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1991 baseball

1991 Texas Rangers: Pretty Good…But Frustrating

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The tenure of Bobby Valentine in Texas had been a pretty good, albeit frustrating one. Valentine arrived in 1986 and turned a franchise that rarely contended into one that won 87 games. Then the Rangers slipped back under. 500 for two seasons. Valentine grinded his way back to the right side of .500 with 83-win campaigns in 1989 and 1990. The 1991 Texas Rangers spent half the season looking ready to break that mold before a second-half fade left them out of the postseason money again.

A fatal decision was made in the offseason, when 43-year-old knuckleballer Charlie Hough was allowed to walk. Hough not only continued to be productive, he did so for a key division rival in the Chicago White Sox (prior to 1994, there were only two divisions per league and the AL West included Chicago, Minnesota and Kansas City, along with Texas, Oakland, California and Seattle).

Meanwhile, Valentine struggled to piece together a consistent rotation. The ageless Nolan Ryan was still good and at age 44 he went 12-6 with a 2.91 ERA. Jose Guzman had a nice year, winning 13 games with a 3.08 ERA. But the only starter to make more than 30 starts was Kevin Brown, and he struggled to a 4.40 ERA.

The rest of the rotation was slapdash, with Valentine having to make it up as he went. Everyone from Bobby Witt to Oil Can Boyd got a shot, but no one emerged. Nor was the bullpen a lot better. The middle relief and setup group was a mess. Jeff Russell was a nice closer, saving 30 games with a 3.29 ERA. But the Rangers still ended up 11th in the 14-team American League for staff ERA.

What this Texas team could do was hit. Juan Gonzalez, the leftfielder with two MVP trophies in his future, was emerging and he hit 27 homers with 109 RBIs. Ruben Sierra was even better in right—a stat line of .357 on-base percentage/.502 slugging percentage, 25 home runs and 116 ribbies.

The theme of strength at the corners continued at first base, where Rafael Palmeiro’s stat line was .389/.532. He hit 26 home runs of his own. Steve Buechele was respectable at third base at .335/.447.

Brian Downing had been picked up as a free agent, snagged away from the Angels. Downing might have been 40-years-old, but he posted a stat line of .377/.455 and held down the DH job. And 32-year-old Julio Franco at second was brilliant. Franco won the batting title with an average of .341 and finished with a .408/.474 stat line.

Have we forgotten anyone? How about Kevin Reimer coming off the bench and popping 20 home runs of his own. No one in the American League scored more runs than Texas did.

The Rangers played mediocre baseball through the first month and a half, and were sitting on a 12-14 record going into the week of May 13. Then they picked up the pace. Home sweeps of mediocre Detroit and contending Boston pushed Texas over .500 and sent them to Minnesota for a series that began on May 21.

Buechele keyed a balanced attack in Tuesday night’s opener. His two-run homer helped Russell inherit a 6-5 lead in the eighth and the closer nailed down the last four outs. On Wednesday, Texas trailed 2-1 in the top of the ninth. Sierra worked a walk, stole second and eventually scored the tying run on a sac fly. The evening went to the 12th inning. Palmeiro’s RBI double broke the 2-2 tie. Gonzalez’s two-out/two-run singled provided the insurance in the 5-2 win.

More extra innings awaited in Thursday afternoon’s getaway finale. In a 5-5 game in the 11th, Sierra came up with the bases loaded. He cleared them with a double. The game ultimately ended 10-6 and Texas had a sweep.

And they kept rolling, going to Seattle and winning three straight. By Memorial Day, the Rangers were 24-14 and on top of the AL West. Oakland, who had won the last three American League pennants, was only a half-game back. California was 2 ½ off the pace and Seattle was 3 ½ back.

Only the division winners could advance to the postseason prior to 1994, so there was no room to stumble. But stumble is what Texas did coming out of the holiday weekend. They lost a home series to Minnesota, who was starting to turn on the juice. That began a 2-10 stretch.

The Rangers rebounded by taking three of four at home from Chicago, another team that was starting to move up the standings. But in an AL West that was baseball’s best division, Texas was now in fifth place, six games out when they went to Oakland on June 25.

Facing the A’s tough ace, Dave Stewart, in Tuesday’s opener, Gonzalez ripped a three-run homer. Guzman went the distance and won 6-1. On Wednesday night it was Brown’s turn to pitch well and benefit from an offensive outburst. Buechele drove in four runs and the Rangers won 8-1. Buechele came through again in the Thursday afternoon series finale. His three-run homer keyed a late-inning offensive surge that led to a 9-6 win.

Texas was back in gear and this sweep started a 9-4 run that took them into the All-Star break. At 44-33, they were tied for the AL West lead with Minnesota. Chicago, Oakland and California were all in hot pursuit.

The Dallas area might be excited for football season, with Jimmy Johnson’s Cowboys coming into their own, but there was the prospect of pennant race baseball to at least keep an eye on. Unfortunately for the Rangers, the late summer is often cruel to teams that don’t have pitching. And so it was in 1991.

Texas was swept by eventual AL East champ Toronto out of the break. That began a 3-8 stretch and with the Twins starting a surge that would take them all the way to a World Series title, the Rangers quickly fell five back. They played up-and-down baseball throughout August, the low point coming when Texas lost seven of eight games to mediocre teams in Milwaukee and Baltimore.

By Labor Day, the Rangers’ record was a respectable 68-61. Had they been in the AL East, it would have been within 3 ½ games of the lead and plenty of time to recover. In the competitive AL West, it had them 9 ½ back and in fourth place.

Texas stabilized in September and finished 85-77. It was still the fourth-best record in the American League, meaning that by today’s standards, it was a playoff-caliber team. Perhaps more than any other team in the Valentine era of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ’91 Rangers symbolized both being pretty good…and also pretty frustrating.

When 1992 was shaping up as more of the same, with a 45-41 record, Valentine was sent packing. In 1993, Texas contended again, but fell short. It took the realignment of 1994 and the expansion of each league into three divisions for the Rangers to reach the playoffs. They were in first place at the strike in ’94 (albeit ten games under .500). And in 1996, they started a run of three AL West titles in four years.

1991 Chicago White Sox: Not Quite Over The Hump

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The 1991 Chicago White Sox came into the season looking to build off what had been a strong breakout year in 1990. The White Sox made some moves. But though those moves would ultimately bear fruit, and though this ’91 edition was pretty good, it wasn’t enough to get over the hump and back into the playoffs.

Chicago made a big trade with the Montreal Expos (today’s Washington Nationals) prior to the season. The White Sox moved Ivan Calderon, one of the game’s better outfielders, along with a good middle reliever in Barry Jones. The package they got back was keyed by Tim Raines, a future Hall of Fame leftfielder.

At the end of spring training, Chicago made a couple of signings that would also bear long-term fruit. Joey Cora was added. In the short-term, he was a nice defensive addition at second base in part-time duty. Eventually, he became the full-time starter.

More noteworthy from the perspective of headlines, is that the White Sox signed a guy by the name of Bo Jackson. The football end of Bo’s two-sport days had come to an end in January when he suffered a serious hip injury. But he could still play baseball and while ’91 was a recovery year, Bo eventually became a contributor on the South Side of Chicago.

The big name in the White Sox lineup was 23-year-old designated hitter Frank Thomas. The future Hall of Famer and current Fox Sports studio commentator was coming into his own. In 1991, Thomas’ stat line was a dazzling .453 on-base percentage/.553 slugging percentage. He hit 32 homers, drove in 109 runs and finished third in the American League MVP voting.

