Blue Jays 3, Athletics 1 (F/11); Blue Jays 6, Oakland 5: It Is Going to Be Like This The Rest of the Way Isn't It

don't act like you've never seen Moises Sierra before, jaws all on the floor , etc.

So yeah hot on the heels of all of the muck and shit and despair of basically the whole west-coast trip until Saturday, the Blue Jays picked up two against the A's to put them, well, five games out of the wild card, which is to say, just close enough that you keep checking the scoreboard but far enough back that they are still totally doomed. What we have before us now is a team of unrecognizable dudes, several of whom I am sure will be totally serviceable, but seriously man this is too much. Today, for instance, both Drew Hutchison and Dustin McGowan are going under the knife. Two dudes. Same day. Why not. 

KS

Blue Jays 11, Indians 9; Blue Jays 3, Indians 0: First Bats, then Arms

such dudes man just SUCH dudes

Hey, a great big hot mess of an 11-9 game is just the ticket for a hot Saturday afternoon in July, but let's hear it for the ever-dependable Carlos Villanueva who took the hill Sunday and allowed but three hits over six innings. Jason Frasor, who has been OK, put in a scoreless seventh, and Darren Oliver, who has been astounding, worked two shutout innings to close it out with his pretty dang choice 1.38 ERA. Pitching! Let's have some more of that! Maybe right away, too, since it's the New York for three! Boy, the Yankees are really running away with the division, aren't they? But I'm way less interested in the 9.5 games that separate the Yankees and the Blue Jays than the 1.5 games that separate the Blue Jays from the second Wild Card. And yeah, there are bunch of teams clustered together right there in the standings, but many of those teams are clown teams bro and therefore of no lasting concern. 


Playoffs? Almost certainly not, and yet: playoffs.


KS

Man Alive, What an Evening

Wow.

Bruce Bochy fielded his best white-flag team yesterday and the Giants got trounced 6-3 by the Rockies, exactly as expected. But who cares? Yesterday was possibly the most thrilling single day of regular-season baseball in history. Certainly in my lifetime. Four games with final postseason slot implications. The possibility of two separate 163rd games.

The Red Sox and Rays entered the day tied for the AL Wild Card Lead, and the Braves and Cardinals entered the day tied for the NL Wild Card. The Red Sox were in Baltimore, the Rays were hosting the Yankees, the Braves were hosting the Phillies, and the Cardinals were in Houston.

The Red Sox went into a 7th-inning rain delay leading the Orioles 3-2. The Rays fell behind to the Yankees 7-0 going into the 8th inning. The Braves were leading the Phillies 3-2 into the 8th. The lone uneventful game was the Cardinals, as expected, simultaneously mauling and shutting out the Astros (the worst team in baseball).

The Braves coughed up a Phillies tying run around the same time as the Rays put together a 6-run bottom of the eighth. The Cardinals game wrapped, ensuring them at worst a playoff game against the Braves the next day. The Red Sox game resumed and the Sox failed to score an insurance run that was gunned down at home plate. The Braves game headed into extra innings as a Rays .108 pinch-hitter -- who hadn't hit a home run since April -- bounced a line drive off the net of the foul pole with two out and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth inning to knot the score at 7 and send that game into extra innings as well.

The Braves got runners in scoring position for Martin Prado, who offered the worst swing I have ever seen in a pressure situation and ended the inning. The Phillies got a go-ahead run off a Hunter Pence BABIP Special, and the Braves bounced into a double play to give the Cardinals the NL Wild Card.

Back in Baltimore, Carl Crawford was unable to grab what would have been out number three as the Orioles got three consecutive two-out hits off of Jonathan "huck it down the middle" Papelbon, and stunned the Red Sox by winning the game, 4-3.

Three minutes after the Orioles dogpiled one another on their rain-soaked home field, Evan Longoria hit his second home run of the game, a laser beam that just cleared the fence inside the foul pole along the left-field line and clinched the Wild Card for Tampa Bay.

There are moment in baseball -- key moments, indelible moments -- that you know, as you are watching them, that they will be part of baseball lore forever. That you'll be seeing them on replay for the rest of your life. Aaron Boone's 2003 ALCS homer. Kevin Mitchell's barehanded grab. Dave Roberts' stolen base. Kirk Gibson. Bill Buckner. Carlton Fisk. Now we can add Longoria's home run to that elite group. He raced down the first base line, knowing that the ball might not clear the wall, but that he was going to have to try for extra bases if it didn't. Just before he got to the bag at first, both arms shot straight up in the air. The look of elation on his face matched that of the stunned and exultant crowd. His teammates flew out of the dugout as if shot from a cannon, and everyone watching could scarcely manage to come up with a sentiment any more profound than that of, "BASEBALL. OH MAN, BASEBALL."

This is why we watch. Baseball simply does not get any better than this, and no other sport on its best day can ever hope to match moments such as these.

So now we move beyond 2011 and into the postseason. Let us root for the Brewers. Let us root for the Rays. Let us root for the Diamondbacks and the Tigers and the Rangers. Let us root for baseball at its most glorious, at its most profound and affecting. Let us enjoy these next few weeks, for the winter is long and devoid of this glorious game. We will continue to be here talking about the feelings that the postseason and the hot stove and all that malarkey will bring, but baseball is now entering its yearly twilight.

This is going to be one hell of a postseason, my dear friends. Let's all be baseball fans together, for there is surely no greater thing.