1986 gary lucas

gary lucas was acquired by the angels in december of 1985.  here's his 1986 o-pee-chee card:

here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

and the topps back:

lucas was a lefty who wasn't a lefty-lefty specialist.  in his career, left-handed batters actually hit him better than right-handed batters, and he struck either one out with about the same regularity (16-17% of the time).  so, some people thought that there was really no benefit to the match up in game 5 of the 1986 alcs when lucas was called upon to relieve mike witt with 2 outs, nobody on base and a 5-4 lead in the 9th inning to face the left-handed hitting rich gedman.  in reality, witt had given up two runs in the inning already, gedman was 0 for 1 with a strikeout against lucas in the regular season, and lucas had again struck him out in game 4 of the series.  unfortunately, in game 5 lucas hit gedman with a pitch, gene mauch brought in donnie moore to face dave henderson, and the angels were on their way to a series defeat.  two days later, to the chagrin of angels' fans everywhere, lucas was called upon to face gedman once again in game 6, and he struck him out.  oh, what might have been...

voici à vous, 1986 gary lucas!