An entire season of baseball is a grueling affair, but everything in both leagues came down to game 162. For the first time in divisional play no team was exactly sure who they would be playing in the postseason until the dust settled on the final game of the year.
For nearly a century, the Boston Red Sox were synonymous with coming up short. But a couple of World Championships at the turn of this century seemed to reverse that trend. Coming out of spring training, many pundits predicted the Red Sox to win their division and the World Series. They would do neither.
High profile additions like Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford had Bean Town savoring another ring. Even six weeks ago articles appeared saying the Yankees had no answers to the team Boston was putting on the field. But a nine-game lead at the beginning of September evaporated and the surging Tampa Bay Rays roared to a tie for the wild card during the final series of the year. An improbable set of circumstances followed to add an exclamation point on this season. The reliable Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon had a lead in the ninth inning at Baltimore and was one out away from closing out the victory when the Orioles rallied for two runs for the walk-off win. The Rays were down seven runs to the Yankees going into the eighth inning when they rallied to tie the game and it was Evan Longoria’s home run in extra innings that propelled them into the playoffs.
Almost as spectacular as the Red Sox collapse was the meltdown by the Atlanta Braves. New manager Fredi Gonzalez had his team with an eight and a half game lead in September and slowly saw their huge lead winnow down to nothing to the resurgent St. Louis Cardinals. Things began to crumble when the Braves were swept earlier this month in Philadelphia, the first time they were swept in a series all year. They followed that up by visiting St. Louis, and instead of delivering a knockout blow they lost another three games.
The Braves had a three-game lead going into the final five games of the season, but they would not win another game this year. Just like the Red Sox/Rays they were tied in the wild card going into the last day. Their best and most consistent pitcher during the season, Tim Hudson, was on the mound. He pitched over six strong innings but an unlikely error, the Braves had the best defense in MLB for the month of September, and a blown save by rookie phenom Craig Kimbrel sent the game into extra innings. The biggest problem hampering the Braves during their slide was an inability to get the big hit with runners in scoring position. This played itself out as the Braves failed to generate any offense in the late inning and lost 4-3 in thirteen innings.
The teams that had nothing really to play for, like the Houston Astros and Baltimore Orioles, owners of some of the worst records in baseball, played hard against their opponents. No team in any of these final four contests can be accused of rolling over. As it turns out: every game really is meaningful. You can rack your brain, going over a pitch here, a pitch there, a ball that landed centimeters fair or foul really could have changed the fortunes of these teams. But that is the beauty of this game where every inning, and every inch, counts. Bring on the playoffs.