THE HOT CORNER
Baseball coverage from the inside Sacramento Prayers and the FBL
By Claude Playball | Baseball Insider & Analyst | Host, "Hot Corner" Podcast
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October 6 October 9, 1992 | American League West Division Series: Sacramento Prayers vs. Fort Worth Spirits
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SWEEP. RUBALCAVA IS THE MVP. RUIZ IS COMING. AND WE HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT ESPENOZA THAT CANNOT WAIT.
Three games, three wins. Zero days off for the Sacramento Prayers, who dispatched the Fort Worth Spirits with the kind of methodical, rotation-first efficiency that has defined this franchise since April. The Prayers are American League Division Series champions, and Jordan Rubalcava who else was named the series MVP with a 0.00 ERA over nine innings pitched and a complete game shutout in the opener that set the tone for everything that followed.
"Hopefully we can do it all again in the League Championship Series," Rubalcava said after the clincher.
Nine words. A series MVP award. A 0.00 ERA. The man remains constitutionally incapable of waste in any form.
Boston is next. The Messiahs won their Division Series against Columbus Heaven 3-1, clinching with a 1-0 victory at Columbus Grounds in the deciding game. Their left fielder Rogelio Ruiz fifty regular season home runs, 137 RBIs, the new single-season record holder was named series MVP after hitting .467 with a home run and three RBI against the Heaven. "See the ball, hit the ball," Ruiz said afterward. "It's simple what I did this series." The League Championship Series begins Monday at Cathedral Stadium, and this column has a great deal to say about what the Division Series revealed before we turn the page entirely.
Let us start at the beginning.
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THE WEST DIVISION SERIES: GAME BY GAME
Game 1 Tuesday, October 6th: Sacramento 5, Fort Worth 0
The first postseason game in Cathedral Stadium since this franchise's last championship run drew 23,790 fans into the building, and they were given a performance that will be discussed for years. Jordan Rubalcava threw a nine-inning complete game shutout four hits, zero walks, five strikeouts, 115 pitches, a game score of 84 and the Fort Worth Spirits never came close to putting a run on the board. Rubalcava retired the side in order four times. He allowed a runner to reach third base exactly once all game, on a Schultz single in the fifth followed by a fly out. He was, in a word, Rubalcava.
The offense gave him all the support he needed in the first inning, when Francisco Hernandez batting leadoff in the postseason deposited a Wil Alzate fastball into the left-center seats for a solo homer 425 feet from home plate. Lopez's sac fly in the second made it 2-0. Lopez and Torres both doubled in the seventh to extend the lead to 3-0, and a two-run eighth Baldelomar stealing second, J. Rodriguez singling, Hernandez reaching on a fielder's choice, and Cruz's sac fly doing the final accounting closed it at 5-0.
Wil Alzate threw eight complete innings for Fort Worth and took the loss, surrendering all five runs on six hits while walking three. He did not deserve that outcome against any ordinary opponent. Rubalcava named Player of the Game. The series was 1-0 Sacramento before most of the country had finished their Tuesday evening dinner.
Game 2 Wednesday, October 7th: Sacramento 6, Fort Worth 4
This was the game that tested the Prayers and the game that revealed something important about the depth of this roster beyond its top of the rotation.
Bernardo Andretti carried a shutout into the fifth inning before Fort Worth woke up in the most damaging way possible. Caballaro doubled, Gomez doubled him home, Guerrero singled home Gomez with a ball through the right side, and then a Cruz error allowed a second run to score on the same Guerrero single, making it 3-0 Fort Worth in a frame Andretti could not escape cleanly. Sacramento had been held scoreless through four innings by the lefthander John Gillon, who kept the Prayers off balance with breaking balls in situations where they were looking for fastballs.
