Pennant Crunch: Thursday, September 25, 2003

Thursday, September 25 2003 @ 10:08 AM EDT

A light schedule today. Florida can clinch a tie for the wildcard and knock out Philadelphia by completing a sweep. Houston and Los Angeles are hoping for a Philadelphia victory - they need to win all their remaining games to overtake the Marlins. Houston is still in the NL Central hunt, but Chicago has a gimme today and should have Wood, Prior and Clement starting at home against the Pirates if need be. Boston can and should wrap up a playoff spot, with Derek Lowe opposing Omar Daal.

The Cubbies had no problem with the now hapless Reds. I expect Chicago to win today and eliminate the Cardinals, who have won 4 in a row in a game attempt to stay in the race. The Cubs will then be coming home, and the support of the crowd should help them maintain their 1-game edge over the Astros.

NL Wildcard

Team	Wins	Losses	Remaining	Yesterday	Schedule	Elim
Florida	88	70	4	Phi 6-5	phi 1, nym 3	__
Philadelphia	85	73	4	Fla 5-6	@fla 1, atl 3	2
Houston	85	73	4	SF 2-1	mil 4	2
Los Angeles	84	73	5	SD 2-1	@sd 1, @sf 4	2

Josh Beckett brought his good stuff last night. The Marlins had boisterous support from the paying public and they responded with inspired play. Juan Encarnacion hit a solo shot in the 2nd to put the Marlins up 1-0, and in the 3rd, Pudge Rodriguez drove in a Luis Castillo walk with a double. The Marlins added 4 runs in the 6th, capped by a 2-run homerun by Jeff Conine, making it 6-0.

Beckett was at 110 pitches through 7 IP, but McKeon brought him out for the 8th. The Phils pounded Beckett for 4 straight hits before he exited. Tejera came in but wasn't effective, giving up a single to Abreu and a walk to Thome. Hardworking Chad Fox came in to try to stop the bleeding, but wildpitched the runners over to 2nd and 3rd. Then came the key play of the game, though the Marlins broadcasters hardly commented on it. Mike Lieberthal sent a flyball into the left-centrefield gap. Leftfielder Conine caught up with it, but it was to his glove side and his momentum was taking him away from 3rd base. Abreu tagged and scored, but Thome did not advance. Jim Thome is not a fast runner, but there's no way Conine could have thrown him out. Thome was the tying run and would have been at 3rd with 1 out. Four pitches later, Par Burrel sent a shallow flyball to Juan Pierre in centre which would NOT have scored Thome. Still, the tying run on third with one out puts extra pressure on the defence - they might have pitched differently to Burrell. The Phillies had scored 5 and trailed by 1 run.

Urbina came in and shut the door in the 9th, with the final out a flyout to Jeff Conine. The emotional ride for the crowd was over and they could now celebrate a near certain invitation to post-season play 5 years after the great sell-off.

The Marlins need two wins in the last four games to clinch the wildcard, but can get in with one win providing Philly, Houston or LA don't win all their remaining games. They would play the San Francisco Giants, whom they met and swept in the 1997 NLDS. Conine was a member of the '97 Florida team; 4 members of the current Giants played in that series (for the Giants).

The Mariners looked listless in their afternoon contest. They couldn't generate any offence off John Lackey. Their one big chance came on a 2-out double by John Olerud into the leftfield corner - the Angels executed perfectly to cut down Bret Bonne who was trying to score from 1st on the play. By the 9th inning, lapses of concentration were evident on defence. With runners of first and 3rd, Cameron caught a fly ball but didn't throw it in right away. Garret Anderson, who had held up at third, saw the indecision and sped home to make the score 4-0. Olerud fielded a grounder for the second out, but thought it was the third and was about to flip the ball into the crowd before a teammate advised him not to.

Seattle's loss set the stage for Boston's playoff clinching attempt in the evening. Unfortunately, John Burkett couldn't get out of the first inning and allowed 7 runs. The Orioles cruised to a 7-3 victory, postponing the Red Sox "pennant" clinching party for at least 1 day.

Oakland inches closer to the Yankees for homefield advantage, but all the Yankees need to do is split their 4 game series with Baltimore to clinch it.

IF the season had ended last night ...

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