By Blaidd Drwg
Last night produced not one, but two epic disasters in the majors with wide ranging playoff implications.
While the Cardinals were pounding the snot out of the Astros last night, the Braves were clinging on to a lead. In the 7th, the Braves were up 3-1 with Tim Hudson cruising along nicely. With one out, Raul Ibanez doubled and then Placido Polanco hit a shot up the middle that was stopped by a great dive by Dan Uggla, preventing Ibanez from scoring, putting runners on the corners. Hudson then got Carlos Ruiz to hit a hard ground ball right at Jack Wilson. The ball was hit just to the shortstop side of second and Wilson hardly had to move. You could have hardly asked for a more tailor-made double play ball. Wilson then proceeded to let the ball bounce off him, extending the inning and allowing Ibanez to score. The Braves eventually got out of the inning with a 3-2 lead, but that run would be important.
Flash forward to the top of the 9th inning. The Braves bring in flame thrower Craig Kimbrel to close out the Phillies. Kimbrel gives up a leadoff single to Polanco and then strikes out Carols Ruiz. Two outs away. After the strikeout, the wheels come off. Kimbrel all of a sudden can’t find the strike zone and walks both Ben Francisco and Jimmy Rollins to load the bases, bringing up Chase Utley. Utley smacks a fly ball to left, easily deep enough to score the runner from third and tie the game. Another walk to Hunter Pence loaded the bases and the Braves mercifully removed Kimbrel from the game. The new pitcher, Kris Medlen got the next hitter to pop up and end the inning, but not before we have bonus baseball.
The Phillies eventually broke the tie in the 13th with a walk and couple of hits, ending the Braves season. The Braves managed to blow an 8 _ game lead in the wild card and would probably be remembered for this epic collapse if it weren’t for what happened in Boston and Tampa last night.
The interesting thing about this game is where the damage was done by each team. The Braves score all of their runs early in the game against Joe Blanton and Cole Hamels (making a relief appearance) and then managed just 2 hits and 4 walks in the final 8 innings of the game against a parade of Phillie relievers. The Phillies however did their most severe damage against the vaunted Braves bullpen – Braves relievers gave up 5 hits and 8 walks in their 6.2 innings of work, but they also threw a lot of pitches – Venters took 27 pitches to record 3 outs, Kimbrel 29 and Linebrink 32. I do have to give the Phillies credit; they played like they were trying to win the game, unlike what happened in Tampa.
Just up I-95, an even bigger collapse was brewing. Everything was lining up for the Sox to take the wild card – they had Jon Lester pitching against Alfredo Simon and were hanging onto a 3-2 lead with the Yankees pounding David Price to the tune of 7-0. Much was being made of Lester pitching on 3 days’ rest, but here is the way I see it – he only threw 55 pitches in his last start, he has dominated the Orioles over his career and he is the best starter the Sox, so who else would you want to hand the ball to? Lester did not look sharp – I don’t think it was fatigue; he hasn’t looked sharp all month. The 6th inning was a nail biter as Lester labored to find the strike zone. Three walks made it tight. The Sox were saved by a double play ball hit by Guerrero that took a great play by Marco Scutaro to make it happen. The Vlad Guerrero of 5 or 6 years ago would have easily beaten the throw to first on that play, but the current Vlad can’t run and was thrown out at first by a good bit. That ugly inning ended Lester’s night since the rain came in the 7th inning. The Sox pen shut down the O’s in the 7th and 8th, but the offence could not extend their lead. In the 9th, the Sox brought in Jon Papelbon to shut the door. Papelbon had been having a great stretch in August/September, giving up just 1 run and 6 hits over 19 innings with 25 strikeouts and just 2 walks. Papelbon didn’t have the most stellar outing of the season on the 27th when it took him 28 pitches to close out the Orioles, giving up a run and 2 hits in the process. The last time that he pitched 2 consecutive games was early August (where he pitched 3 straight days, throwing 37 pitches over 3 innings). I was concerned after watching him on the 27th – he didn’t have his best stuff and I was nervous with him closing the game out. He got off to a great start, striking out the 2 biggest threats he would face – Mark Reynolds and Adam Jones. Then the wheels came off – a couple of doubles and a single and all of a sudden, the Sox lose. Couple that with the incredible comeback in Tampa where the Rays managed to score 8 runs against a parade of Yankee relievers, and my worst fear was realized – the Sox, a team built to win the World Series, wouldn’t even be going to the playoffs.
This is not the end of the world, well as long as the Yankees don’t win the World Series it isn’t.
FlatbreadGarden 
I don’t know if you heard Rick Sutcliffe during the game say — here’s how Joe Posnanski put it:
“I feel sure that my strongest memory of the night will be from the ninth inning of the Red Sox-Orioles game, Boston leading 3-2. The Orioles had nobody on base. And Rick Sutcliffe shouted something on ESPN about how you could see it in Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon’s eyes — there was no way he was blowing this game.
In the eyes. As soon as Sutcliffe said it, I knew what was going to happen. I knew that Papelbon was going to blow the game. I knew that the Red Sox were going to lose the wild-card race. This was not a night for nonsense about eyes. I was so sure that it was going to happen that I typed into my Twitter the following: “Don’t see how Papelbon could have blown the game when the look in his eyes told the announcer he wouldn’t.” And then, I waited for it to happen.”
Really, I thought it was pretty ridiculous at the time, nice to see someone else thought so too.
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