On the last day of the first season in which a second Wild Card
team was added to MLB's postseason, both familiarity and surprise ruled
the day. New York, despite giving up a ten game lead in the month of
September, clinched the AL East after wiping the floor with Boston, a
final series that may have effectively ended Bobby Valentine's tenure as
Sox skipper. The Bronx Bombers did that with multiple homers by Curtis
Granderson and Robinson Cano leading the loud tune of a 14-2 victory.
The Yanks and their fans didn't even need to wait till the end of the game for celebration. That occurred in the 7th inning when the announcement of the Orioles loss to Tampa Bay started the Bronx faithfuls cheerful dance. The AL best Yankees will now wait for the winner of Friday's one game playoff between the O's and Texas Rangers, victims of a worse collapse.
Texas, up by as much as thirteen games in August, made their lives extremely difficult heading into the season's final series. Little did anyone guess that the difficulties were to be handed in by the lowly Oakland Athletics!
No one at the start of the season predicted both the A's and O's to be contenders, but there they were on the last day jockeying for position. Unlike Baltimore, though, Oakland completed the unlikely assignment of clinching their division against one of the AL's most fearsome rosters. Comprised of rookies, role players, and, as usually templated, solid pitching, Billy Beane's latest Frankenstein monster actually had more bite than expected. Bite that overtook the expensive Angels to offer the major competition to Ron Washington's club, culminating with this final sweep to overtake first place and force Texas into the compromised position vs. The O's on Friday.
The debate whether the added team would provide extra incentive to win one's division was answered in the last couple of weeks. Every contending team played hard and provided fans with the excitement and enjoyment that baseball can truly offer. These final series proved it to be a rousing success, a precursor of postseason excitement, and set up the dramatic and surprising play-in between Texas and Baltimore on Friday, yet the line of favorite and underdog may have been forever blurred.
The Yanks and their fans didn't even need to wait till the end of the game for celebration. That occurred in the 7th inning when the announcement of the Orioles loss to Tampa Bay started the Bronx faithfuls cheerful dance. The AL best Yankees will now wait for the winner of Friday's one game playoff between the O's and Texas Rangers, victims of a worse collapse.
Texas, up by as much as thirteen games in August, made their lives extremely difficult heading into the season's final series. Little did anyone guess that the difficulties were to be handed in by the lowly Oakland Athletics!
No one at the start of the season predicted both the A's and O's to be contenders, but there they were on the last day jockeying for position. Unlike Baltimore, though, Oakland completed the unlikely assignment of clinching their division against one of the AL's most fearsome rosters. Comprised of rookies, role players, and, as usually templated, solid pitching, Billy Beane's latest Frankenstein monster actually had more bite than expected. Bite that overtook the expensive Angels to offer the major competition to Ron Washington's club, culminating with this final sweep to overtake first place and force Texas into the compromised position vs. The O's on Friday.
The debate whether the added team would provide extra incentive to win one's division was answered in the last couple of weeks. Every contending team played hard and provided fans with the excitement and enjoyment that baseball can truly offer. These final series proved it to be a rousing success, a precursor of postseason excitement, and set up the dramatic and surprising play-in between Texas and Baltimore on Friday, yet the line of favorite and underdog may have been forever blurred.
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