That is a genuine question. On September 2nd, even the die-hardest of Rays fans and Cardinals fans could have been excused for thinking their season would finish on September 28th. And by stark contrast, Red Sox fans and Braves fans could have been excused for thinking their respective teams were going to the playoffs. They probably already had their bags packed.
On that day, St. Louis were 8.5 games back from Atlanta, and Tampa Bay were 9 games back from Boston. Surely not, even in their wildest dreams, did the Tampa and St. Louis fans think their respective team would make the playoffs. But what a September we had.
Atlanta Braves were cruising their way to the postseason before 2nd September. They had a record of 81-56 and a month of games which were all mostly winnable, bar the 2 series' against rivals Philadelphia Phillies. They had a rocky start, going 2-5 in the first week of September (including a 3-0 series loss against Phillies), but won both games in a double-header against New York Mets on the 8th to ease the pressure before their next series. The next series was probably their downfall. A hat-trick of losses against the one team they really didn't want to face. St. Louis Cardinals. Cards had won 7 of their last 10, and kept their streak with a pair of 4-3 victories and a 6-3 win. Atlanta were still in the driving seat; 4.5 games ahead with just 16 games left. That series will have given hope to Cards fans and made Braves fans quite anxious.
It wasn't that Braves played badly for the rest of September; they went 5-7 before the final series of their regular season (and ultimately their whole season) against Phillies. It's just that Cards played better in that time. They went 9-4, including a 2-1 series victory against the slowly collapsing Phillies.
Braves could probably not have had a worse team to end their season against when they desperately needed to win. A finally-winning-again Phillies team were the opposition for their final 3 games. Phillies, who had gone on an 8-game losing streak since confirming their place in the postseason on September 14th, were fired up and looking to beat their franchise record for most victories in a season. That record stood at 101. Phillies had 99. But this isn't about how Philadelphia achieved a new franchise record. It's about how Atlanta lost their playoff place.
Game 1: Atlanta scored in both the first 2 innnings to take a 2-0 lead, but Phillies showed why they have an awesome record as they scored 1 run in the 4th, 5th and 6th innings to take the lead. Another homer in the 8th secured an Atlanta loss, but it didn't really matter as St. Louis narrowly lost 5-4 in the 10th innings at Houston. A walk-off bunt by Bogusevic gave Astros victory to keep the Cards 1 game behind.
Game 2: The Braves-Phillies was over just as half the innings had been completed. At mid 5th, Phillies had a commanding 6-0 lead and were not going to throw it away. Phillies scored again in the 7th to make it 7-0, and an Atlanta score in the 9th offered a small glimmer of hope to the Braves. But Kendrick extinguished the spark of hope when he struck out Freeman to give Phillies victory, and their franchise-tying 101st victory of the season (they last got this many victories in the 1976 and 1977 seasons).
St. Louis, meanwhile, destroyed Houston 13-6 to tie it up at the top of the NL Wild card race. Cards went down 5-0 inside 3 innings, but in the 4th they tied it up at 5, mainly thanks to a 3-run double from Schumaker. Houston scored in the 5th to regain the lead, but Cardinals finished the final 3 innings with a flurry of runs to take the game.
Game 3: This is what the season came down to. 161 games, and we still didn't know who was going to make the playoffs. Braves were up first. Phillies showed their intent to achieve a club-record 102nd victory as they opened the scoring in the first. Braves also scored in the 1st to square it up, and then an Uggla 2-run homer in the 3rd gave them a 3-1 lead. Phillies brought it back to a 1-run deficit in the 7th, and then in the 9th Utley hit a sacrifice fly to take the game into extra innings. Phillies then went on to ensure that Braves would not be qualifying without playing a playoff game, or not qualifying at all, as they scored 1 run in the 13th innings.
St. Louis fared a lot better. A 5-run 1st innings pretty much put the game in the bag straight away, to be honest. Astros only had 2 hits in the whole game and did not look like winning. Runs in the 3rd, 5th and 9th innings gave Cardinals a comfortable 8-0 victory, and also a place in the playoffs. They will have known in about the 6th inning that Phillies had won and all they had to do was hold on to their 6-0 lead, which they did remarkably well I might add.
The downfall of the Boston Red Sox is probably more shocking than Atlanta's. Boston, a franchise steeped in history, have never done anything like this in their 110-year tenure.
The key team in this Wild Card race was not Boston. Or Tampa. Or Toronto or New York Yankees (although both did do a lot to influence it). It was in fact the team with the worst record in the American League: Baltimore Orioles. In September, they had 7 games against Boston and 6 against Rays.