Then the bottom of the fifth arrived and Sacramento reminded everyone why this team wins 106 games. Alonzo doubled to lead off. Baldelomar singled him to third. Jose Rodriguez the twenty-two-year-old third baseman from San Pedro de Macorνs who has quietly become one of the most reliable clutch hitters on this roster singled to left to score Alonzo, and then Francisco Hernandez singled home Baldelomar to make it 3-2. Just like that, a three-run deficit was a one-run deficit, and the momentum had shifted.
The go-ahead run came in the seventh on a sequence that deserves full accounting. Alonzo singled. Baldelomar doubled him to third. Rodriguez again, Rodriguez laced a single to center, scoring Alonzo and Baldelomar in the same motion as Fort Worth's throw home arrived a half-second late. 4-3 Sacramento, and Rodriguez had three RBI on the day from the seven spot in the order. Andretti threw 7.2 innings, allowed three runs with two earned, and was named Player of the Game with the kind of workmanlike excellence that his "satisfied" vocabulary has always precisely described. His post-game assessment: "We took advantage of our opportunities. It's as simple as that."
David Perez then put the game away in the eighth with a two-run homer off Gillon his first postseason home run, deposited 346 feet into the left field seats after MacDonald had singled and Cruz had singled ahead of him. Prieto came in for the save and gave up a Reza solo homer in the ninth a cosmetic run in a 6-4 final that nonetheless reactivated every concern this column carries about the closer in high-leverage situations.
One more note on Game 2, and it deserves its own paragraph: Sacramento was caught stealing four times. Cruz, MacDonald, Torres, and Baldelomar all ran into outs on the bases in a single game. Four. In a playoff game against a team that is still breathing. This is the Prayers' most dangerous baserunning team in years, and on Wednesday night they ran themselves out of two innings that might have produced runs before the offense eventually solved Gillon through force of hitting rather than speed. Aces will have noticed. The series moved to 2-0 regardless, but the baserunning was the one element of the evening that cannot be filed away as acceptable.
Game 3 Friday, October 9th: Sacramento 4, Fort Worth 3
The clinching game in Fort Worth was the least comfortable win of the three, and it raised the one question this column will spend the next section examining at length.
Mario Espenoza gave up nine hits in six innings. Nine. The left-hander who posted a 0.89 WHIP during the regular season, who threw a complete game shutout against Fort Worth on September 17th, allowed Fort Worth to touch him for nearly a hit per inning and gave up three earned runs before Aces lifted him with a runner on second and one out in the seventh. His game score was 44. His postseason ERA is now 4.50. We will come back to this.
The saving grace was the offense, which jumped on Fort Worth's Willie Varela in the first two innings. Hernandez doubled to lead off the game and scored on a MacDonald single. Baldelomar hit a solo homer in the second a beautiful 411-foot drive to right-center and Sacramento led 2-0 before Espenoza's command issues made that lead feel smaller than it looked on the scoreboard. Fort Worth tied it in the fourth on a Schultz two-run double that cleared the bases, and took the lead in the fifth on a Pianta single that scored Chavez following a walk to Benoldi.
St. Clair entered in the seventh with a runner on second and held the threat. Scott got one out in the eighth. Then Prieto closed cleanly in the ninth three ground balls, zero drama for his second save of the series.
The winning rally came in the eighth off Matt Kaplan. Murguia pinch-hit a single to right. Lopez singled him to second. Cruz reached on a fielder's choice, Murguia advancing to third. MacDonald's sac fly scored Murguia to tie it. Then Iniguez pinch hitting, delivering in the clutch singled to center to score Cruz and give Sacramento the lead they would not surrender. Two runs in the eighth, manufactured on contact and smart baserunning and the willingness to put the bat on the ball in a pressure situation.
Named Player of the Game: Willie Varela. The Fort Worth starter. For the fourth time this postseason and the I-have-lost-count time this season, the opposing pitcher receives the individual recognition in a Sacramento victory. Varela threw seven innings of two-run ball and deserved every word of the tribute. The Prayers simply wanted it more in the eighth inning.
