Cardinals and Rays Are Selfish and Cruel

With their selfish desire to prove that they are the fourth best team in their respective leagues, the Rays and Cardinals selfishly won their games yesterday, denying baseball fans of two separate tie-breakers today.

Yes, some of you may argue that the Red Sox and Braves should have wrapped up the season long ago; holding 9 and 8.5 game leads, respectively as of September 1st. But that means you’re forgetting the chief rule of baseball which is: everything that you expect will happen won’t. How else can you explain Adam Dunn and Carl Crawford’s inability to hit while Ryan Vogelsong became the pitcher people had given up on six years ago?

So when Jonathan Papelbon blew the save against the Orioles by giving up doubles to Chris Davis (1 K per every 3 AB) and Nolan Reimold (.610 OPS in 2010) before Robert Andino (.635 career OPS) won the game with a single that Carl Crawford just couldn’t reach, it was simply the stars aligning.

And when the Braves’ Rookie of the Year candidate, Craig Kimbrel (127 K in 77 innings) surrendered the game-tying run in the ninth inning to force Atlanta and Philadelphia to extra innings, it was just karma preparing us for another day. Hunter Pence’s eventual game-winning hit in the top of the 13th with a broken bat blooper that just squeezed in between Freddie Freeman and Dan Uggla, it was only to make for a better story.

But the gods were cruel. The Cardinals were matched up with the Astros, a team who limped their way to 56 wins. Even with the best interests of the sport at heart, the Cardinals couldn’t find a way to lose. Chris Carpenter did away with the Houston boys, limiting them to two hits (Jose Altuve had one of them, natch.) The lone mark on the Cardinals surprising season is that Albert Pujols, after going 1-for-5 on the final day, saw his batting average slip to .299, giving him his first Major League season without it resting above .300. Since the Cardinals will continue on into October, I think he’ll get over it.

But the real prize jewel was the Rays game. After trailing the Yankees 7-0, the Red Sox Nation assumed that at the very least there would be a game to play on Thursday. Especially since the Yankees had yet to blow a seven run lead after eight innings since 1953. But Dan Johnson, who the Red Sox should know quite well, made up for brief foray into Japanese baseball and his .334 OPS this season by hitting the game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth inning off of Cory Wade. And when the twelfth inning came and Evan Longoria’s line drive snuck over the left field fence, the TV schedules for millions of baseball fans just opened up tomorrow night.

While Community and Parks and Recreation are great shows, they simply cannot compete with a game 163. But because Evan Longoria wanted a day off and Chris Carpenter is a misanthrope who wants the general populace to be miserable, we are left without a ball game for the evening.