It was a night unlike any other in the history of regular season finales in Major League Baseball:Four games to determine two playoff spots.
The Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves had huge leads of 8.5 games in their respective AL and NL wild card races at the start of September. Both teams blew those leads and ended up in a dead heat with the St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays entering play.
The formula for all four teams was simple: Win! If all four teams won, then one-game playoffs would have been played on Thursday to determine the leagues' wild cards; however, don't tell that to Braves and Red Sox that both blew late leads in Wednesday night's action.
The Braves held a 3-1 lead on the Philadelphia Phillies at home, only to watch Philly tie it with runs in the seventh and ninth innings. The game went into extras, and the Phillies did away with their divisional rival when Hunter Pence singled home Brian Schneider with the go-ahead run in the top of the 13th.
The Braves went quietly in the ninth, capped by a double play grounder by Freddie Freeman to end it.
The Cardinals, meanwhile, took care of the Astros, blowing them away 8-0 to clinch the wild card. The Cardinals will play at Philadelphia on Friday.
Then attention turned to the AL wild card chase. The Yankees built a 7-0 lead on Tampa Bay, while Boston held onto a 3-2 lead over the Orioles. It appeared that the Red Sox might have dodged a bullet but not so fast.
The Rays stormed back, highlighted by a three run homer by Evan Longoria to cut the Yankee lead to 7-6, and finished off by a Daniel Johnson solo shot in the ninth to tie it at seven.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Papelbon imploded in Baltimore. A two out double by Chris Davis set the stage for the Orioles. Then the next batter Nolan Reidmon doubled into the gap to score Davis to tie the game. Finally, Robert Andino blooped a ball in front of former Ray, $142 million man, Carl Crawford, who couldn't come up with the baseball, allowing Reidmon to score to put Boston on the brink of elimination.
As Boston watched their season fizzle, the Rays and Yankees were deadlocked at seven in the 12th inning. Minutes after the Andino base hit, Evan Longoria hit a rope down the left field line and watched as the ball curved around the foul pole, giving the Rays the victory in walk off fashion. The Rays are heading back to the playoffs!
For the Red Sox that was the most costly collapse ever; in fact, bigger than anything the Mets could come up with. This was a Red Sox team that loaded up on free agent talent in Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford; they were supposed to be the best team in all of baseball. For five months they were the best team in baseball with big margins over both the Yankees and Rays, but it wasn't meant to be. The Red Sox caught a case of Mets disease, as they went 7-20 in the month of September.
If you believe October is a scary month with ghosts, zombies and monsters -- then you can bet heads will roll in Beantown.
As for the Yankees -- I'm sure they weren't that pleased to watch Tampa Bay celebrate at their expense. They will remember that if the two teams meet up in two weeks during the ALCS. In the meantime the Yankees will prepare to play the Detroit Tigers at the Stadium on Friday night at 8:37. CC Sabathia will start against 24-game winner Justin Verlander.
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