Sacramento wins the series 3-0. Rubalcava named series MVP. The Prayers advance to the American League Championship Series.
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WHAT THE DIVISION SERIES REVEALED
The Espenoza Question
This column will not bury the lead. Mario Espenoza gave up nine hits in six innings against the team he shut out completely three weeks ago on the same pitching rubber. His postseason ERA of 4.50 is not the number of the pitcher who led the American League in ERA efficiency all season. His WHIP of 1.67 in Game 3 is not the pitcher with a 0.89 regular season WHIP. And Fort Worth, with respect to the Spirits, is not Boston.
Espenoza is 29 years old, has thrown 218 regular season innings, and has been one of the five best pitchers in baseball in 1992. The nine-hit game may be nothing more than a single bad outing in a career full of good ones the same kind of individual anomaly that produced Andretti's two September disasters before his Seattle redemption. The question is whether it represents something more. Whether the innings are accumulating in his arm the way innings accumulate in all arms given sufficient time and stress. Whether something in his mechanics has tightened, or whether Friday night in Fort Worth was simply a baseball game where a good pitcher got hit and the team won anyway.
Boston hit .265 as a team during the regular season. Boston has Ruiz. Boston has Goldsberry. Boston has Hernandez in right field with four postseason RBI. If the nine-hit game in Fort Worth represents a physical issue rather than a one-off performance, Aces needs to know it before he sends Espenoza to the mound in a seven-game series against the most dangerous lineup Sacramento has faced all year.
St. Clair: The Unacknowledged Hero
Danny St. Clair entered Game 3 in the seventh inning with Sacramento trailing 3-2, a runner on second, and one out. He retired the next three batters and then worked around a Gomez single in the eighth before Scott got the final out. St. Clair received the win. He earned the win. He has been the most reliably excellent arm in this bullpen for three months, and his postseason ERA of 0.00 across 1.2 innings tells an incomplete story of what he has been asked to do and how completely he has done it. When the LCS is analyzed, the conversation will center on Rubalcava versus Marin and Ruiz versus the Sacramento defense. St. Clair will receive approximately three sentences in the national coverage. Those sentences will be wrong to undercount him.
Rodriguez: The Quiet Revelation
Jose Rodriguez is hitting .400 in this postseason with three RBI, and both of his biggest hits came in seventh-inning go-ahead situations in Games 1 and 2. He is twenty-two years old and has spent the postseason turning a quiet solid regular season into a statement of October readiness. If the Prayers advance, Rodriguez is going to be one of the reasons.
Baldelomar's Emergence
Rafael Baldelomar is hitting .444 in the postseason with a homer and an .889 slugging percentage. He has been the most productive bat in the lineup across three games reaching base consistently, driving runners in, and providing the kind of professional at-bats that keep innings alive past the point where lesser hitters would make the third out. He started the season as a reserve outfielder. He is ending it as one of Sacramento's most dependable playoff contributors.
Cruz: A Quiet Series
Gil Cruz went 1-for-8 with three walks in the Division Series, posting a .125 average and a .458 OPS. The man who hit .269 with 22 home runs and 41 stolen bases during the regular season did not find his footing against Fort Worth. The walks tell you the competitive instincts are intact. But the hits were not coming, and Boston will test him differently and with better pitching. Whether Cruz finds his October rhythm in the LCS is one of the more important individual questions this series will answer.
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LOOKING AHEAD: BOSTON MESSIAHS
The American League Championship Series begins Monday at Cathedral Stadium. Sacramento's 3-3 regular season record against Boston is the first data point anyone reaches for, and it is an honest one these teams are evenly matched when they have faced each other, and neither roster carries a structural advantage over the other.
Except for one name.