Red Sox didn't start September badly. They started it horrifically. In their 1st 11 games, they won 2. 3 of the losses came against Rays. It's like the start of the season all over again (if you can't remember that far back, they started 2-10). It's not that they weren't scoring plenty of runs (In those 11 games, they scored 52 runs. This included 3 games where they scored 10 or more); it's just that their opponents were scoring more (they conceded 73, including 3 games where they conceded 10 or more). Clearly the problem wasn't the offence. It was the defence. The problem continued through the rest of September, as they went 3-9 until the final series against Baltimore. During these games, there was a 3-1 series loss to Orioles and a 3-1 series loss against Tampa. They also lost 3 of 5 games against Blue Jays and 2 of 3 against NYY. Going in to the final 3 games of the season, Red Sox had a record of 89-70.
Tampa started September much better, winning 8 of their first 11 games. This included a 2-1 series victory against Baltimore and the aforementioned 3-0 series drubbing of Boston, which was pretty key. The next games before the final series were not quite as good as the opening 11, but still better than Boston. They went 6-7. During this time, they beat Sox 3-1 at Fenway (as I mentioned earlier) in a potentially huge series. They also lost a series 3-1 to Yankees. Then came the final series. At New York. Against the Yankees. The AL leaders had a 97-60 record, and will have been clear favourites. Rays on the other hand, were 88-71 and 1 game back.
Despite their awful streak, Red Sox will have been expected to beat Baltimore and Rays will have been expected to lose to Yankees.
Game 1: I already analyzed game 1 in my previous post, so I'm not going to do it again.
Game 2: Rays started well in game 2, taking an early 2-0 lead, but Yankees hit back with single homers in the 3rd, 5th and 6th to take a 3-2 advantage. Then in the 7th, Rays took the lead back in style. Upton had already walked to 1st when Longoria came to the plate. Upton subsequently stole second and then Longoria also walked. Up step Matt Joyce. On his second pitch, he smashed the ball straight back over Yankees pitcher Soriano's head to give Tampa a 5-3 lead, and ultimately the game.
Sox still managed to stay in touch with Rays at the top as they squeaked past Baltimore 8-7. The real hero in the match was Ryan Lavarnway, who cracked 2 homers and also scored 4 RBIs. Orioles opened the scoring in the bottom of the first, but Boston stormed into a 5-1 lead thanks to a 2-run homer in the 3rd from Ellsbury and a 3-run homer from Lavarnway in the 4th. Baltimore hit back with a 2-run homer of their own in the 4th, but by the time they scored again, in the 6th, Boston had a 7-3 lead. But it wasn't all over yet as the 8th innings saw Sox score 1 (Lavarnway with a homer) and Orioles score 2 (a Chris Davies single sent Wieters home and then a Reimold triple sent Davies round) to make the score 8-6. Papelbon came in for Boston in the 9th to close the game out, but Hardy scored for Orioles to make it an anxious finish for Boston. Fortunately for Red Sox, Papelbon held his nerve and Jones grounded out to hand Sox the victory. With just one game left each, both teams had identical records of 90-71.
Game 3: It took 12 innings to separate Yankees and Rays in Game 3. Yankees should have had the game wrapped up way before then, and it looked for all the world like they had. A 4-run 2nd innings contributed to a 7-0 advantage which should have been held on to. But Rays kept fighting and their reward came in the 8th innings. With Damon on 3rd, Zobrist on 2nd and Kotchman on 1st, Sam Fuld walked to give Rays their first score. Then the next batter, Sean Rodriguez, was hit by a wild pitch so that resulted in another run and still bases were loaded with 0 outs. Jennings struck out next, but Upton took one for the team as he hit a sacrifice fly to send Kotchman home from 3rd and make the score 7-3. Evan Longoria was up next. He smashed a 3-run homer on his first ball to well and truly bring Tampa back in to the match at 7-6. Yankees failed to score in the 9th, and Dan Johnson tied it up at 7 with a solo homer. This game paralelled Rays' season. Down by a lot early on, they rallied and rallied and went on to nick it at the death. Longoria secured his second homer of the night with a line drive that just missed the foul zone and give Tampa an incredible victory. Chaos ensued as earlier on in the game the Red Sox loss had popped up on the screen, which meant that Rays victory ensured a post season place without an extra playoff game against Boston.
Boston started OK in their game, and found themselves 3-2 up at the 5th, and that was the way it stayed. Until innnings 9. Sox failed to score, meaning they had to hold on to a narrow lead to either qualify outright or force a playoff game. They thought they had done enough. But they hadn't. Orioles hadn't read the script and scored twice in the bottom of the 9th to win 4-3. The first score came when Reimold doubled to allow Hudson (who was pinch running for Chris Davies) to score, and then the next batter Andino hit a single to the left which brought home Reimold. The thing with Andino's RBI was that it should have been caught. Crawford almost had it in his glove then it dropped down as he opened the mitt. His panicky throw was well short which allowed Reimold to slide home.
So that's how the Wild Card races shaped up. I'll probably do another post about the ALDS, NLDS, ALCS and NLCS before the World Series.
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