California Angels 1970

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11-9 in our next 20 games and we are now just 2 behind the Expos for the Wild Card, but now we are tied with the Mets, who went 16-4 in their last 20 to get into the race.

We are without Barron for 2 more weeks and more importantly, Seitzer for 1 more week. We have really started to hit well, moving up to 6th in the NL in runs and home runs.

....and after landing on the DL in May with a broken finger and just 279 AB's, Rickey Henderson is out for the year with a dislocated shoulder. We will see if that does anything to the Braves 8 games lead over us and the Expos.

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We went 9-11 in the next 20. but the Mets only went 10-10 and the Expos 8-12, so with 22 games to go, we are 1 game behind them both for the Wild Card, I am really excited by this season. We all have 3 games against each other, so we really have our own destiny in our hands.

Erstad is having an amazing rookie season. He's gone 21-for-35 in the last 9 games to raise his average to .333 and 5th in the league. He leads all rookies in average, slugging, .OPS, WAR, hits and total bases. He;s got a lock on rookie of the year.

We've had a lot of rain outs, so as a results we've had many doubleheaders so we've had to with 6 starters off and on. No more double headers the rest of the way.

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We hosted the 1st place Braves in the 1st 4 games of our home stretch and we were swept, which had us fall 3 games back and we were fighting up hill the rest of the way. In the 1st game, Seitzer selfishly charged the mound after being hit by a pitch and was suspended the rest of the series. Unforgivable when we are 1 game out of the wild card with 20 games to go. I was leaning towards offering the 33 year old UFA to be a new deal, but that selfish move may have single handedly cost us the playoffs.

Sure, he will hit about .300 and get on base, but is that worth the $3 million+ a year he wants when he can't be counted on when push comes to shove? I don't have unlimited payroll like I did in Los Angeles, and I can't afford to give that much to someone I can't count on.

We went 6-4 in the 10 games after being swept, but we still found ourselves 3 games out with 9 left, but we started our stretch against the Mets, who were just 1 game behind the Expos, and then the Expos themselves. We lost the 1st game to the Mets to fall 4 back, but we won the next 2 to back to within 3 games of the Expos with 3 game with them coming up. The last game of the Mets series was an 18 inning classic, so my club was tired.

Neither Jon Leiber or Jimmy Meadows were great, each allowing 5 runs in 5 innings, but the bullpens shut everything down until the 9th where Albert Belle hit a 3-run home run to give the Expos an 8-5 win and a 4 game lead with 5 to play.

In game 2, Jon Barnes went 8 strong innings and 8 different players had 1 RBI in an 8-2 win to claw to within 3 with 4 left.

In another must win game, Leibrandt had the worst start of his season giving up 5 runs in 3 innings and I decided I had to pinch hit for him early. Colon his a pinch-hit single as we made it 5-2. Tony Barron hit a pinch-hit 2 run home run in the 7th to bring us to 5-4 as our bullpen locked things down. In the bottom of the 9th and 1 out, Darin Erstad singled in Seitzer to tie things up at 5. And we played on and on tied at 5 until the 17th inning when Eduardo Perez hit a solo shot to keep us alive in a 6-5 win.

So, 2 games back with 3 to play gave us very little room for error. In our 1st game with the Phillies, we went 14 innings, meaning we played 74 innings in the last 5 games. Once again our bullpen was nails shutting down the Phillies after the 5th inning and we won 5-4 to keep us 2 games back as the Expos won again.

Andy Araujo went all 9 in a 3-1 win in game 161, but the Expos would not co-operate and we were eliminated with just 1 game to go in the season. We won another extra innings game in the finale for ****s and giggles, and I am pretty proud that we won 6 of 7 must win games to close the season out. Definitely would take this result at the start of the season, but I am bummed we just missed out.

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Before I go into the playoffs, Jeff King ended the season with a 31 game hitting streak, by far the longest streak I've had as a manager. He raised his average from .290 to .313 to close out a great season of .313/.370/.504 with 29 HR's and 106 RBI's.

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In my off-season update last year, I mentioned how the Braves responded to losing in game 7 of the World Series by signing Roger Clemens and Rickey Henderson, I failed to mention the Oakland A's responded to WINNING game 7 of the World Series by signing Barry Bonds. Keep that in mind.

The Angels went all-in to get the wild card and took the A's the distance in the 1st round losing in 5 as Bonds was the MVP of that series. The A's faced the Twins in the ALCS who took out the Orioles in 1st round in 4. In the NL, the Expos took advantage of winning the wild card from us by being swept by the Giants. The Braves easily dispatched the Cubs in 4 to make the NLCS again.

The A's made it back to their 2nd straight World Series by taking care of the Twins in 6 while the Braves massive spending went for naught as Gary Sheffield, Mo Vaughn and and Sammy Sosa and the Giants won in 6.