Robin Ventura had a big year at third base, with 23 home runs, 100 RBIs and a stat line of .367/.442. On the opposite side of the infield, Dan Pasqua posted a solid .358/.465 stat line. Raines first year on the South Side was a success, with a .359 OBP and 51 stolen bases. Lance Johnson added to the running game, swiping 26 bags and playing a good centerfield.  Craig Grebeck was a valuable contributor off the bench in the infield and his final stat line read .386/.460.

But there were holes in the lineup elsewhere. In rightfield, 22-year-old Sammy Sosa was still going through growing pains. The 43-year-old catcher, Carlton Fisk, was finally beginning his career descent. Ozzie Guillen, a future World Series-winning manager with this franchise, played a good defensive shortstop, but didn’t hit. Neither did Cora or Scott Fletcher at second base.

Consequently, the Chicago lineup ranked sixth in the 14-team American League for runs scored. Certainly not bad, but not at a championship level.

Jack McDowell anchored the starting pitching. The rotation ace went to the post 35 times and delivered 17 wins with a 3.41 ERA. The problem is that the arms behind him went through mostly so-so years. Alex Fernandez would eventually become a really good #2, but this season he was 9-13 with a 4.51 ERA. Charlie Hough, the 43-year-old knuckleballer, and Greg Hibbard had ERAs on the high side of 4.

That might have spelled trouble, but the White Sox bullpen was deep. Even with Jones gone, manager Jeff Torborg could still trot out anyone from Wilson Alvarez, Ken Patterson, Donn Pall, Scott Radinsky and Melido Perez to do middle relief and setup work. All had ERAs in the 2s or 3s. It was exceptional depth for an era when starting pitchers were expected to work much deeper into games than they are today.

And if you got to the late innings, Bobby Thigpen was one of baseball’s reliable closers. In 1991, Thigpen saved 30 games with a 3.49 ERA. All told, between the depth of the bullpen and the quality of McDowell, Chicago ranked fourth in the American League for staff ERA.

The early schedule was soft. The White Sox spent April playing mediocre teams in the Orioles, Tigers and Yankees and got off to an 11-5 start. Then a stretch of games against better teams that included AL East contenders in Toronto and Boston brought Chicago down to 17-16.

Deep into May, the White Sox had not yet played a game against an AL West rival. And when they did, it didn’t go well. Five losses in seven games to the A’s and Angels leading up to Memorial Day left Chicago with a record of 19-21. They were six games out of first and in fifth place.

Here’s a good place to remind younger readers that prior to 1994, each league had just two divisions, an East and a West. So centrally-located teams in the White Sox, Royals and Twins were aligned in the West, along with that division’s current members in the A’s, Angels, Mariners and Rangers.

What’s more, only the first-place finisher could qualify for the postseason, going directly into the League Championship Series. And with Oakland having won three straight American League pennants, and this division in general emerging as baseball’s best, the bar was high.

Chicago still futzed around for the first part of June and remained two games under .500, at 30-32 when first-place Texas came to the South Side. In a big series, McDowell took the ball for Thursday night’s opener and pitched well, handing a 3-2 lead over to Thigpen in the ninth. But the closer didn’t have it, failing to get even an out and losing 7-3.

The White Sox were in trouble and they continued to lag into the seventh inning on Friday, trailing 3-0. Then Grebeck had a two-run homer to give them some life. Fisk hit a two-run blast in the eighth.  Chicago was up 4-3.

Then the normally reliable bullpen stumbled again in the ninth, giving up two runs. In a game that had to be played with some urgency, even allowing it was only June, Chicago got one-out singles from Cora and Guillen in the bottom of the ninth, setting up the tying run to score. The night went extra innings. In the 11th, Guillen delivered again. Following a Fletcher walk, Ozzie singled and put runners on the corners. Lance Johnson’s base hit gave the White Sox the 6-5 win.

The weekend of late-inning dramatics was just beginning. On Saturday, Fernandez was brilliant, but was trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the eighth. Then a single, a flubbed bunt and infield hit triggered a three-run rally and Chicago won 3-1.

Sunday was more of the same. A 3-3 game went to the 10th inning. Texas got two runs and looked ready to salvage a split. Chicago got one run back and had the tying run on second base with two outs. Backup infielder Warren Newsome singled to tie up the game. A wild pitch moved him up to second, allowing Fisk’s ground-rule double to win the game.

Chicago had a dramatic series win, taking three of four from the division leader. The following weekend they were in Minnesota, for a four-game set with a Twins team that was also emerging as a contender. And the White Sox kept their momentum going.

Sosa ripped a three-run blast in the second inning on Friday night, giving Hough all he needed to deliver a 4-2 win. On Saturday, trailing 3-2 in the seventh, Chicago erupted for five runs. Pasqua’s two-run triple, capping a four-hit night, was the big blow.

Sunday slowed the momentum when McDowell lost a 3-0 decision to Minnesota’s Jack Morris in a battle of aces.  The White Sox trailed 3-1 in the eighth inning of Monday’s wraparound finale. With two runners on base, Fisk and Johnson each doubled. Chicago had a 4-3 lead. Even though Minnesota tied it back up, Fisk won the game with a home run in the 10th.

It had been constant drama and for White Sox fans, it was fun drama, where they were winning and getting back on the race. By the All-Star break, they were up to 43-37 and only 2 ½ games off the pace. Texas and Minnesota were tied for first. Chicago, along with California and Oakland were bunched up in hot pursuit.

The schedule was difficult out of the break, with games against the Blue Jays, Red Sox and Rangers. But the White Sox responded and won nine of ten. Texas was fading. Oakland clearly wasn’t what they had been the previous three years. Chicago moved to within two games of Minnesota when August began and nudged that margin down to a game and a half by August 15.

A sizzling pennant race was anticipated, but against what should have been a soft schedule, the White Sox suddenly went belly-up. They lost a series in Yankee Stadium. They were swept at home by Detroit. They lost three straight in Cleveland, and then lost three more in Kansas City. Not only was it a complete collapse, but it happened at a time when the Twins were surging. By August 28, Chicago was nine games out.

Minnesota never stopped and went all the way to win the World Series. To the credit of the White Sox, they didn’t mail in September. They recovered and played winning baseball. The final record was 87-75. It was eight games off the pace set by the Twins. But it was the third-best in the American League and the seventh-best record in baseball overall.

For the second straight year, Chicago had played playoff-caliber baseball by the more lenient standards of today. Even by the standards of their own era, they had played well enough to contend in, if not win the AL East for two straight years. But in the AL West of the early 1990s, it was leaving then home for October.

The good news is that playoff baseball wasn’t long in coming—by 1993, Thomas and McDowell would win the MVP and Cy Young. The new acquisitions of 1991 would be important contributors. And the White Sox would get to the top of the AL West.

1991 St. Louis Cardinals: A New Era Begins

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The 1991 St. Louis Cardinals marked the start of a new era in the history of this great franchise. The 1980s had been boom times under the leadership of Whitey Herzog. The Cardinals won National League pennants in 1987 and 1985, and they won it all in 1982. They had been a contending team as recently as 1989. But a hard collapse in 1990 led to Herzog’s midseason retirement and to new beginnings.

Joe Torre was the man in charge. While that name carries powerful cache in our own day, in light of Torre’s subsequent tenure with the New York Yankees, in the world of 1991, it was simply a respectable hire. Torre had won a division title with the Atlanta Braves nine years earlier and also managed some disappointing teams. There was no reason to be overly excited, nor particularly upset at his hiring.