Rogelio Ruiz hit .467 with a home run and three RBI against Columbus. He set the single-season home run record this year at 50. He drove in 137 runs and scored 106. He was the series MVP in a Division Series that Boston won in four games, closing it out with a 1-0 victory in Columbus on the road. When Ruiz said afterward that it was simple see the ball, hit the ball he was describing something that is only simple when you are Rogelio Ruiz and the ball looks the size of a cantaloupe regardless of who is throwing it. He is the most dangerous individual offensive threat this Sacramento pitching staff will face this October, and the way Rubalcava, Espenoza, Andretti, and Salazar attack him will define this series more than any single tactical decision Aces makes from the dugout.
The Boston rotation is legitimate. Marin at 21-5 with a 2.57 ERA is their ace and Sacramento will face him Monday in Game 1. His postseason ERA of 5.14 offers thin comfort one difficult start against Columbus does not define a 21-win pitcher. Moran is 5-2 with a 2.08 ERA and is listed as hot with a 1.27 ERA in his last three outings. Jung went 16-6 in the regular season. LaComb is 10-7 with a 0.71 ERA in his last two starts. Their closer Lett has a 0.00 ERA in the postseason, has allowed one hit in four innings of October work, and converted two saves against Columbus. This is not a rotation or a bullpen that Sacramento can expect to tag for five runs a game on any given night.
Sacramento's own personnel situation at shortstop remains the most unsettled element on their roster. Carlos Orozco is listed day-to-day with back stiffness of unknown duration a more ominous designation than the timetables this column has seen in previous weeks and his presence or absence in the starting lineup against Marin on Monday is genuinely uncertain. His regular season OPS of .328 tells the story of a player being managed carefully rather than deployed freely. The rotation around him at short Rodriguez at third, Torres at second, Cruz covering has been functional. Whether it remains functional against Marin, Moran, and Jung for seven games is the question October will now force.
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AROUND THE LEAGUE
The other Division Series results are in and the bracket is set.
In the National League, Charlotte disposed of Philadelphia 3-1, winning the final game 8-5 at PETCO Park. Josh Dennison was named series MVP with a .400 average, a home run, four RBI and three runs scored. "I was seeing the ball well and glad to help my team out and get us to the League Championship Series," he said a sentiment that, while unremarkable in its phrasing, accurately describes a first baseman who was the most consistent offensive performer of the four-team NL bracket. The Monks, who won 102 games, are the prohibitive NL favorite entering the League Championship round.
Their opponent will be Las Vegas, who swept Albuquerque 3-0 and won the final game 5-2. Romuald Leptio was named series MVP with a .455 batting average, a .500 on-base percentage, a home run, five RBI and a run scored. Las Vegas, which entered the postseason as the NL's first wildcard team, has now swept a division winner and heads into the Charlotte series as the decided underdog. Ed Holt's bullpen work almost certainly contributed to holding Albuquerque's offense in check across three games. The Charlotte-Las Vegas series will be worth watching for anyone who believes that October baseball has a way of making regular season records irrelevant.
Boston's 1-0 clincher at Columbus Grounds is worth one additional note. A 1-0 road win in a deciding game is the kind of performance that tells you everything about a team's October mentality the pitching held, the defense held, the one run was enough and everyone in that dugout knew it was going to be. Columbus, who swept Sacramento in September and carried a 4-2 season record advantage over the Prayers, is going home. The team Sacramento could not solve in three September games will not factor into this October. That is worth acknowledging before we move on entirely.
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CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON
Ruiz Against This Rotation
Game 1 on Monday matches Sacramento against Eddie Marin, who is 21-5 with a 2.57 ERA. Rubalcava will start for Sacramento. Two aces, one game, Cathedral Stadium. Whatever else happens this series, Monday night is the appointment.
But the dominant tactical puzzle of this series is not about Monday's pitching matchup. It is about what happens every time Rogelio Ruiz steps to the plate for the next seven games. He batted .467 against Columbus. He hit fifty home runs in the regular season. He drove in 137 runs. He is the best hitter alive right now and he is going to face Rubalcava, Espenoza, Andretti, and Salazar in sequence across whatever length this series runs. The historical record of how this Sacramento pitching staff handles elite left-handed power hitters is not a long one. We are about to find out what it looks like.
