Baseball Playoffs Set After Wild Ride

Baseball's wildest wild-card races ever came down to the final minutes of the final day of the regular season Wednesday.

The St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays both earned playoff spots right around midnight, finishing off two of the most spectacular comebacks ever.

St. Louis beat the Houston Astros 8-0 earlier in the night and then watched the Philadelphia Phillies rally in the ninth inning and beat the Braves 4-3 in the 13th, eliminating Atlanta, which had led St. Louis by 10 games for the National League wild card on Aug. 25.

Meanwhile, the Rays clinched the American League wild card by beating the New York Yankees 8-7 in 12 innings after trailing 7-0 in the eighth. Their win came four minutes after the Boston Red Sox blew a one-run lead in the ninth to the Baltimore Orioles and lost 4-3. The Red Sox had held a nine-game lead over the Rays on Sept. 3.

Both races were tied at the beginning of the night. Boston and Atlanta could have forced one-game playoffs with wins, but both lost because closers Jonathan Papelbon and Craig Kimbrel couldn't hold ninth-inning leads.

St. Louis will face Philadelphia in the NL Division Series. Tampa Bay will play the Texas Rangers.

Cardinals roll

In Houston, Chris Carpenter (11-9) struck out 11 and allowed two hits in his 15th career complete-game shutout as St. Louis finished its improbable September charge.

"We had nothing to lose. We were already out of it," Carpenter said. "People were telling us we were done. We decided to go out and play and not embarrass ourselves and do what we can. We played ourselves back into it."

The Cardinals poured onto the field after Carpenter fielded J.D. Martinez's weak grounder for the final out. The celebration was brief and muted, as the team raced into the clubhouse to watch the end of the game in Atlanta.

"It was exciting, there's no doubt about it," Carpenter said. "The way these guys have played the past month and a half has been amazing, every single night grinding, playing their butts off, not giving up.

"We continued to give ourselves an opportunity, and now we are here."

Atlanta's game started an hour earlier, but the Cardinals virtually took away any hope for a Houston victory in the first inning of their contest, jumping to a 5-0 lead against Brett Myers (7-14).

Albert Pujols and Lance Berkman drove in runs with singles, and David Freese doubled to left-center before Myers even recorded an out. Berkman scored when Skip Schumaker's hard grounder ricocheted off Myers' glove for an infield hit, and Freese came home on Nick Punto's single to right.

Carpenter handled the rest.

Rays rally

In St. Petersburg, Fla., the Rays overcame a 7-0 deficit with six runs in the eighth and one in the ninth, and then beat the AL East champion Yankees on Evan Longoria's home run in the 12th.
Longoria hit a three-run homer in the eighth that capped the six-run burst. Pinch-hitter Dan Johnson's two-out, two-strike solo homer in the ninth tied it.

Longoria won it with a one-out shot barely inside the left-field foul pole.

Sox collapse

In Baltimore, the Red Sox completed their September collapse in horrific and historic fashion, allowing two ninth-inning runs in a loss to the Orioles.

A 7-19 swoon had left them tied with Tampa Bay entering the final day. Even if Tampa Bay lost, the Red Sox faced the prospect of a quick turnaround following a long night at Camden Yards that included a rain delay of 1 hour, 26 minutes in the middle of the seventh inning.

The Orioles won the game in the ninth against Papelbon (4-1), who struck out the first two batters before giving up a double to Chris Davis. Nolan Reimold followed with a double to score pinch-runner Kyle Hudson, and Robert Andino completed the comeback with a single to left that Carl Crawford couldn't glove.

Boston became the first team to miss the postseason after leading by as many as nine games for a playoff spot entering September, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.


Press of Atlantic City | www.pressofatlanticcity.com