (3 blown saves this season) actually slammed the door for his 5th save.
Smalley's home run is already his 7th of the season (through 34 games), while his 3 RBI now moved him past teammate Dan Ford (22) for the team lead in RBI (24). Smalley in real-life 1978 hit 19 HR & 77 RBI... The replay has him on pace for 33 HR & 112 RBI.
The O's Martinez improves to 6-2 with a 3.42 ERA & 51 strikeouts through 68.1 innings, while Erickson has had no luck, falling to 1-7 with a 4.83 ERA.
The Texas Rangers defeated the Milwaukee Brewers, 6-3 -- Thanks to strong pitching by Fergie Jenkins. Jenkins allowed a two-run homer in the 1st to Sal Bando, then Bando tacked on another run in the 3rd with a sac fly, to give Milwaukee a 3-2 lead at the time... but Jenkins settled on down, not allowing another run through the next 6 innings, earning his 1st complete game victory of the season. The season has not been kind to Jenkins (2-1, 5.63 now) or the Rangers. The Rangers were 8-18 at the end of the day on May 12th, but has now won a season-best three straight games, lifting their record to 11-18.
The Rangers in real-life actually started off slow with a 3-10 record, but then woke up and won seven straight games. The Rangers' hitters in the replay have finally been coming around with Al Oliver, Richie Zisk and others batting much better, and good things are on the horizon with Bobby Bonds arriving any day now (acquired from the White Sox in exchange for Claudell Washington). The real-life Rangers finished in 2nd place tied with the California Angels at 87-75. At the moment though, the A.L. West Division is between the Royals and the Angels, both at 19-12 at the end of the day. Angels lost, Royals won.
The Angels would lose to the sad Toronto Blue Jays (10-21). The Blue Jays scored 5 runs in the 1st inning, sending up 10 batters. Ken Brett was lousy, while other Grade D pitcher Jerry Garvin (1-4, 5.66 ERA) would win his 1st game of the season. Tony Bosetti who led off all season was moved down to the 6th slot for the game, and hit a two-run triple and RBI sac fly. The Angels have slowed down of late (particularly their lineup), losing 5 of their last 6 games, while in all 6 games they have scored 2 runs or less.
That concludes a day of 1978 A.L. Replay action, I hope you enjoyed reading the latest. We still have a long way to finish 1978, but it's been a lot of fun so far.
Wasn't Rich Gale the super tall guy? Like 6-7? I think he was.
ReplyDeleteTell Rupert Jones to take it easy on his future team!
I actually said something like that to the card, I was like c'mon man... Why?! He played in another game earlier against us, I believe in Seattle and had a good game there as well.
Deleteps--you know this is Shay, right?
ReplyDeleteYes, I follow your blogs as well.
Delete