One thing didn’t change and it was the reliance of the St. Louis offense on the running game. In this pre-analytics era, stolen bases were still a valued commodity. St. Louis got 44 stolen bases from Ray Lankford. They got 35 more from their legendary shortstop, 36-year-old Ozzie Smith. Felix Jose swiped 20 more bags and the Cardinals were second in the National League in steals.

Jose was also the team’s best overall position player, hitting .305 and keying a lineup that finished fourth in the NL in batting average and fifth in on-base percentage. Ozzie’s OBP was a sparkling .380. Milt Thompson came off the bench, got substantial playing time in the outfield and hit .307 with a .368 OBP. Todd Zeile at third base and Jose Oquendo at second each had OBP’s on the high side of .350.

The lack of power—dead last in the 12-team National League for home runs was no surprise. But slipping to a mediocre seventh in doubles was a bigger problem. The Cardinals suffered from poor years out of first baseman Pedro Guerrero, catcher Tom Pagnozzi and leftfielder Bernard Gilkey. Lankford’s poor overall offensive numbers would make him a key exhibit for the analytics crowd that believed the sport was overvaluing the stolen base.

Consequently, while the Cardinal offense was not bad, it also did not stand out—right in the middle of the NL at sixth in runs scored.

Torre’s starting rotation was reliable, getting 30-plus starts from Bryn Smith, Bob Tewksbury and Ken Hill. Omar Olivarez and Jose DeLeon combined to start 52 more games in rounding out the rotation. The steadiness was valuable, but only DeLeon’s 2.71 ERA really stood out. The rest of the rotation ERAs ranged from 3.25 to 3.85.

Lee Smith was a top closer and saved 47 games with a 2.34 ERA. But the depth in the pen was lacking. While Scott Terry had a nice year, there were up-and-down performances from everyone else. The result was similar to that of the offense—a staff that was not bad, but also did not stand out—right in the middle of the NL at seventh in ERA.

The Cardinals played basically steady baseball in the early part of the season. In the week leading up to Memorial Day, they had a nice spurt in grabbing two of three from defending NL East champion Pittsburgh and two out of three from another one of the regular contenders in the New York Mets. St. Louis reached the holiday with a record of 24-18, good for second place in the East. They were 2 ½ games back of the Pirates, with the Mets and Chicago Cubs also in the mix.

For younger readers, here’s a good place for a reminder that prior to 1994 the leagues were split into just two divisions, an East and a West. The Cardinals, Cubs and Pirates were in the NL East, along with the Mets, Philadelphia Phillies and Montreal Expos (today’s Washington Nationals). As to why the Cincinnati Reds and Atlanta Braves went west, rather than St. Louis and Chicago, is a question that geography teachers of the era no doubt wondered. But it was what it was.

A home series with the Pirates immediately after the holiday weekend did not go well. The Cardinals were shut out twice and also lost a 9-8 slugfest. Taking two of three from the Mets again helped get St. Louis back on track.

The rest of the first half was more up and down. On the one hand, the Cards lost four of six to the contending Dodgers. On the other hand, St. Louis swept six games from lowly Philadelphia. The Cardinals came into the All-Star break with a record of 44-37. They were in third place, five back of the Pirates, with the Mets nestled in between.

Over in the NL West, the Atlanta Braves were starting a surge that would carry them all the way to the World Series. That surge started right after the All-Star break when they swept St. Louis four straight down south, then came up to Bush Stadium and won another series. The staggering Cardinals fell as many as nine games out. By the end of July, they had chipped the margin back to 7 ½ and had Pittsburgh coming in for a four-game set that would kick off the month of August.

Oquendo keyed a win in Thursday night’s opener, with three hits and a home run. Zeile added three more hits and St. Louis won 6-3. On Friday night, the Cards trailed 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth. Ozzie worked a one-out walk. Gerald Perry singled, setting up runners at the corners. A productive ground ball out from Zeile tied the game. And when Gilkey worked a bases-loaded/full-count walk, St. Louis had a 4-3 win.

More late heroics came on Saturday. Thompson homered in the eighth to tie up the game 5-5, and Zeile homered in the tenth to win it. Even though St. Louis dropped a 2-1 game in the finale, in spite of a good outing from Hill, they had cut the lead back to 5 ½ games and were still very much alive.

But St. Louis gave it back on the return trip to Pittsburgh, losing three out of four. On August 12, they were 7 ½ games back and the Mets were 8 ½ games out. New York came into St. Louis for a series that looked like a preliminary knockout battle.

The bats unloaded in Tuesday night’s opener, with Jose, Zeile, Pagnozzi and Perry all having two-hit nights and leading the way to a 7-4 win. On Wednesday night, St. Louis trailed 4-2 in the eighth. A Thompson walk was followed by singled from Pagnozzi and Oquendo that cut the lead to 4-3. Lankford’s triple gave the Cards a 5-4 lead that stood up. Then on Thursday night, St. Louis got six quality innings from Rheal Cormier, normally a reliever. Ozzie had three hits, while Pagnozzi and Oquendo added two apiece. The 4-1 win completed a needed sweep.

St. Louis would get separation on New York, but they were never able to make a serious push at Pittsburgh over the final month and a half. The division deficit was still seven games on Labor Day. When the Cards went 2-7 on a West Coast road trip out of the holiday and slipped ten games back, it all but rendered useless the four remaining games they had with the Pirates.

The final record was 84-78. That was tied for fourth-best in the National League, so it might have been good enough to sneak into the playoffs by today’s standards. In the world of 1991, it left. St. Louis 14 games back.

It also started a three-year trend under Torre. The Cardinals were always over .500. But they were never anything special. After a losing season in the strike year of 1994 and a slow start in ’95, Torre was fired.

Of course both the team and the manager ended up okay. St. Louis hired Tony LaRussa, who won two more World Series titles for the franchise. Torre’s firing made him available for the Yankee job in 1996, and he promptly won four rings in five years. All’s well that ends well. But the early 1990s in St. Louis were a time when they were simply “okay.”

Crushing Heartbreak For The 1991 Los Angeles Dodgers

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The 1991 Los Angeles Dodgers were only three years removed from an epic World Series triumph in 1988. After a decline in 1989, the Dodgers jumped back up into contention in 1990. For much of the 1991 season, Los Angeles looked ready to return to the postseason. Then late heartbreak against a rising Cinderella story ended the bid.

L.A. demonstrated they were serious about getting back on top when they hit the free agent market prior to the season and signed rightfielder Darryl Strawberry away from the New York Mets. Strawberry did not disappoint, delivering a stat line of .361 on-base percentage/491 slugging percentage, along with 28 home runs and 99 RBIs.

Brett Butler set the table for Strawberry. The veteran centerfielder had an excellent year, posting a .401 OBP and stealing 38 bases. Lenny Harris played well at third base and his OBP was .349. Kal Daniels’ .337 OBP was respectable in left. Mike Sharperson, a versatile infielder, validated the substantial playing time he got off the bench with a .355 OBP. The Dodgers had the third-best on-base percentage in the National League.

But power was sorely lacking, with no help for Strawberry. The Dodgers finished dead last in the 12-team National League for doubles and were ninth in home runs. Eddie Murray, the Hall of Fame first baseman, was 35-years-old and declined badly in 1991. Gary Carter, another aging Hall of Famer, had lost his productivity behind the plate. Carter shared catching duties with another notable name, 32-year-old Mike Scioscia. Scioscia’s .353 on-base percentage was good, but he had little power left.

The Dodgers still ranked fifth in the NL in runs scored. But if they were going to go all the way, it would take pitching. Fortunately, manager Tom Lasorda had a lot of arms.