The Espenoza Situation, Revisited
I raised Espenoza's Game 3 performance in the body of this column and I am raising it again here because it warrants the repetition. Nine hits against Fort Worth. A 4.50 postseason ERA. A 1.67 WHIP in a single start against a team he had previously shut out completely. If that performance reflects a physical issue rather than a one-off, Aces needs to know it before Game 2 or 3 of a seven-game series against the best lineup Sacramento has seen all year. The bullpen session before Monday will tell Aces more than anything I can write. I hope whoever is watching is paying very close attention.
The Baserunning Amnesia
Four caught stealings in Game 2. I said it earlier and I will say it once more before letting it rest with the Fort Worth series. This team stole 278 bases this year through intelligence, not just speed. Game 2 was too aggressive, too poorly timed, against a catcher who was ready for it. Against Boston's pitching staff, running into outs is not a recoverable situation the way it was against Gillon. The green light should be earned game by game, inning by inning, read by read. The lesson of Wednesday must carry forward.
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MAILBAG The Hot Corner audience has questions, Claude Playball has answers.
From Consuelo Abaroa-Vidal of Rancho Cordova, writing on stationery she describes as "the good stuff, reserved for Division Series championships": "We swept them. Rubalcava threw a complete game shutout. I am not sure I have the vocabulary for what I am feeling. Help me find it."
Consuelo, the vocabulary exists and it is this: earned. Everything about this sweep was earned. The complete game shutout was earned through 281 regular season innings of preparation. The Rodriguez clutch singles were earned through the kind of professional at-bat approach that twenty-two-year-olds develop in batting cages at ten o'clock at night when nobody is watching. The Baldelomar home run in Game 3 was earned through a reserve outfielder deciding that the postseason was his moment and taking it completely. You can feel all of those things at once. The good stationery was appropriate.
From Wendell Farquhar of West Sacramento, a retired high school baseball coach who writes that he has been following this team "since the building had a different name and the beer cost less": "Four caught stealings in Game 2. As someone who spent thirty years coaching baserunning, I need you to explain that to me."
Wendell, I cannot fully explain it, but I can describe it. Gillon had a quick delivery. The Fort Worth catcher was reading the runners well. And Sacramento a team that has built its identity on intelligent baserunning chose Game 2 of the Division Series to run on instinct rather than calculation, and paid for it four times. The team that led the league with 278 stolen bases this year did not steal them through recklessness. They stole them through preparation and timing. On Wednesday, the timing was wrong. As a thirty-year coaching veteran, you already understand everything I just said. I am sorry I cannot give you a better answer. The four caught stealings are simply what happens when the best baserunning team in the league has a bad baserunning night. It should not happen again against Boston. It cannot happen against Boston.
From Marco Delfinetti of Sacramento, age fourteen, writing his first-ever letter to this column after his father gave him a radio so he could listen to the road games: "Is Rubalcava the best pitcher who has ever lived?"
Marco, that is the right question asked at the right moment by exactly the right kind of fan. The honest answer is that the historical record is long and the competition for that title is fierce, and I will not make a claim that a fourteen-year-old listening to a radio in Sacramento should be the one to settle definitively. What I will tell you is this: in 1992, in the American League, in the games that have mattered most, Jordan Rubalcava has been the best pitcher alive. Keep listening to the radio, Marco. What comes next is going to be worth every minute.
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Boston Messiahs. Cathedral Stadium. Monday, October 12th. Rubalcava versus Marin. Rogelio Ruiz and his fifty home runs against the best pitching staff in the American League. The League Championship Series is here.
Got a question for the mailbag? Find the Hot Corner wherever you get your podcasts.
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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.