Red Sox and Braves Complete Historic Collapses, Miss Playoffs

The Boston Red Sox completed their September collapse in horrific and historic fashion, falling out of the playoff chase by allowing two ninth-inning runs in a 4-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday night.

The Red Sox held a nine-game lead in the AL wild-card race after Sept. 3, but a 7-19 swoon left them tied with Tampa Bay entering the final day of the regular season.

Only minutes after this game ended, the Rays completed their comeback from a 7-0 deficit with an 8-7 win over the New York Yankees in 12 innings.

Even if Tampa Bay lost, the Red Sox faced the prospect of a quick turnaround following a long night at Camden Yards that included a rain delay of 1 hour, 26 minutes in the middle of the seventh inning.

When the rain came, Tampa Bay trailed 7-0. By the time play resumed, the Rays and Yankees were tied at 7 heading into the 10th inning.
The Orioles won the game in the ninth against Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon (4-1), who struck out the first two batters before giving up a double to Chris Davis.
Nolan Reimold followed with a double to score pinch-runner Kyle Hudson, and Robert Andino completed the comeback with a single to left that Carl Crawford couldn’t glove.
Boston became the first team to miss the postseason after leading by as many as nine games for a playoff spot entering September, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Jim Johnson (6-5) worked the ninth for Baltimore.
On the National League side in Houston, Chris Carpenter and the St. Louis Cardinals completed one of baseball’s greatest comebacks, clinching the NL wild card Wednesday night with an 8-0 win over Houston and a later loss by Atlanta.
The Cardinals got their playoff spot when the Braves fell to Philadelphia 4-3 in 13 innings.
St. Louis trailed Atlanta by 101/2 games on Aug. 25. The Cardinals won 23 of their last 31 games.
The Cardinals will open the postseason on Saturday at NL East champion Philadelphia. In the other NL playoff cheap jerseys shop matchup, Arizona visits Milwaukee.
Carpenter (11-9) struck out 11 and allowed two hits in his 15th career complete-game shutout as St. Louis kept up its improbable September charge.
“We had nothing to lose. We were already out of it,” Carpenter said. “People were telling us we were done. We decided to go out and play and not embarrass ourselves and do what we can. We played ourselves back into it.”
The Cardinals poured onto the field after Carpenter fielded J.D. Martinez’s weak grounder for the final out. The celebration was brief and muted, as the team raced into the clubhouse to watch the end of the game in Atlanta.
“It was exciting, there’s no doubt about it,” Carpenter said. “The way these guys have played the past month and a half has been amazing, every single night grinding, playing their butts off, not giving up.”

The New York Yankees can clinch their 16th playoff berth in the last 17 years by winning once in their day-night doubleheader Wednesday vs. the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Yankees reduced their magic number for a postseason berth to 2 with Tuesday's 5-0 win over the Rays. Any combination of Yankees wins and Rays losses totaling two vaults New York into its customary place in the playoffs.

The Yankees (93-60) also have a magic number of 3 for clinching the American League East Division. If they sweep the doubleheader and Boston mlb jerseys cheap (88-67) loses to Baltimore, they clinch the division.

The Red Sox are two games ahead of the Rays (85-68) in the race for the AL wild card but just one game in the loss column.

On the fringe of the wild card race are the Los Angeles Angels (84-70), who are 3 1/2 games behind the Red Sox and five games behind the first-place Texas Rangers (89-65) in the AL West. The Rangers have a magic number of 4.

In the National League wild card race, the Atlanta Braves (88-67) maintained a 2 1/2-game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals (85-69) as both teams won Tuesday. The defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants (83-71) lost Tuesday and are 4 1/2 games behind the Braves.

The Milwaukee Brewers (91-64) have a magic number of 3 to clinch the NL Central, as do the Arizona Diamondbacks (89-66) to wrap up the NL West.

