Season End

There's one more day in the baseball season, but almost everything is already decided for the postseason. The Red Sox lost last night, which took them completely out of the race for top of their division. That's too bad, because they entered Friday against long odds, needing to sweep against the Yankees while the Rays needed to lose all three of their final games against Detroit. At this point, Tampa has lost two of those, so had the Red Sox won last night, they might have still had a shot at the top spot. Of course, that's even more speculative than it might be, since today's Boston/New York game was rained out today, so they've only played the one on Friday night (and even that one was delayed by rain, causing Red Sox manager Terry Francona to scratch Dice-K as starting pitcher, moving him to today; now he's on tap for tomorrow). With Hurricane Kyle due to come through the neighborhood early tomorrow, it's hard to tell how much rain might be hitting Fenway, so we may or may not find a resolution to those two Yankee games.

With the wild card in hand, Boston will take on the Angels in the week to come--the Rays will play either the White Sox or the Twins. Although the season is theoretically over on Sunday, depending on how things go, the White Sox could have a makeup game on Monday and then a one-game playoff against the Twins on Tuesday. The winner of that game could start into the best-of-five divisional playoff series on Wednesday. The Rays are certainly in the better position, getting ready to play a team that has had to fight for its place in the postseason until the day before that postseason actually starts. But we've got the Angels, who'll have a nice rest before the playoffs start, so we'll make due. The Red Sox are certainly up to the task.