The Boston Red Sox were looking behind themselves for the final weeks of the regular season as their poor run of form combined with a surging Tampa Bay Rays team teased fans of a final showdown. That night has arrived, with both teams tied in the American League wild-card race. As Cindy Boren reported:
Forget the 161 games that have come before.
Everything, and we do mean everything, is on the line tonight for the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays, who are thundering down the stretch, tied in their battle for the American League wild card.
For the Red Sox, a very special angst is gripping its jittery Nation. The team is 7-19 in September, the kind of swoon that, with a $161 million payroll, gets managers and general managers fired but is great news for Tums sales. The $43 million Rays, behind a three-run home run by Matt Joyce off the Yankees’ $10 million middle reliever Rafael Soriano, are loose — turning a triple play will also help do that for a team.
Boston pulled out an 8-7 victory Tuesday night with a vintage Sawx performance. There were four home runs — Yalie Ryan Lavarnway hit the first two homers of his career — and Erik Bedard, who has been pitching so poorly that his headlines are reserved for things like being served with legal papers by a guy in a Yankees shirt. He did about as well as you’d expect of a guy who’s won once since July. His line: three runs, five hits, three walks, 3 1/3 innings.
Because it always does with Boston, the game came down to the ninth. A four-run lead had shrunk and Jonathan Papelbon came on to get the final three outs. With the tying run on second, Adam Jones fouled off pitch after pitch before Papelbon retired him on his 10th offering. It took Papelbon 28 pitches to retire three hitters.
This final night of regular season baseball with real playoff implications is the dream of baseball fans, and four teams in a tie for two wild-card spots is sports at its best. As Tracee Hamilton explained:
Is there anything better than looking at those wild-card standings on the final day of the regular season and seeing those little dashes under “games back”? Well, if you’re a fan of Boston, Tampa Bay, Atlanta or St. Louis, there are probably better things, but for the rest of us who don’t have a horse in this particular derby – bring it!
I’m not crazy about a lot of Major League Baseball’s moves and decisions, from the designated hitter to its blind spot regarding performance-enhancing drugs. However, adding a wild card to postseason play was a great move, particularly in seasons such as this one, when the division races were decided early. This morning, among the six divisions, the smallest gap between first and second place is the NL Central, where the Brewers’ lead is six games.
But oh, those wacky wild cards – all tied up on the final day of the season. Fun! And fans across the country will get to watch at least two of the games on television. More fun!
No team has blown a nine-game lead in September – until the Red Sox did it. Boston was the pick of many to win the World Series this year, and not all of them were Sawx fans. And then came the swoon, and the Tampa Bay Rays, in roughly that order.
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