Lions Capture Second Straight MMDA Title

The Mohawk Valley Lions roared to a second straight MMDA title with an unlikely sweep of the top-seeded Northwest Stars in the World Series. The Lions overcame early deficits in three of the four games, a feat made possible by a pitching staff (and defense) that allowed just seven runs and a 1.75 ERA in the World Series.

Andrew McCutchen hit .333 with two home runs and
six RBIs in four World Series games

Luck never seemed to leave the Lions' side in the 2015 postseason. They went 5-2 in one-run games, 4-0 in extra-inning games and 7-1 on the road. They lost their first two playoff games at home, when they scored only one run in 18 innings against the Pilots' Jake Arrieta and Carlos Carrasco. Then they played 19 extra innings in six tense games with the Crows in which Spokane outscored Mohawk Valley by one run. The Lions lost the first game of that series at home, too.

Two of Mohawk Valley's biggest stars shined brightly in the World Series, when league MVP Andrew McCutchen and league Cy Young Award winner David Price stepped up their games. McCutchen hit .333 (5-for-15) with two home runs, a double, three walks, four runs and six RBIs. He drove in the game-winning runs in Games One and Four. Price picked up the win in the title-clinching Game Four, and in his two starts logged a 1.74 ERA with 12 strikeouts, three walks and nine hits allowed in 10 1/3 innings.

Brief capsules of each World Series game follow.

Game One: McCutchen drove in the go-ahead run with a seventh-inning single in a game the Lions won 3-2. The Stars' Adam Jones very nearly walked off the Lions when he hit a deep fly to left field off closer Joe Smith in the ninth inning—but the ball died on the warning track. In fact, the Stars pushed the tying run to second base with two outs in the ninth before Smith converted the save. 

Game Two: McCutchen got the scoring started with a fifth-inning double that plated Yan Gomes. J.D. Martinez and Carl Crawford followed with RBI singles, and a fourth run scored when Albert Pujols reached on an error by Stars second baseman Brian Dozier. Lions starter Yu Darvish cruised to a 5-1 complete-game win.

Game Three: Lions relief ace Dellin Betances coughed up a 2-0 lead in the eighth inning by allowing a booming two-run homer to Carlos Santana, which followed a leadoff single by Jason Heyward. Lions pinch-hitter Jason Kipnis hit his own improbable home run with one out in the bottom of the eighth to provide the 3-2 margin of victory. The Stars put runners on first and second with one out in the ninth inning before Smith, in another white-knuckle performance, converted the save.

Game Four: The Stars led this one 2-0 through three innings before the Lions scored six unanswered runs. Pujols hit a two-run single with two outs in the fourth to tie the score at two. McCutchen blasted a two-run homer with two outs in the fifth, and Pujols hit a two-run shot of his own in the eighth to push the score to 6-2, which is where the game would settle.

The Bigger Picture

Mohawk Valley owes much of its 2015 postseason success to run-prevention. Lions pitchers ranked second among the eight playoff clubs in the following categories: ERA (1.67), opponent average (.186), strikeout rate (9.6 per nine innings) and WHIP (0.94). They allowed five home runs in 16 games.

Keeping the opposition off the board was more vital than ever in the 2015 postseason, when the Lions matched up with three of the top four pitching staffs in the league: Rochester (No. 4) in the first round, Spokane (No. 1) in the second round and Northwest (No. 2) in the World Series. Because of the strong arms opposing the Lions, the club's final batting line was an unimpressive .223/.283/.330, which led to 3.43 runs scored per game, a rate that would have ranked 17th in the league during the regular season.

Trivia tidbits about the 2015 Lions and the World Series:

• The Lions went just 15-15 in April, when they squared off with the stout Pacific division, which produced three playoff teams in Northwest, Spokane and Brooklyn. Mohawk Valley rebounded in May and went 110-38 the rest of the way—including the postseason.

• The Lions have appeared in three of the past four World Series. The Stars have appeared in two of the past three. The Huskies appeared in back-to-back World Series in 2013 and 2014.

• The 2015 World Series pitted the No. 1 Stars against the No. 2 Lions, which was the first meeting of the top two playoff seeds since 2006, when the No. 1 Bethlehem Beaz defeated the No. 2 Montreal Miracle in six games.

• No team has won consecutive World Series since Bethlehem won three in a row from 2005 to 2007. The Stars prevented the Beaz from winning four in a row when they won the 2008 World Series in seven games.

• The table below lists all the MMDA champions since the year 2000. The W and L columns refer to postseason record. Neither OPS+ nor ERA+ are adjusted for ballpark, but that's OK because the Balance column indicates the harmonic mean between the two metrics. The average MMDA champion has a Balance reading of 117, meaning that the league winner was about 17 percent better than the league average in that season in terms of OPS and ERA.

Year	League Champ	W	L	Seed	Wins	OPS+	ERA+	Balance
2015	Mohawk Valley Lions	12	4	2	113	113	129	120
2014	Mohawk Valley Lions	12	4	6	87	95	114	104
2013	Northeast Huskies	12	6	1	115	116	128	121
2012	Goldenrod Gators	12	3	8	84	112	102	107
2011	Bethlehem Beaz	12	4	4	107	130	92	108
2010	Cape Cod Breakers	12	4	6	93	119	104	111
2009	Northern Lehigh Bulldogs	12	5	3	112	140	96	114
2008	Northwest Stars	12	6	3	104	102	131	115
2007	Bethlehem Beaz	12	4	1	122	129	144	136
2006	Bethlehem Beaz	12	@	1	115	119	135	127
2005	Bethlehem Beaz	12	3	1	106	127	109	117
2004	Northeast Huskies	12	6	1	114	121	123	122
2003	Newton Rockcrushers	12	5	1	123	139	114	125
2002	Cape Cod Breakers	12	1	4	105	126	104	114
2001	Rochester Pilots	12	6	4	105	—	—	—
2000	Newton Rockcrushers	12	3	1	105	—	—	—

@ The results of Bethlehem's round-two matchup with the defunct Syracuse Stingers are lost to time. We do know that the Beaz lost at least three games that postseason, and they could have lost as many as six total, provided that the Stingers series went the full seven games. So pick a number between three and six for the loss column.