The final night of Major League Baseball’s regular season was ridiculous, absurd, impossible, unbelievable, indescribable.
Thanks to a win earlier in the evening by the St. Louis Cardinals, the Atlanta Braves needed a win to force a one-game playoff for the NL wild card that they once seemed certain to win (having led by 10 1/2 games in late August). The Braves came within one out of the needed victory — only to lose in 13 innings, ending their season. And that was the undercard.
Over in the American League, the Boston Red Sox, trying to prevent the ignominy of possibly the worst September collapse in baseball history, led the lowly Orioles 3-2 heading into a 90-minute seventh-inning rain delay in Baltimore, while the Sox’s wild-card competition, the Tampa Bay Rays, trailed the mighty Yankees 7-0 in the eighth at home. Tampa and Boston had been tied for the AL wild card heading into the day, so with a Rays loss appearing all but certain, it looked like the Sox could clinch the wild card by holding on for the win, or at worst, lose and face a one-game playoff.
Then, well, several things happened.
Tampa rallied in the bottom of the eighth, scoring six runs to pull within 7-6. Then, down to their last strike in the bottom of the ninth, the Rays tied the game on a pinch-hit home run by Dan Johnson, sending the game to extra innings.
Around the same time, the Boston game resumed, with the Red Sox suddenly in a much more precarious position thanks to Tampa’s comeback. But they clung to their 3-2 lead, and got closer Jonathan Papelbon in, hoping to close it out in the bottom of the ninth. Boston, mind you, was 77-0 this season when leading after eight innings. And at first, it looked like this would be no exception. Papelbon struck out the first two batters, then allowed a double. But then he had the Orioles — stop me if this sounds familiar — down to their last strike before giving up a game-tying ground-rule double by Nolan Reimold to tie the game… followed promptly by Robert Andino’s game-winning single. 4-3, Baltimore, final.
And then, literally 3 or 4 minutes later, in Tampa… BOOM.
Unbelievable.
The Rays go to the playoffs. The Red Sox go home. As it should be, frankly. Boston didn’t deserve a playoff spot after its September choke job. And fate was clearly on Tampa’s side tonight. But man, what an unbelievably epic, horrible, wonderful, incredible, ridiculous way for it all to go down.
The worst 5 minutes for Boston and the Red Sox since Bill Buckner were in the bottom of the eighth inning of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS, when Grady Little left Pedro in. #GetOffMyBaseballLawn 😉
Heh. I remember that well. But in order for that to be true, Aaron Boone’s walk-off home run would have had to come immediately after (well, within five minutes after) Grady left Pedro in and Pedro surrendered the lead. That was more an agonizing hour-or-so in which you knew the Sox were gonna lose but it hadn’t happened yet. This was like, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. #analysis
So, can we get Boston area references to Teddy Ruxpin and Puf’N’Stuff?
I think we need a new term for events like that across all sports. I mean, “the dagger” doesn’t quite do it justice as it’s not actually occurring in the game they are in. How about “an Oswald,” as in “Then, in Tampa, Longoria does an Oswald on Boston’s season…”?