Oswalt, Pence lose in return to Houston

In the end, it was more of a housecoming than a homecoming for Roy Oswalt and Hunter Pence. Gone were the teammates they used to share. Gone were the fans they used to play in front of. Gone was just about any sign of life that once inhabited Minute Maid Park. The only familiar thing for the two former Astros was the end result: a loss, this time as members of the Phillies, who fell, 5-1, in the first of a three-game series.
Oswalt and Pence each received a healthy ovation from the fans who bothered to show up to watch a Houston team that entered the night with the worst record in the majors. The folks who did turn out covered less than half of the lower bowl of seating at the cozy ballpark (the announced paid attendance was 22,231).

Neither player saw much that he recognized in the place they used to call home. Pence, who was traded to the Phillies on July 29, never started a game with half of the regulars the Astros fielded. Humberto Quintero and Carlos Lee were the only participants who used to play with him or Oswalt on a regular basis, not including pitching coach and former Astros reliever Doug Brocail, who played with both of them in 2008 and '09.
"I probably played with him more than anybody," Oswalt said. "Everybody else is pretty new."
The irony, of course, is that the Astros actually managed to win a game, tallying their 50th victory while handing the Phillies their 50th loss. Oswalt allowed five earned runs in seven innings, although two of them came thanks to defensive miscues.
Both of those runs discount jerseys were scored in the fourth inning, when Raul Ibanez misjudged a routine fly to put runners on the corners with one out. During the next at-bat, Jimmy Rollins and Pete Orr converged on a grounder up the middle and ended up colliding.
Although the miscues were ruled singles by the official scorer, both are plays the Phillies usually make, which means that in normal circumstances, Oswalt would have been out of an inning that started with a leadoff double by J.D. Martinez. Instead, the Astros scored two runs, the second coming on a double by Quintero that gave them a 2-1 lead.
"They bother me a lot," manager Charlie Manuel said of the miscues. "That's kind of what led to us losing. I think they played a big role. I thought we played very sloppy."
Oswalt's biggest mistake came in the fifth, when he hung a curveball to Lee, who dispatched it into the seats in leftfield for a two-run homer that gave the Astros a 4-1 lead. Houston added another run in the seventh, which proved to be more than enough to hand the Phillies their second straight loss.
The Phillies were unable to generate much offense against former teammate Brett Myers (5-13), who allowed six hits and one walk with four strikeouts in eight innings. Their only run came in the second inning, when Ibanez led off with a double and scored on a one-out single by Orr.
Pence, who finished 2-for-4, had the only other extra-base hit off of Myers, a double in the first. Oswalt, who had two walks, two strikeouts and hit a batter, fell to 7-9 with a 3.88 ERA.
The Phillies have lost 10 of the last 12 games they have played against the Astros after the All-Star break the last 3 years, including a four-game sweep at Citizens Bank Park last August and a four-game sweep at Minute Maid Park in August 2009. Myers, a former first-round draft pick and top-of-the-rotation starter who never reached his potential in Philadelphia, logged his third straight quality start against the Phillies since leaving the organization after the 2009 season.
"Actually, when you get right down to it, we got outplayed," Manuel said. "We definitely got outplayed."
The Phillies, who fell to 94-50, could have clinched a playoff berth with a victory due to the Cardinals' 6-5 loss to the Pirates. Now, they can clinch with either a victory or a Cardinals loss.

Ruthless Federer races to Monaco victory

Roger Federer was left waiting until almost midnight to start his US Open fourth round match on Monday, but made up for the delay with a brutal 6-1 6-2 6-0 win over Argentine Juan Monaco to reach the quarter-finals.
The five-time champion took the first set in 18 minutes and barely slowed down after that as the third-seeded Swiss eliminated his unseeded opponent in just 82 minutes under the Arthur Ashe Stadium court floodlights.
The lightning-quick win, which came as rain clouds gathered and mist filled the air at the National Tennis Center, marked the Swiss master's 30th successive trip to the quarter-finals of a grand slam event, dating back to the 2004 French Open.
The 16-time major champion advanced to a mouth-watering clash against 11th seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who rallied to overcome eight-seeded American Mardy Fish in five sets earlier in the day.