Looking Back: Grover’s Playoff Shortcomings

With Texas and San Francisco both vying for a World Series title this week, I figured it was time to look back on what happened to the mid to late 90’s Indians teams. Whether the Rangers or the Giants win, it will erase one of the top five longest droughts in Major League Baseball history. Texas has never won a World Series, while the Giants last title was before they moved to the city by the bay. This of course leaves the Indians and the Cubs at the top of the list.

It shouldn’t have been this way.

The 1994 Cleveland Indians were a young team coming into their own and swash-buckled their way to a 70-47 record, trailing the division leading Chicago White Sox by just one game when the strike ended the season prematurely. The next year, the Tribe was the best team in Baseball from start to finish. They won an insane 100 of their 144 games during the strike-shortened season and boasted the game’s best offense. They would fall short however, losing to the Atlanta Braves in six games of the ’95 World Series. We all seemed “happy to be there” at the time, thinking this run was just beginning.

It was just the beginning of two things in fact – great regular seasons that ended up in October despair, and not so memorable managerial decisions by skipper Mike Hargrove.

During Game Six of that World Series, he made the ever controversial decision in a 0-0 game to allow left-handed reliever Jim Poole, who hadn’t had an at-bat all year, attempt to lay down a sac bunt with the lead run on first base with nobody out. Hargrove wanted Poole to be in the game to face David Justice to start the home half of the seventh. Poole, naturally failed in his bunt try, and compounded Grover’s mistake by giving up a solo homer to Justice; the only run of the title clinching game for the Braves. Never mind the fact that Hargrove carried two other lefties on the postseason; Paul Assenmacher and Alan Embree.

The ’96 team breezed through another AL Central season, and met the Baltimore Orioles in the first round of the playoffs. Instead of a second consecutive trip to the Fall Classic, the Wahoos were upset by the Baltimore Orioles in four games. This was a missed opportunity that Tribe fans seem to gloss right over. It was Albert Belle’s contract year and he was a beast again. The everlasting image of Albert that is burned in my brain was his grand slam off of Armando Benitez in Game Three of the ALDS at Jacobs Field. That stadium rocked like it never had before.

What nobody remembers was Mike Hargrove was about to take the bat out of Albert’s hands in that situation. With two on and nobody out, Grover sent pinch hitter Casey Candaele to the plate in place of Jim Thome to bunt both runners into scoring position. If Candaele did his job, then first base would be open and Orioles manager Davey Johnson would have no doubt called for an intentional walk. Luckily for Hargrove, Candaele was walked loading the bases for Albert, who bailed Grover and his team out. This mistake, he skated on, but it was just a one game stay of execution.

In Game Four, a day after Belle’s magnificent grand slam gave the Indians a win, Hargrove brought out his closer Jose Mesa for a fourth inning (after he had blown the save in the ninth) in the 12th despite having long man Chad Ogea ready in the bullpen. The Indians season would come to a premature end after the then-hated Robbie Alomar took Joe Table deep, giving the Orioles a 3-1 series win. I defy you to find me a playoff game since 1996 where a similar situation occurred and a pitcher who 99 out of 100 times pitched one inning per game, came out for not just a third, but a fourth inning of work. Of the many blunders Hargrove made in the playoffs, this one may be the most egregious. Though the Tribe would get their revenge a year later, ’96 was viewed as a blown opportunity and we’d never see Albert Belle in the Red, White, and Blue again.

As frustrated as I was with Grover after the ’96 playoff loss, he certainly redeemed himself in ’97 as he took perhaps the worst team in the “Era of Champions” to within two outs of ending the cities decades long title drought. (SIDE NOTE – only in Cleveland would we refer to a time period as “The Era of Champions” yet not have any titles to go along with it). Gone were Kenny Lofton, Albert Belle, and Dennis Martinez. In were Justice, Marquis Grissom, and wonder-boy Jaret Wright. Jim Thome moved from third to first base to make room for the one year stop-over of Matt Williams. It was a different team and while they only won 86 games in the regular season, had that team of destiny feel.

Don’t believe me? How else can you explain being three outs away from elimination vs. Mariano Rivera in the ALDS and winning that series in Five; Or coming back after Grissom lost a ball in the sky in a 1-0 game in the ninth thanks to an Omar Vizquel missed squeezed bunt that resulted in a walkoff win in Game Three of the ALCS against Baltimore; Or Sandy Alomar’s walkoff winning single in Game Four; Or Tony Fernandez’s homer off of Benitez breaking a scoreless tie in the 11th inning to clinch the AL Pennant in Baltimore on a night that the Indians were out hit 12-4; or getting two wins from Ogea in the World Series against Florida, one of which included him getting not one, but two hits and an RBI.

Not even Grover’s incessant righty/lefty crap was going to derail that ’97 team. It worked to perfection in the seventh and eighth innings of Game Seven in Miami.

The ’99 Indians were another major disappointment to me and to me, was the straw that broke the camel’s back with Grover. The Indians housed the Red Sox in the first two games at Jacobs Field and headed to Boston needing just one win to get back to the ALCS for a fourth time in five years. I do partially blame myself for this epic meltdown because I booked a plane ticket back to Cleveland from Chicago to come home for the ALCS the following weekend, but the real blame goes to Hargrove.

In Game Three, the Indians looked like they were heading for a sweep, but starting pitcher Dave Burba inflamed a muscle in his forearm and had to come out of the game in the fourth inning. Did Hargrove turn to a long man such as Sean DePaula, who had done a very nice job late in the season? Nope, he strangely decided to go to Wright, his scheduled game four starter and a kid who has never once pitched out of the bullpen. Wright was a disaster and the game quickly got out of hand. But again, Grover had a chance to right the wrong – with the bases loaded in a tie game in the sixth, he left lefty Ricky Rincon in the game to face the right-handed hitting Indian killer John Valentin. For years, Hargrove was a slave to the righty/lefty theory, yet this time, with DePaula ready and warm, he let Little Ricky face Valentin, who doubled to clear the bases. The Indians were blown out of game three 18-4, but that wasn’t the worst of it.

Hargrove left himself with two starters who would have to go in games Four and Five on three days rest – Charles Nagy and Bartolo Colon; neither of which had any success in their careers in this situation. Nagy and Colon were miserable failures and the Indians lost the last two games, including game five at home, where they were done in by the great Troy O’Leary (hit a grand slam and a three run homer).

I don’t know what I’m trying to prove by pointing out Hargrove’s October shortcomings. Its just that its World Series time and I despise the fact that the Indians missed so many good chances to win a title in the mid to late 90’s.