Mike Morgan had the best year, with a 2.78 ERA in his 33 starts. Ramon Martinez—the older brother of future Hall of Famer Pedro—made 33 starts of his own, as did Tim Belcher.  Ramon won 17 games with a 3.27 ERA, while Belcher’s ERA was a sterling 2.62. Bob Ojeda, the veteran lefty, went to the post 31 times and finished with a 3.18 ERA.

With that kind of quality and consistency, the Dodgers were able to work around staff ace Orel Hershiser missing the first two months of the season. When Hershiser got back, he was still able to make 21 starts and finish with a 3.46 ERA.

And the bullpen was deep. Kevin Gross, Tim Crews and Jim Gott all did solid work in middle relief and setup. Jay Howell saved 16 games with a 3.18 ERA. In late summer, the Dodgers added another arm when they traded for closer Roger McDowell.

All in all, it added up to best staff in the National League for ERA. Los Angeles was going to be tough to beat.

L.A. swept two games in Atlanta to start the season. It seemed like just a couple perfunctory wins over a traditionally bad team, one who had finished in last place a year earlier. Those wins turned out to be more important than anyone might have thought.

The Dodgers were steady, if not spectacular, for the first couple months while Hershiser rehabbed. When they took two of three from defending World Series champion Cincinnati Reds over the Memorial Day weekend, Los Angeles had a 2 ½ game lead in the NL West.

Here’s a good place to step back and remind younger readers that prior to 1994, each league had just two divisions, an East and a West. Only the first-place finisher could go to the postseason. The NL West included current members in the Dodgers, San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres. It also included the Houston Astros (a National League team until 2013). In a display of geographic madness, the division also included the Reds and Braves. And those eastern interlopers were the teams that were tied for second place. The Padres were lurking at three games out.

Los Angeles played home-and-home series with the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates in the early summer and heated up. The Dodgers went 14-5 in that stretch. Then they beat the Braves five times in seven tries. By the All-Star break, Los Angeles was sitting on a 49-31 record. They were five games ahead of Cincinnati. Atlanta and San Diego had slipped below .500 and were forgotten.

The Dodgers were in control, but they were mediocre out of the break, going 9-12 against bad teams from the NL East. Then they lost three straight in Houston, once with a blown lead in the ninth inning and two more in extra frames.

Los Angeles had done two things—let a young and surging team from Atlanta back into the race. And miss a chance to stick a knife in Cincinnati, who was also struggling in the late summer. The Dodgers, up 3 ½ on the Braves and 6 ½ on the Reds, went to Cincy for a three-game series in early August.

When Ramon was rocked in Monday night’s opener, a 10-6 loss, the Dodger slide kept going. But Hershiser stabilized the ship the next night, giving six good innings and winning 5-2 behind home runs from Strawberry and Harris. Ojeda came out on Wednesday night and tossed six shutout innings. A scoreless tie was broken up in the seventh when Sharperson ripped an RBI triple and then scored an insurance run on a sac fly.

In Thursday afternoon’s getaway finale, Morgan handed over a 6-2 lead to the bullpen, who closed out a 6-4 win. Los Angeles hadn’t missed this chance to bury Cincinnati. The Reds would not recover.

But the same could not be said for the Braves. The Dodgers failed to sustain the momentum and promptly lost three straight at lowly San Francisco. Los Angeles lost three more in St. Louis at the end of August. By the time Labor Day arrived, the divisional lead was gone. The Dodgers and Braves were in a dead heat.

Los Angeles had battle-tested players. They responded by winning a home series over St. Louis and then taking three of four from eventual NL East champion Pittsburgh. But that ground was given back the following weekend in Atlanta. In the first of two big head-to-head showdowns, the Dodgers lost two of three. After taking Friday’s opener, L.A. lost on Saturday in eleven innings and then watched Ramon get rocked on Sunday. They were a game and a half back and doing the chasing.

But the combination of veterans and good starting pitching again stabilized the ship. By the time Atlanta came to Los Angeles on September 20, the Dodgers had nudged back out to a half-game lead. This NL West battle was the only hot race in baseball this September, so that—along with Atlanta’s story of trying to go worst-to-first—had every baseball fan focused on the Dodgers and Braves.

The L.A. bats were silent on Friday night, a 3-0 loss that dropped them to second place. Time to give the ball to Hershiser. Orel was brilliant, but the still-silent bats had the Dodgers down 1-0 in the bottom of the eighth. Then the Braves showed their youth. Two errors opened the door to the tying run. In the bottom of the ninth, Daniels hit a one-out single and then scored the winning run on Juan Samuel’s triple.

On Sunday, the offense grabbed a couple quick runs when Sharperson doubled, Strawberry tripled and Murray legged out an infield hit. Ramon, given a second chance at a Sunday rubber match, made the most of this one. He tossed two-hit ball for seven innings and the Dodgers won 3-0. They were a game and a half up with two weeks to play.

One thing the Dodgers didn’t control was the half-game and the Braves chipped that lead to down a single game entering the final week.

On Monday and Tuesday, Los Angeles took care of their business against San Diego. They got no help from collapsing Cincinnati, who lost to Atlanta on both nights. Then on Wednesday, the Dodgers lost to the Padres. The Braves completed a sweep of the Reds. The NL West race was tied.

After both teams took Thursday off, the final weekend had the Braves playing at home against the Astros. The Dodgers were in San Francisco, facing an ancient rival who took no greater pleasure than spoiling L.A.’s pennant hopes.

That’s exactly what happened. The Dodger bats were impotent, losing 4-1 on Friday and 4-0 on Saturday. The Braves won both days. The race was over.

It was an improbable ending. A lot of us who watched the pennant race from afar had felt that somehow, Los Angeles would end up pulling this out. We didn’t know that Atlanta was starting a run where it would be 2006 before they failed to win a division again.

The crushing ending for the Dodgers ushered in the ending of a fantastic franchise run that went back to Lasorda’s rookie year of 1977. L.A. fell out of contention the next three years, before returning to give Lasorda one last hurrah, winning a shrunken and realigned NL West in 1995.

How The 1991 Minnesota Twins Won The AL West

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The 1991 Minnesota Twins were like a skilled presidential candidate that knew how to peak every four years and at the time where their advantage would be at its max. They won the World Series in 1987. They were overtaken by the powerful Oakland A’s for the next three years and slid to last place in the old AL West by 1990. But when 1991 came around, the Twins came rising back to the top and they won another World Series title.

Minnesota moved aggressively in free agency prior to the 1991 season. They signed Chili Davis to be the DH and Davis rewarded them with a .385 on-base percentage, 29 home runs and 93 RBI. But the biggest catch on the free agent market was veteran starting pitcher Jack Morris.

Morris had been the staff ace on Detroit’s 1984 championship team and the key to a successful AL East title run in 1987. He had a deserved reputation as a big-game pitcher. His main attribute in the regular season was that he was a horse—35 starts, an 18-12 record and 3.43 ERA. But in the biggest games he could turn it up another notch and what he brought to the Twins would become very apparent at the season’s biggest moment.

Kevin Tapani and Scott Erickson were better starting pitchers during the regular season. Tapani won 16 games with a 2.99 ERA, while Erickson was a 20-game winner with a 3.18 ERA. Rick Aguilera was the closer and saved 42 games and posted a 2.35 ERA. Carl Willis, a future pitching coach, was a solid setup man with a 2.63 ERA. The pitching staff was top-heavy, dependent on three core starters and two primary relievers, but they were good enough to be second in the American League in ERA.

