Do you believe in miracles? This Jack Bauer Squared team that seemingly had no business being in a division race enters the final 24 games of the 24×24 season just a game out of first place. But with 6 games on the road against the NL’s top two teams, would we just tumble back out of it?
Of course we started off against our nemesis, La Marr Hoyt, the not-so-worthy 1983 Cy Young winner I jokingly disparaged during the draft and then noted he’d probably beat me every time I faced him. First two times out, he did. Here in the heat of the pennant race came No. 3.
Pick your cliche. Third time’s a charm? Sure, why not?
Kal Daniels opened the game against Hitmen 24×24 with a leadoff homer, his 17th, and Garry Maddox added a 2-run shot to back 7 scoreless innings from Bert Blyleven. That would be the Blyleven I drafted because I didn’t want to get stuck with Hoyt!
For what it’s worth, Blyleven is 16-11, 4.74, and Hoyt is 16-13, 4.25. Joke is definitely on me, but at least we finally beat him. The 4-0 win kept us a game back and moved us one step closer to .500.
Side note: Maddox has hit 6 homers for me, matching his real-life total, though his average of .271 is quite off his real .330 in 1976. I drafted him largely for his glove, however, his famously extraordinary range in center field for the Phillies matching his impossibly huge hair. I grew to admire his graceful loping through the outfield when his Phils met my Dodgers in the 1977 and 1978 playoffs.
The great quote about Maddox is still one of my baseball favorites: “Two-third of the Earth is covered by water, and the rest by Garry Maddox.” Yup, the man tracked down everything out there, it seemed.
So far for me he has notched 19 “plus” defensive plays, which is definitely worthy though it ranks only 5th in the league among center fielders. And his 10 errors match the most of any CF, while his range factor ranks just 13th. … But I digress. The man could play mean defense, and I’m sticking to it regardless.
In the second game at Oakland Coliseum, Mike Cuellar gave up a run on two hits in the 2nd inning, and then he didn’t allow anything the rest of the way. Definitely the time to pitch like an ace, Mike!
Bobby Murcer swatted his 23rd homer, and Gene Tenace hit his 18th, and Cuellar went the distance in a 3-1 win. I’ve ripped Cuellar’s inconsistency, but I can’t complain about this outing in the least.
With a loss by Steroids Make You Fast, suddenly this JBS squad is back in a first-place tie.
In the series finale, no one scored until the 4th inning, but then the bats got going. Tenace hit his 19th and 20th homers as we built an 8-3 lead. Rod Beck came on in the 7th and gave up a pair of two-run homers to put Hitmen squarely into it again, however.
It stayed 8-7 into the 9th, and Bob Woodward came on in pursuit of his 33rd save and promptly put two runners on. But he retired the final three hitters in a row to close out a rare one-run win for us and a very surprising three-game sweep of one of the league’s top teams.
The wholly unexpected sweep put us at 70-71, still tied for first, so close to .500 and yet with another daunting series ahead of us and no time to enjoy it. We need to keep it up against Piazza Blues next as we hit the home stretch of the season.