In the World Series, it came down to Game 7, top of the 9th inning and a tie game. With the bases loaded, Orlando Merced, just 4-for-26 in the World Series, hit a grand slam off Jay Aldrich to go down in history and the A's have won back-to-back titles. Jeff Blauser was named MVP and we head to the offseason.

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Post season award time:

AL
Cy Young-Angels-Jason Schmidt 18-9 3.19 ERA 5 WAR 275 K's
Rookie of the Year....AND MVP-Toronto-Alex Rodriguez .350/.389/.704 49 HR's
Reliever of the Year---Oakland Brent Carr 39 saves 1.95 ERA

NL
Cy Young-for the 5th time-Braves Roger Clemens 19-7 2.79 ERA 226 K 8.1 WAR and the pitching Triple Crown
MVP-for the 3rd time-Montreal-UFA to be Larry Walker .361/.419/.705 55 HR 11.2 WAR
Reliever of the Year-for the 3rd time-Mets Jeff Montgomery 40 saves 2.39 ERA
Rookie of the Year---own own Darin Erstad!---.333/.385/.483 9 HR 38 doubles 6 triples

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44 year old Fred Lynn is now the all-time leader in games played with 3155 and in total bases with 6177.

He hit .266/.391/.494 with 16 HR's in 328 AB's last year. He can still play and he is still REALLY highly rated.

At bats-2nd-19 behind Ty Cobb
Hits-3rd-655 behind Cobb
HR's-6th-139 behind Aaron
RBI-2nd-65 behind Ruth

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I made many changes to our coaching and front office staff in the offseason, we welcomed the following:

Assistant GM John Carr
Pitching Coach John Sielicki
Hitting Coach Joe Ascue
Scouting Director an 3 time Reliever of the Year Tug McGraw
Trainer Carlos Salazar

I know have a better group around me, these are all improvements from those they replaced. I need to make the playoffs this season, even though it's just our 4th season in existence. The owner said we need to make the playoffs, so that's what we will do. We've gone from 64-98, to 74-88 to 88-74 and just 2 games behind the Expos and the Wild Card. With Triple Crown winner Larry Walker an unrestricted free agent, it's very possible that spot is ours for the taking.

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The draft was full of underwhelming names, but you never know how the sim will play out:

Red Sox-Beltre (unsigned)
Rockies-Victor Martinez
Dodgers-Aramis Ramirez
Rangers-Jimmy Rollins
Reds-Brad Penny
Phillies-Mark Kotsay
Brewers-Hillinbrand
Padres-D'Angelo Jimenez
Yankees-Ted Lilly
Cardinals-Cristian Guzman

Picked 21st we took 17 year old pitcher Tony Armas Jr. I selected his father in the rule 5 draft 20 years ago and now I draft his kid. Hopefully he has a nice career like his father did

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As the off-season began, we had RF Robert Stiegle there after acquiring him on waivers last year and looked like he may be a decent player, but the Pirates put Geronimo Berroa on the block and we acquired his $2 million deal adding $1.5 million to the payroll, but the 30 year old just had a .310/.364/.533 season with 29 HR and 133 RBI, by far career highs in every category and we had to do it.

He's not a great fielder, so right now we have below average defense at the outfield corners and average in CF. If I move Erstad to LF, he's above average, but Varnell can only play LF, so I am stuck in this alignment unless I deal Varnell. I've looked into it, but his 162 game avg is .317/.358/.436 with 49 doubles.....and 159 strikeouts. If I can get a CF for him I will have to do it

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We lost 11 WAR to free agency, I decided to let Seitzer, Roskom and Leibrandt sign elsewhere. However, along with the trade for Berroa, we signed 32 year old Ozzie Guillen to a 1 year deal and we will slide Mike Bordick to his more natural 2nd base and improve our infield defense. Guillen is a career .291 hitter, but has trailed off the last 2 years. I just need him to hit .250 and play great SS.

We dealt AAA 1b Luis Gonzalez, blocked by Jeff King, to the Cardinals for RP Chris George. His ERA+ has been over 100 4 of 5 years and should be a solid addition to the pen.

We also added pitcher Bradley Metter in free agency to compete for the 5th spot in the rotation. He was a 20 game winner 5 years ago in Cincinnati, but he's been on 4 teams since then, the last 2 years primary out of the pen. Dave Otto will get another chance to get a spot in the rotation. If he could have been just an average starter last year we would have been a wild card team

Our roster is "happy" and we don't have a single person considered disruptive, outspoken, selfish or unmotivated. Trying to keep it that way

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As expected, Larry Walker left the Expos. Our main competitor for the Wild Card lost the most WAR in the offseason losing 18 WAR to free agency. Walker's 12 WAR went for $60 million for 8 years from the Orioles, who want to make the leap from playoff team to World Series team.