The offense wasn’t bad either, ranking fourth in the AL in runs scored. They did it by leading the league in both batting average and on-base percentage. Second baseman Chuck Knoblauch won Rookie of the Year honors with a .351 OBP and he consistently sparked the attack with his speed. Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Shane Mack and Brian Harper could both get on base and drive the ball for power. Gene Larkin provided quality depth with a .361 OBP off the bench.

Even so, there was nothing early in the season to suggest anything special was in the works. Minnesota was playing sub-.500 baseball as Memorial Day arrived and in a competitive AL West, it was the Texas Rangers who were out to the early lead with the A’s hot on their heels. The Twins were in sixth (Prior to 1994, the AL West also included the Royals, Mariners, Angels and White Sox with the winner advancing directly to the ALCS). On Memorial Day itself, the Minnesota opened a three-game set in Texas by losing 11-4.

It was at this point that the 1991 Minnesota Twins turned it around became the team they’re remembered as. Erickson took the ball on Tuesday and fired eight shutout innings in a 3-0 win. In the Wednesday finale, light-hitting shortstop Greg Gange took Nolan Ryan deep, drove in four runs and provided the necessary support for Morris and the workhorse threw a four-hitter.

The series win in Texas set the stage for a scorching June, where the Twins would win 22 of 28 games and not only move into first place, but lead by as many as 4 ½ games on June 25. They hit the skids in the week prior to the All-Star Break and were back to a dead heat with the Rangers, but Minnesota had positive momentum going.

Texas lost eight of eleven games to start the second half and faded quickly, but Oakland and Chicago stayed on Minnesota’s heels. On the first weekend of August, the Twins played the first of two key series with the A’s, who had spent three years as the gold standard in this division and in all of baseball. Oakland was only three games off the pace, with Chicago two games out.

Morris pitched well in Friday night’s opener, but the Twins offense couldn’t get anything going against reigning Cy Young Award winner Bob Welch in a 3-1 loss. The following afternoon, Minnesota dug, themselves a 5-0 hole. If you peeked ahead to Sunday, Oakland had their own clutch ace, Dave Stewart, in waiting. The race was ready to get even tighter. It was time for another dramatic reversal of momentum.

Harper hit a three-run homer and keyed a stunning seven-ran rally that gave Minnesota a win. They came out the next day and jumped Stewart for three runs in the first inning, got some clutch middle relief work from Willis and took the series with a 6-2 win.

Two weeks later it was A’s and Twins and the Metrodome. Oakland was now five games out and fighting to hold on, while Chicago was still within 2 ½ games.

Friday night’s opener was a 2-2 tie in the ninth when A’s left fielder Jose Canseco hit a two-run blast and Oakland turned the game over to Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley. Minnesota scrapped out two runs to tie the game then won it in the 12th when Knoblauch doubled and scored.

A Morris-Welch rematch was up on Saturday and it didn’t begin well as Morris gave up three runs in the first. Welch imploded quickly though. Knoblauch had three hits, Harper drove in four runs and the result was a 12-4 rout.

The Twins trailed 4-1 on Sunday against Stewart when they unleashed more comeback mojo. They got two in the seventh and Oakland went to the bullpen. In the eighth, a Harper triple started a three-run rally that led to a 6-4 win. Minnesota lost Monday’s wraparound finale, but even in defeat they showed how hard they were going to be to kill. After trailing 6-0, they made a furious rally before coming up short, 8-7.

The Oakland dynasty was all but dead. Chicago was still within 3 ½ games and the prospect of a hot race to the finish loomed. But now it was time for the White Sox to implode. In a schedule stretch against mediocre teams, Chicago lost nine straight. By the time September arrived, the Twins’ lead soared to eight games.

Minnesota stayed in command through the final month and by the time to second-to-last weekend of the season arrived they were in position to clinch. On Saturday in Toronto, Morris threw a complete-game six-hitter and the 5-0 win at least ensured a tie. The Twins lost on Sunday, but thanks to a 26-year-old Seattle Mariners’ lefty named Randy Johnson, who beat the White Sox 2-1, Minnesota was still able to pour the champagne with a full week to go.

It was no coincidence that Minnesota was successful in the four-year cycle that peaked, for them, in 1987 and 1991. Homefield advantage for the postseason in this era was determined by a rotation system. In both ‘87 and ‘91, the AL West had homefield in both the LCS and World Series (We should note in fairness that while the 1987 Twins were a big beneficiary of this, the ‘91 Twins had a superior regular season record to both teams they faced in October).

And they didn’t need homefield to win the ALCS against Toronto. The teams split the first two games in the Metrodome. It was when the series shifted north of the border that the Twins took over. They won all three games in Toronto, including a big late rally to win Game 5 and clinch the pennant.

READ MORE ABOUT THE 1991 ALCS

Homefield was the decisive factor in the World Series with the Atlanta Braves, as home teams won every game. That meant Minnesota was down 3-2 in games when they came home for Game 6, but the closing two games on Saturday and Sunday night would be as memorable as any finish the World Series has ever seen.

Puckett was the hero on Saturday, making a great catch at the wall early in the game and then hitting an extra-inning home run to win it. Sunday’s Game 7 managed to be even better. Morris and young Braves’ starter John Smoltz went toe-to-toe in a tense scoreless duel. The game went to extra innings. Atlanta went to the bullpen, but Minnesota stayed with Morris, who completed a scoreless tenth. The Twins got a run in their half of the inning and were World Series champions again.

READ MORE ABOUT THE 1991 WORLD SERIES

Minnesota has produced a number of good teams in the years since 1991. They were re-aligned into the newly created AL Central in 1994 and won it three consecutive years from 2002-04. They had won division titles again in 2006 and in 2009-10. After rebuilding, they made the playoffs in 2017 as a wild-card. But they haven’t hoisted the ultimate prize since that magical time in 1991.

The Worst-To-First Ride Of The 1991 Atlanta Braves

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The 1991 Atlanta Braves were a franchise in a major funk. They hadn’t been relevant since Joe Torre managed the club in the early 1980s, reaching the NLCS in 1982 and contending to the final weekend of 1983. The latter part of the decade was considerably different. The Braves lost 106 games in 1988 and 97 games each of the ensuing two years. Midway through the 1990 season, Bobby Cox came on as manager.

Cox’s track record of building the Toronto Blue Jays from an expansion franchise into a team that won the AL East in 1985 gave people in Atlanta good reason for hope. No one could guess that the hope would be delivered on in a bigger way than anyone thought possible, or that would happen immediately in 1991.

Atlanta would become renowned for its great starting pitching throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s. It started in ‘91. A 25-year-old lefty named Tom Glavine won 20 games with a 2.55 ERA. He also won the Cy Young Award and jumpstarted a Hall of Fame career.

Another man on his way to Cooperstown was 24-year-old John Smoltz, who made 36 starts, won 14 games and posted a 3.80 ERA. Steve Avery, another young lefty didn’t have a Hall of Fame career, but was as good as anyone in 1991–18 wins and a 3.38 ERA. Veteran Charlie Liebrandt brought some experience to the rotation, winning 15 games with a 3.43 ERA.

The bullpen doesn’t have the same kind of names that jump out at you, but Juan Berenguer, Mike Stanton and Kent Mercker all had sub-3.00 ERAs and Cox knew how to use them effectively. They rounded out a staff that finished third in the National League in ERA.

Offensively, Atlanta was even better, finishing second in the NL in runs scored. Terry Pendleton, a veteran brought over from St. Louis, won the MVP award. His final numbers of .363 OBP/.511 slugging percentage were good, although MVP was probably pushing the envelope a bit. He was given credit for providing leadership to the young players around him.

