Season 9, Heros & Goats

Better late than never, short but sweet...

round 1
Tampa over Syracuse (3-1)
Hero: Hard to pick any 1 hero for Tampa, very much a team effort game to game, but we'll go w/ Walter Russel for his 7.2 innings of 2 run baseball in game 2. After getting shellacked (sp?) in game 1 11-2, Russell put the hammer down for 7 innings, allowing only 1 hit before giving up a wall grazing 2 run homer with his team ahead 3 runs. The bullpen cleared up the rest and Tampa never looked back taking the remaining 2 games in the series.

Goat: Harpo Norton. Harpo wasn't the biggest problem w/ the defending W-S champs, just the biggest definition in their miserable blowouts in the last 2 games. In 2 appearances, spanning 1.2 innings, Harpo gave up 6 hits, 2 homers and 7 runs to end any conversation of Syracuse making a run towards a repeat. However, and even bigger crime is Norton's mama insistance on naming her son after her favorite talk show host on opposite day.

Wichita over New York (3-1)
Hero: Another team series win for Wichita, so we'll give the award to Jolbert Mesies. He may not have collected many hits, or manned the plate behind dominate pitching, but he made his hits counts, highlighted by the 2 run homer to cap off an epic 11 inning game 1 victory in his only at bat as well as the 2 run homer to turn a 1-0 New York lead, into a 2-1 Wichita lead they would never relinquish in the deciding game 5.
Goat: Ted Lush produced nearly every time he was called upon during the regular season, however when the playoff bell went off, lush apparently slept in. 3 hits and 0 rbi from the heart of New York'order has New Yorkers screaming louder than A'Rod's early postseason struggles.

Honolulu over Pittsburgh (3-1)
Hero: Anthony Post. Post rebounded from a dissapointing 2 inning start in a game 1 loss to Pittsburgh, however he rebounded strong w/ 9 innings of 2 hit ball in the deciding game 4 (a 3-0 Honolulu victory).
Goat: Omar Franco. sometimes you only get 1 shot at glory, and sometimes its thrown in your face. In his only appearance, with Pittsburgh holding a 1-0 lead in the series following a long extra innings affair in game 1, Franco was given the pill with a 1 run lead and a chance to go up 2-0. Franco's first pitch cleared the wall off of pinch hitter Fernando Manzinillo allowing honolulu to steal the game in extras, and never look back.

Dover over Charlotte (3-2)
Hero: Scott Tankersly. In a series where 5 seemed to be the magic number, might as well pick a guy w/ 5 rbi in the series, not to mention 3 homers, including a key 2 run homer in game 2 and a solo shot in game 5 to give Dover the lead.
Goat: Fausto James. At least he was consistant. 6.1 innings of 5 run (4 earned) followed up by 6.0 innings of 5 runs (4 earned) allowing 7 & 8 hits repectively.