After helping the London Underground to a franchise high wins total and breezing through a sweep of the Division Series the Underground pitching staff finally ran out of gas. All season long the batters tanked it and resorted to trying to hit everything out of the park and all season long the pitching staff bailed them out despite the loss of young ace Leonard Carver. The Alliance Tournament was where the tank was finally empty. The Connecticut Nutmeggers arrived pumped and ready to avenge last year’s 4-0 reverse at the same stage of the post season and London couldn’t match their commitment.

The Nutmeggers jumped on London early and last year’s PEC winners found it hard to keep the ball in the park. Hiroyuki Nii gave up a Game One, top of the first, Grand Slam to Arthur Collins and that set the tone for his series. Ángel Luján (helped out by nearly everyone in the bullpen) at least sent them across the water with a split of the results and rookie  Erwin Callahan gave them their one & only lead of the series. Santiago Estrada walked five in his first ever PEBA playoff appearance but almost got away with it before Chad Fountain blew it in the bottom of the eighth. London said goodbye to America with Nii imploding, lasting only 1.2 innings as Nutmeggers pounded out a 9-3 win. Nii had again given up a multi-run first innings homer and allowed three walks and seven runs on his brief outing. In fact he finished the series with figures of 0-2 with just five innings pitched in two starts, 16 hits allowed, four walks to only seven K’s and capped it off with a 23.40 ERA, not what you want from such a respected pitcher.

Back in London it was all in disarray, Luján had gone down with a fever and been sent home, Callahan would have to pitch Game Six on short rest and apparently the plan was to send ace closer Luis Mora to the mound if the Underground could force Game Seven. More started 32 games in 201 going 10-9 with a 4.01 ERA but hadn’t been seen outside the bullpen since but it was felt that they couldn’t trust Estrada who was mired in a six game losing streak with such an important game and there just wasn’t anyone else left standing. As it was a tired Callahan coughed up a first innings two-run homer and London just couldn’t bring it back.

So fair play to the Connecticut Nutmeggers, who deservedly progressed to represent the Imperial League in the Planetary Extreme Championship against the 107 game winners Aurora Borealis. Good luck to them! Back in London the Underground turn to planning for 2020. Carver won’t be back till mid season leaving a big hole in the rotation. Can Estrada recapture his early season form? Can London pick another FA gem or will Robby Holmes, Kelvin Jones or Bob Glenn make it from the Worcester T’s? Gabriel Álvarez is gone, released after just 14 starts in two years for London going 6-7 with a 6.24 ERA, walking 67 while striking out only 51. 32-yr-old Bernie Jacoby would probably be on the way too after four years if it wasn’t for the uncertainty over the rotation slots, he may well yet end up with a long relief spot in 2020. Catcher Wilson Berry has also been released, a good pickup in his first year, he played nowhere near good enough in his contract year to convince London that he was worth any extension to his $17M contract. That leaves a worrying situation behind the plate as backup Dave York hit just .065 in the post season, 32-yr-old Luis Cruz who played for the Underground in 2015 & 2017 may well be in with another shot as London are poorly served throughout the organisation for any decent catchers. 34-yr-old Luis Mora is still without an extension for 2020 despite only surrendering two hits and no runs in six post season outing, picking up five saves. Unfortunately London currently see 23-yr-old

Gary Stanley who makes the league’s minimum $500K salary as ready to slip into the closer’s role and much cheaper than dishing up $13M+ for Mora.

So that’s it for the PEBA’s only European franchise In 2019. Next year they will begin their quest for their third successive post season appearance with a whole lot of decisions to be made between now and then. One thing you can be sure about is that 27-yr-old Chris Long will be there having just inked a 7-year, $120 million contract extension that will keep him in London for probably the rest of his career. A career .314 hitter in his first five years in the organisation with 400 RBI and 374 runs to his name, ‘Jitters’ will look to hold many team records by the time he retires.