There were big-time producers in the outfield. Ron Gant hit 32 home runs, drove in 105 runs and scored 101 more. David Justice finished with a stat line of .377 OBP/.503 slugging percentage. Lonnie Smith, a veteran of championship teams in both St. Louis and Kansas City, played left field and sparked the offense with a .377 OBP. Jeff Treadway hit .320 and provided some pop at second base.

Atlanta looked better out of the gate, although nothing suggested a historic season was in the works. They were 20-19 at Memorial Day and only 2 ½ games back of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the old NL West (the division also was home to the Reds, Giants, Padres & Astros with the winner going directly to the NLCS).

They continued to putter along up the All-Star break. At 39-40, they were hanging around the .500 mark and that would be considered a monumental victory for this club if they could maintain that to the end of the season. Winning the division? Well, the Braves lost five of seven games to the Dodgers just prior to the break. Atlanta was 9 ½ back and in third place, also trailing defending World Series champion Cincinnati.

The worm turned after the break. The Braves won eight of ten in games against the Cubs and Cardinals, while the Dodgers lost nine of eleven on an East Coast trip. In the month of August, Atlanta ripped off a 19-11 record, while Los Angeles stumbled to a 13-16 mark. When Labor Day arrived, the Braves and Dodgers were in a dead heat, with the Reds having fallen by the wayside.

While Los Angeles started to play better in the early part of September, Atlanta kept rolling. On September 13 the two teams began the first of what would be two straight weekend series and the Braves were a half-game up.

Atlanta was at home for the first series and Glavine was on the mound. He pitched well and the game was tied 2-2 in the seventh, but the Braves’ ace buckled and ultimately lost 5-2. Smoltz came out on Saturday and gave up a couple early runs, but he settled in and allowed no more. The game went into extra innings, again tied 2-2. In the eleventh, Pendleton hit a bloop double and scored the winning run on a base hit from Gant.

Avery pitched the Sunday finale against Ramon Martinez (brother of Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro). Braves’ first baseman Sid Bream hit a grand slam in the first inning, Avery went the distance and Atlanta’s lead had nudged out to a game and a half.

Perhaps the young kids celebrated a bit too much, because the four days between the next head-to-head series in Los Angeles didn’t go as well .The Braves split four games with mediocre teams in San Francisco and San Diego. Los Angeles ripped off four wins over Cincinnati and Houston. The Braves were now a half-game back as the weekend at Dodger Stadium began.

Avery took the ball on Friday night and picked up right where he left off—with a complete game, this time a shutout. Gant’s 30th home run of the season provided the margin in a 3-0 win. Leibrandt pitched on Saturday and took a 1-0 lead into the eighth. With control of the race in their grasp, Atlanta stumbled. Pendleton committed an error that led to the tying run in the eighth and Los Angeles won it in the ninth.

A series defined by good pitching continued in that vein in Sunday’s big finale. Glavine again pitched pretty well, but again wasn’t good enough. He gave up two early runs and today the Brave hitters couldn’t hit Ramon Martinez. The 3-0 loss left them 1 ½ games back with two weeks to play.

The two teams basically held serve the following week, but there was an important distinction. Atlanta played one more game than Los Angeles and took advantage to take a half-game off the lead. The Braves were within one game for the last week of the season.

Smoltz opened the closing week with a shutout of Cincinnati, while Orel Hershiser answered for Los Angeles with a win over San Diego. On Tuesday, it was Justice’s turn to be the hero—he hit a two-run shot in the ninth inning off the excellent Reds’ reliever Rob Dibble and delivered a 7-6 win. It set the stage for Wednesday when Glavine would win, while the Dodgers fell apart late in a 9-4 loss. Both teams took Thursday off and prepared for the final weekend, with this race dead even.

Friday night kept momentum going Atlanta’s way. Avery went eight strong innings in a home win over Houston, while Los Angeles lost in San Francisco. Smoltz came out Saturday and pitched a shutout that clinched at least a tie and potential playoff game on Monday. That would prove to be unnecessary—the Dodgers again lost in San Francisco and the improbable worst-to-first ride of the 1991 Atlanta Braves was complete.

Or at least the regular season version was complete. Atlanta went to the NLCS against Pittsburgh as a decided underdog and when they lost three of the first five games, with the final two in Pittsburgh, things didn’t look particularly hopeful. Avery and Smoltz responded with consecutive shutouts of a lineup that included Barry Bonds and the Braves reached the World Series.

READ MORE ABOUT THE 1991 NLCS

The Fall Classic was a celebration of worst-to-first turnarounds, because the AL champion Minnesota Twins had done the same thing. The 1991 World Series is in the discussion for the best ever played and it came down to a Game 7 in the old Metrodome. Smoltz battled the great Twins’ veteran Jack Morris, in a scoreless pitchers’ duel. Atlanta appeared poised to score in the eighth before a critical baserunning mistake by Lonnie Smith cost them the chance. After Smoltz left the game, the Twins finally got the winning run in the 10th.

READ MORE ABOUT THE 1991 WORLD SERIES

Game 7 was a crushing loss to be sure, but there was no denying just how special the 1991 Atlanta Braves season had been. And the young pitching would form the core of one MLB’s great long-running success stories. This was the first of fourteen straight division titles for franchise (with the caveat that the Braves were in second place in 1994 behind the Montreal Expos in the re-aligned NL East when a strike wiped out the season). Atlanta would win four National League pennants and get their long-sought World Series title in 1995.

Deal Them In: The 1991 Toronto Blue Jays Trade Their Way Back On Top Of The AL East

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The 1991 Toronto Blue Jays were a consistent contender. They had won the AL East in 1985 and 1989 and run a close second in 1987 and 1990. What they hadn’t done was complete the job by winning a World Series or even getting there. 1991 saw them return to the top of their division, but again come up short of the Fall Classic.

After losing a close AL East race to the Boston Red Sox in 1990, the Blue Jays did a major personnel shakeup. The dealt their most productive offensive player, first baseman Fred McGriff, to the San Diego Padres. Included in that deal was shortstop Tony Fernandez, who’d been with the franchise throughout its run of success.

They also trade a good young outfielder, Junior Felix, in a separate deal with the California Angels, and parted ways with veteran outfielder George Bell, a one-time MVP and reliable starting pitcher Bud Black.

But the players they got back were pretty good too—Roberto Alomar was a future Hall of Famer at second base. Joe Carter was a multi-talented offensive threat in the outfield and would one day author this club’s most memorable moment. Each came in the McGriff deal. Toronto also acquired centerfielder Devon White in exchange for Felix.

Carter hit 33 home runs and finished with 108 RBI in 1991. Alomar, age 23, posted respectable numbers of a .354 on-base percentage/.436 slugging percentage. White was similar at .342/.455. John Olerud was a good young hitter at first base, putting up a .353/.438 stat line in 1991.

But there wasn’t enough help. Kelly Gruber experienced a sharp decline at third base, the bench was weak and Toronto finished 11th in the American League in runs scored. What saved them was a deep and balanced pitching staff.

Jimmy Key, David Wells and Todd Stottlemyre all won at least 15 games and finished with ERAs in the 3s. Juan Guzman, a talented 24-year-old, won 10 games and his ERA was 2.99. Tom Candiotti threw his knuckleball and in 19 starts posted a 2.98 ERA. Tom Henke continued to be one of baseball’s most consistent closers. Mike Timlin and Duane Ward were effective setup relievers. The Jays might not have had an individual Cy Young contender, but they had the best pitching staff in the American League.

Toronto split six games with Boston in April and both teams again moved to the top of the division. The Blue Jays reached Memorial Day just a half-game off the pace with a record of 25-19. In June, the Red Sox started to slump and Toronto got hot. They went on a 14-3 streak going into the All-Star break and took a 5 ½ game lead.

