Hey, sports fans, remember when Jack Bauer Squared had a 3-game division lead with 8 games left? Yeah, we didn’t exactly put it away.
Coming home to Olympic Stadium to finish the regular season with a four-game series against the only team eliminated in the division certainly sounded promising. All $24 and Some Change had left to play for was pride, and heck we were pretty lucky not to be there with them.
But there we sat with a 1-game lead and a magic number of 4 and destiny still in our hands. Win out, and we’d be .500 and in the playoffs. Get some luck and we wouldn’t even need to win them all.
So of course we came out to open this decisive series … and laid an egg. The visitors roughed up Bert Blyleven for 5 runs before we even got a chance to bat, and sure-handed second baseman Ryne Sandberg’s error proved pretty costly mixed with the three doubles $24 racked up.
They added another run in the 2nd to make it 6-0, but we had some fight in us at least. In the 3rd, Sandberg and Bobby Bonilla belted two-run homers to close the gap to 2.
But $24 blew it open in the 5th with 4 more runs off Blyleven, whose ERA ballooned to 5.10, the highest it has been the entire season. The 10 runs he allowed were a season high, and he likely won’t get another start now unless we manage to make the playoffs and win a round.
JBS put a couple runs on to make it a bit more respectable before falling 10-6. Of course our closest competitor Steroids Make You Fast won their game to forge a tie with 3 games to go. Forget the magic number anymore. Now it’s a straight-out sprint.
On to the second game of the series, and we sent Teddy Higuera to the mound to follow up his excellent previous start in which he took a no-hitter into the 7th. Instead, he did his best Blyleven impression.
$24 and Some Change once again scored 5 in the top of the 1st and another in the 2nd, an exact duplicate of the game before and a matching 6-0 lead. We managed to make it respectable with a 3-run 6th and added another in the 8th before Carlos Delgado struck out with the bases loaded to end the threat.
That proved our last hurrah as we dropped a 6-4 decision. The only solace was the Steroids also lost to remain even with us at 77-83 and two games to play.
We’ve lost three in a row and five out of six right when we had our destiny in our hands. It’s fairly depressing, because I keep getting my hopes up that this team has turned a corner only to get smacked back again.
A Rod is only 2 games back of us and could still wind up in a tie for the division lead if they can knock Steroids off twice and we falter twice more. That could certainly happen. Nothing to suggest we look like a team prepared to win a game, that’s for sure.
We will know in less than a day whether the season goes on for Jack Bauer Squared. We could win the division, we could wind up in a one-game playoff, we could wind up in a three-way tie, or we could lose the race by a game or even two. Lots of possibilities in these final two.
Mike Cuellar, our mostly pretty good ace, goes in the final series’ third game. He’ll be followed by Burt Hooton in the regular-season finale. If we wind up in a one-game playoff, Higuera would get a shot at redemption.
Keep those fingers crossed!
