Every baseball fan in the country tuned in to at least one of four major league baseball games with playoff implications on Wednesday night. With the Red Sox in the American League, a win over the last place AL East Baltimore Orioles would secure them no less than a one game playoff against the Tampa Bay Rays for the AL Wild Card.
The same scenario was playing out in the NL Wild Card with the Cardinals and the Braves. A playoff match between the two if both won or lost. With the Red Sox and Braves blowing respectable wild card leads in the month of September, the stage was set Wednesday for spoilers and chokers to battle it out.
To add fuel to the fire, the Red Sox division winner/rival New York Yankees were in Florida taking on the Rays while the Braves were facing their division winner/rival Philadelphia Phillies. Is it just a smidgen possible that the Yanks would take a dive to help the Rays edge out the Sox for the final AL playoff spot? Hmmmmmm.
Meanwhile, the Houston Astros were hoping to help the Braves wild card chances by upsetting their division rival, the hot streaking St. Louis Cardinals. There's a lot of people rooting against Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa. Why is that?
Here's a great timeline of the events that took place on Wild Card Wednesday, a night that will go down as one of the greatest season ending subplots to ever unfold on the major league baseball field.
by mlb reporter Joey Nowak