August was the Blue Jays’ turn to slump. They lost 12 of 19 games against AL East rivals in the Red Sox, Detroit Tigers and Milwaukee Brewers, all of whom were in the same division prior to 1994. By Labor Day, the Tigers were within 2 ½ games and the Red Sox had come off the mat from ten games back to close back within five.

The Blue Jays continued to muddle along for much of September. Detroit played themselves out of it, but Boston kept surging and closed to within a half-game of the lead with two weeks still to play. All the momentum was with the Red Sox.

Toronto started to move the pendulum back the other way by taking two of three in California, while Boston lost a series in Baltimore. Breathing room was regained and the penultimate weekend then proved decisive. While the Jays took two of three at home from a Minnesota Twins team that had already clinched the AL West, the Red Sox lost three straight in Milwaukee. The lead was back up to 3 ½ games and there were only six to play.

On Wednesday of the season’s final week, Toronto trailed California 5-4 in the ninth inning .Facing American Leagues saves leader Bryan Harvey, they rallied. White beat out an infield hit and scored the tying run on an error. Carter’s RBI single won it and a third AL East title in seven years was clinched.

The ALCS battle with Minnesota was seen as evenly matched, especially when Guzman won Game 2 on the road and Toronto was able to come home with the series knotted at 1-1. But the weekend middle games were a disaster. Missed opportunities led to an extra-inning loss in Game 3. Stottlemyre was rocked in Game 4. The reliable pitching staff couldn’t hold a 5-2 lead in Game 5 and the season was suddenly over. The Twins went on and won the World Series.

For the Blue Jays it was “wait till next year” one more time. But “next year” was coming for the good people of Ontario. Toronto won the AL East again 1992 and this time they went all the way, winning the World Series. In 1993, they did it again, clinching a repeat championship on a walkoff home run by Carter.

The 1991 Oakland A’s Fall From Grace

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The Oakland A’s were far and away the best team in the American League from 1988 through 1990. Each year they won the AL West with room to spare and they went a combined 12-1 in ALCS play, capturing three consecutive pennants. In 1989, they won the World Series. But all great runs come to an end eventually and so it was that the 1991 Oakland A’s fell from grace.

Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire were “The Bash Brothers” and they defined the potent Oakland offense. Canseco was as good as ever in 1991, hitting 44 home runs and finishing with 122 RBI. The table-setter, Rickey Henderson had a vintage year himself, with a .400 on-base percentage and 58 steals. But McGwire was a different story—he fell of sharply and only slugged .383.

The offense was still fifth in the American League in runs scored and good enough to win. But pitching, the real crown jewel of the Oakland Dynasty, took a big step backward in 1991. Dave Stewart was one of the great big-game pitchers of his era, but he struggled to a 5.18 ERA in 35 starts. Bob Welch had won 27 games and the Cy Young Award in 1990, but his 35 starts saw him post a mediocre 4.58 ERA.

Dennis Eckersley was still a Hall of Fame closer and saved 43 games with a 2.96 ERA. But the rest of the bullpen, a big strength in the pennant years, also fell off. Eck wasn’t enough to save the staff from falling to 13th in the AL in ERA.

Oakland still played good, consistent baseball through the first four months of the season. They were 26-17 on Memorial Day. They slipped a bit in the early summer, but were still 44-38 at the All Star break and within 2 ½ games of the lead in a packed five-team race.

It was the Minnesota Twins who started to emerge from the pack (prior to 1994 there was no Central Division—both leagues had just an East and West with the winners going directly to the LCS). By the start of August, the seven head-to-head games the A’s had with the Twins were looming large.

Oakland hosted Minnesota for a three-game series on the first weekend of August, with the A’s three games off the lead. They grabbed the Friday night opener 3-1, as Welch went the distance and outdueled Twins’ ace Jack Morris. When Oakland came back the next afternoon and led 5-0 after seven innings, it looked like this race was about to get even tighter.

Instead, the eighth inning on August 3 proved to be the demarcation point where Oakland’s season began to run out of steam. The Twins unloaded for seven runs and won the game 8-6. Stewart pitched the Sunday finale, but gave up three quick runs and lost 6-2.

The A’s slid five games out, but with four games in the old Metrodome two weeks later, there was still opportunity to close the gap. In the opener, Canseco broke up a 2-2 tie in the ninth with a two-run blast. Eckersley gave it back in the bottom of the ninth and Oakland lost in twelve innings.

Welch and Morris rematched on Saturday and the A’s grabbed three runs in the first. Welch promptly imploded and the A’s ended up on the wrong end of a 12-4 rout. It was more of the same on Sunday—despite a 4-1 lead in the seventh behind Stewart, the Twins touched the Oakland ace for two runs, then beat setup man Rick Honeycutt in the eighth.

Oakland finally won the Monday finale, although even that was an adventure—after going ahead 6-0 behind a three-run jack from Henderson, they had to hold on for an 8-7 win. Regardless, at seven games out and with the Twins coming on strong, the push for a fourth straight pennant was all but over. The A’s limped to the finish line and ended up 84-78, in fourth place and eleven games back of Minnesota, who went on to win the World Series.

The mighty Oakland A’s were down, but they weren’t finished. They enjoyed a comeback year in 1992, where they won the AL West again, though this time they came up short in the ALCS. It was 1993 when they collapsed and lost 94 games, triggering a wholesale rebuild that included manager Tony LaRussa moving on to St. Louis.

1991 Pittsburgh Pirates: Dominance & Disappointment

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The Pirates were coming off a breakout year in 1990. The five-year rebuilding program under manager Jim Leyland bore fruit with an NL East title. The 1991 Pittsburgh Pirates showed it was no fluke, running away with the East and reaching the NLCS for the second time in what would be a three-year run.

A young Barry Bonds was the key to the National League’s best offense. Bonds posted a .410 OBP to lead the league and his 116 RBI was only one off the NL’s best. He also hit 25 home runs, stole 43 bases and scored 95 runs. The left fielder was the best young player in baseball.

Bobby Bonilla, on the other side of the outfield provided plenty of help. Bonilla finished with a stat line of .391 OBP/.492 slugging percentage, drove in 100 runs and scored 102 more. Andy Van Slyke rounded out a terrific outfield with a .355/.466 stat line.

Doug Drabek had won the Cy Young Award in 1990 and pitched well again in ‘91, with a 3.07 ERA, but his record fell off to 15-14. John Smiley picked up the slack. The lefty was one of four 20-game winners in MLB this year.

Zane Smith added 16 more wins, while Randy Tomlin and Bob Walk were each consistent starters at the bottom of the rotation. Bill Landrum and Stan Belinda shared closer duties in a bullpen that Leyland got the most out of. It was enough for the Pirates’ staff ERA to rank second in the National League.

Pittsburgh took control of the NL East (prior to 1994 both leagues were split into just an East and West with winners advancing directly to the LCS) from the outset. When they beat the New York Mets 10-1 on April 27, it gave the Pirates sole possession of first place. They never relinquished it.

By Memorial Day they were 26-15, with the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs joining the Mets in the rearview mirror. The Pirates continued to play well through the early summer and reached the All-Star break with a record of 48-31. The Cubs fell by the wayside quickly and the Cardinals slipped to five back. The Mets wouldn’t go quite as easily, with a hot streak just prior to the break keeping them within 2 ½ of the lead.

Pittsburgh went to Cincinnati to open the second half. The Reds were the defending World Series champions and had ousted the Pirates from the 1990 NLCS. This year wasn’t going as well for them and Pittsburgh ripped off a four-game sweep.