They also lost over 30 wins in David Cone, Jon Leiber and Wally Whitehurst. They are not going to be a threat this year. The Astros were just behind us last year and they added a few arms, so I think they are main competition for us and the wild card. I can't see us challenging the Braves for the division.

In addition to Walker, the Orioles signed John Kruk and starter Ken Hill to try to push them over the hump and were the winners of the off season.

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I normally wait until we've played more than 3 games, but we've had an interesting 3 games.

Opening night, Israel Frias opened our account with a solo home run in the bottom of the 2nd and Jon Barnes and Matt Morris pitched well and we were tied at 2 after 9. The Pirates scratched a run across in the 10th, but Frias walked us off with a 2-run shot to give us a 4-3 win.

In game 2, Erstad led off the game with a home run and 6 Marlins had at least 2 hits in a 6-0 win. Jimmy Meadows went the distance allowing just 7 hits walking 2. Jeff King had 2 of the hits, upping his hit streak to 34 games.

In game 3, Frias hit home run #3 of the season in the 4th to make it 2-0. In the 6th, Frias hit home run #4 of the season, his 2nd of the game to put us up 4-0 with a 2-run shot. In the bottom of the 8th with 2 outs and his hit streak of 34 games on the line, Jeff King hit a solo home run to right to give him a 35 game hitting streak. And then Frias hit home run #5 of the season, his 3rd of the game and we were up 7-0. And despite his 3 home runs, Frias was not player of the game.

That's because Will Cunnane threw a no-hitter.

3 games in, we are 3-0 with a no-hitter, Frias with 5 home runs and a 35-game hit streak for King.

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I'd normally wait until game 20, but with Jeff King's hitting streak now at 43 games, just 2 games short of Wee Willie Keeler's NL best 45 game streak, I thought I would update. In my world, Pete Rose never had his 44 game streak, so this is the longest streak since DiMaggio's streak. Very improbable for a career .272 hitter

We are 8-5, 1 game out of first in the competitive NL East. We are 1st in pitching and 6th in runs with Israel Frias slugging 7 HR's so far. We have 4 starters with ERA's under 3 and 2 under 2. That won't continue, but it's a good start

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In his 1st AB against 2-time Cy Young Award winner William Jester, King grounded a 2-0 pitch to short for a 6-3 putout.

WIth 2 outs in the 4th, King walked on a 3-2 pitch.

Leading off the 7th and down 1-0, King lined a 0-1 pitch between 3rd and short and his streak is now at 45 games!

The downside is Jester ended up throwing a 7-hit shutout on 95 pitches to beat us 1-0.

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The next game in Atlanta had King up in the 1st with 2 on and 1 out facing Scott Bankhead and King popped out to right.

Down 3-0 in the 3rd after a mammoth Brian Giles home run, King timed a curveball perfectly and launched his 4th home run into the left field stands 399 feet away to make the game 3-2 and tie Keeler with a 46 game hitting streak.

Amazing

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His next match up was against 5 time Cy Young winner Roger Clemens.

Leading off the 2nd, King crushed a 3-2 pitch off the center field wall for a triple as he extended his hit streak to 47 games now......unbelievable.

He also hit a 2-run homer in the 10th to give us a win.....what a run he is on

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Kings' next game was at home against the Dodgers and rookie righty Ronnie Walden. Leading off the 2nd he drew a full count walk, but the game was scoreless in the bottom of the 2nd when with 2 outs, he flew out to CF Randy Winn.

With 2 outs in the 5th, King took the 1st pitch the other way over 1B Mickey Morandini's head for a double to extend his streak to 48 games.

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The last game of the Dodgers series had us facing 22 year old Jose Sliva as King tried to make it 49 games in row.

Leading off in the 2nd, he draw a 3-2 walk which came to nothing and we were scoreless going into the 3rd. With 2 outs, Baerga and Berroa drew walks to bring up King who lined a 1-2 pitch into left for a 2-run single to give us a 2-0 lead and give him a 49 game streak!

He also singled in the bottom of the 7th to tie things back up at 4 and we went on to win 5-4 to bring us to 12-7 and tied for 1st.

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The Padres came to town as King tried to become the 2nd player to ever reach a 50-game hitting streak. The Padres sent Brian Young, 14 game winner for them last year to try to stop it.

After a 2-out Baerga single in the first, King hit a rope towards right, but Walt Weiss made a diving play to get King at 1st to end the inning.

After a Frias homer in the 2nd, King came up to lead off the 4th up 1-0 and lined a 2-2 fastball right back up the middle for a single and a 50 game hitting streak.

50 games!!!!!

Our bullpen lost another lead. The bullpen era is 11th while our starters are 1st. We need to find a solution. Fortunately, Baerga knocked in a run in the bottom of the 10th to send us to 13-7 and 1st place in the east.