An early August road trip went poorly, with nine losses in eleven games, but the Mets went into a tailspin at the same time. New York stayed in a downward spiral and never recovered. Pittsburgh did, although they still had St. Louis lurking. The Pirates hosted the Cardinals for a key four-games series that started on August 9.

Smiley struggled in Friday night’s opener, losing 5-1 and Pittsburgh’s lead was down to four games. The Cardinals came out Saturday and immediately put up two runs in the first inning. This time the Pirates bounced back.

Van Slyke’s three-run blast in the second turned the momentum and Neal Heaton came out of the bullpen to deliver 4 1/3 innings of quality long relief. The result was an 11-5 win. It was more of the same on Sunday as Pittsburgh spotted the visitors a 3-zip lead in the fourth, then scored four times in the sixth. Bonds, light-hitting second baseman Jose Lind and first baseman Orlando Merced all had two hits in the 6-4 win.

The wraparound game on Monday was the knockout blow. Zane Smith and St. Louis’ Jose DeLeon locked up in a good game that went to extra innings tied 2-2. The Cards looked ready to salvage a split and keep the race interesting when they got an 11th-inning solo home run. Bonds did the one better—a two-run blast in the bottom of the inning for a 4-3 win that extended the division lead to seven games.

Pittsburgh coasted him from there. On a Sunday afternoon, with a full two weeks of the season still to go, the Pirates clinched. Drabek beat the lowly Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 with a complete game. Pittsburgh finished the regular season at 98-64, the best record in baseball. They were going back to October and unlike 1990, they weren’t just happy to be there.

But the disappointments of October not only continued, they started to escalate. Pittsburgh was a solid favorite in the NLCS over the Cinderella story that was the Atlanta Braves, who had gone worst-to-first in the West. Little did anyone know, Atlanta was starting a dynasty that would last to 2005. Even though the Pirates held a 3-2 series lead, they lost the final two at home. A year later, in an NLCS rematch, they had the lead on Atlanta in Game 7 before the Braves rallied and won.

The early 1990s Pittsburgh Pirates never did reach a World Series. The franchise still awaits its first trip to the Fall Classic since the championship season of 1979. But they were consistently the best in the NL East in this period and by a lot.

1991 Boston Red Sox: Joe Morgan’s Farewell Season

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When you mention the name “Joe Morgan” in New England, the reference isn’t to the Cincinnati Reds’ Hall of Fame second baseman—even though he got the hit that beat the Red Sox in Game 7 of the 1975 World Series. The reference is to a beloved manager of the same name.

Late 1980s Boston Red Sox

That Joe Morgan took over in 1988, led the memorable “Morgan’s Magic” summer and won a pair of AL East titles. His tenure was short, and ended after 3 ½ seasons. The 1991 Boston Red Sox looked like they might cook up some more magic, before fading at the end.

Change was already in the air at Fenway Park. Prior to the season, the Red Sox cut ties with rightfielder Dwight Evans, second baseman Marty Barrett and starting pitcher Mike Boddicker. Boston signed Jack Clark on the free agent market and the DH hit 28 home runs, but the offense was not up to usual Red Sox standards, finishing seventh in the American League in runs scored.

It’s not that there weren’t some good hitters in the Boston lineup. There was still Wade Boggs at third base, who churned out a .421 on-base percentage. Carlos Quintana has a .375 OBP at first base, while left fielder Mike Greenwell and second baseman Jody Reed kept themselves on base consistently. But the lack of power from anyone other than Clark prevented the whole from being as good as the sum of the parts.

And the pitching certainly wasn’t going to cover for anything. The rotation came around to Roger Clemens every fifth day and the Rocket covered for a lot of ills, winning 18 games with a 2.62 ERA and logging 271 innings. But everything behind him—from Mike Gardiner to Tom Bolton to Matt Young to Kevin Morton to Danny Darwin—was a train wreck.

Morgan was able to get good work from Greg Harris, who both started and relieved and finished with a 3.85 ERA, and closer Jeff Reardon saved 40 games. But finding pitching on the days of a non-Clemens start was always a roll of the dice.

Boston still got off to a nice start, with an early 7-1 stretch that included a three-game sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers, who would finish over .500 in the old AL East. By Memorial Day, the Red Sox were 24-17, and led the division by a half-game over the Toronto Blue Jays, with the Detroit Tigers and Brewers not far in the rearview mirror.

It was a stretch just before and immediately after Memorial Day that the Sox started to unravel. They went 3-8 against divisional rivals, then dropped three straight on the West Coast to the California Angels before recovering. Just prior to the All-Star break they made another run through AL East teams, and again struggled, this time going 6-7. Boston stumbled into the midway point at 42-38 and trailing Toronto by 5 ½ games.

A 2-10 sequence out of the All-Star break seemed to spell the death knell for the season, as the Red Sox were run over by the Minnesota Twins, Texas Rangers and Chicago White Sox, who were the top three teams in the old AL West. Boston fell into an 11 ½ game hole on August 7. It was over.

Only you couldn’t tell that to a friend of mine. We were in college and my friend was a hard-core Red Sox fan. During a hang-out session at which too much beer was consumed, he insisted the Red Sox were going to win the AL East and bet me a bottle of Crown Royal straight-up that they would do it. I gladly jumped all over the bet.

Call it coincidence, but that was the point the Red Sox began to make one final push for their beloved manager. They went to Toronto for a four-game series that, by rights, should have been the formal burial of the season. Instead it was where a revival meeting was called.

Quintana hit two home runs in Friday night’s opener, four other players had three hits and the Red Sox won 12-7. Harris came out on Saturday and threw a four-hitter, while Clark and catcher Tony Pena drove in three runs apiece to win 7-1. Greenwell delivered a four-hit game on Sunday, with Quintana and centerfielder Ellis Burks getting three hits apiece in a 9-6 win.

Clemens pitched Monday’s wraparound finale and struggled, but Clark, Greenwell and Burks had his back. Batting in the 4-5-6 spots in the order, the trio combined to go 9/15 with ten RBIs and lead an 11-8 win. The Red Sox were still 7 ½ games out, but they were breathing.

1970s Red Sox

And they didn’t slow down. They won eight out of ten and cut the lead to 3 ½ games by August 22. Momentum briefly slowed, but the Red Sox regained steam and were back within three after taking a series from the then-lowly New York Yankees in the Bronx.

With three weeks to go in the season, the Red Sox met another struggling AL East foe in the Baltimore Orioles, took the series and cut the lead to a game and a half. As a broke college student with a serious drinking problem, I was now looking to find the budget funds for that bottle of Crown Royal it seemed like I might owe.

On the season’s penultimate weekend, the Red Sox went to Milwaukee. It was here that the dream died. Morton pitched on Friday and gave up six runs in the sixth inning of a 7-5 loss. Brewer starter Jamie Navarro—a decent pitcher, but nothing special—threw a four-hitter at the Sox on Saturday. Boston led on Sunday 4-3 in the eighth, but Reardon blew a save and they lost 5-4.

Even though the Sox salvaged the Monday finale, there were now 3 ½ out with a week to go and it was all but over. As if to underscore the point, Boston mailed it in and lost five of their last six, finishing 84-78.

Morgan was let go when the season was over, as the organization turned to Butch Hobson, a decision that worked almost as poorly as the one to go from Terry Francona to Bobby Valentine two decades later. It would be four years before the Red Sox became a contender again.

And that bottle of Crown Royal? Well, my friend never paid up. Two years later, I quit drinking and five years later I became a Red Sox fan. Can’t accept it now.