Looking back at the memorable 2011 season

The Baltimore Orioles mob Robert Andino at the plate after he hit a walk-off single off All-Star closer Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth ending the Boston Red Sox season. Three minutes later, Evan Longoria hit a walk-off solo shot sending the Rays to the playoffs. Photo by Joe Giza/Reuters/The Washington Post.

Jack Butler

The 2011 MLB season was one of the craziest in recent memory. Derek Jeter launched hit number 3,000 to the left field stands at Yankee Stadium, Justin Verlander became the first pitcher since Dennis Eckersley in 1992 to win Cy Young and MVP in same season, Vladimir Guerrero played in his final game and Mike Trout made his major league debut while September changed the fate for four playoff hungry teams. The St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays went on improbable runs to catch the Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox for the Wild Card spot on the final day of the season.

After losing to the Milwaukee Brewers 4-1 on September 5, 2011, the St. Louis Cardinals stood at 74-67 making them 10.5 games behind Milwaukee and 8 games from the Wild Card leading Atlanta Braves. From that point on until September 28, 2011, the Tony La Russa led Cardinals went a National League best 15-5 moving into a tie with the Braves for the Wild Card spot at 89-72. For Game 162 the Braves hosted the NL East leading Philadelphia Phillies at Turner Field while Cardinals faced the last place Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park.

The Phillies and Braves got underway at 7:10 PM where Philadelphia jumped to an early 1-0 lead when Ryan Howard drove Hunter Pence home on an RBI double in the first. After tying the contest at 1 in the bottom half, Dan Uggla hit a two-out two run home run breaking the tie and giving the Braves a 3-1 advantage.

Four minutes following Uggla’s go-ahead blast, the Cardinals and Astros started, and St. Louis scored 5 runs in the first frame. Back at Turner Field, the Braves have Freddie Freeman and Dan Uggla at first and second with two outs when Jack Wilson lines a ball to right fielder Pence who throws Uggla out at the plate at 8:56 PM. Ten minutes later, Wilson would misplay a ball at short in the seventh allowing the Phillies to inch a run closer cutting it to a 3-2 ball game. Fifty minutes passed and Philadelphia had the bases loaded with Chase Utley at the plate who would hit a sacrifice fly to left off Craig Kimbrel sending Pete Orr to score the tying run.

Fredi González takes the ball from Kimbrel giving it to Kris Medlen and needs to escape a bases loaded jam. Medlen gets Michael Martínez to pop up to Chipper Jones at third to end the Phillies threat.

In Houston, Chris Carpenter strikes out Jimmy Paredes to finish seven innings of shutout baseball with the Cardinals having a commanding 7-0 lead. Twenty-six minutes later, J.D. Martinez tapped it back to Carpenter who threw it to Allen Craig at first for the two-hit complete game shutout on 106 pitches. The Cardinals did their job and all they did was wait and watched the drama that unfolded in Atlanta from the visiting clubhouse.

After Justin De Fratus intentionally walked Michael Bourn it advanced Jason Heyward to second and threw a wild pitch when Martin Prado was hitting resulted in Heyward going to third. However, Prado couldn’t drive in the winning run as he grounded out to Wilson Valdez at third extending the game to the thirteenth. At 11:28 PM, Pence places a go-ahead bloop infield hit to Uggla at second giving the Phillies a 4-3 lead and their first advantage since they were up 1-0 in the first. Twelve minutes later, Freeman grounded into a 3-6-3 double play to end the game and the Braves season giving the Cardinals the NL Wild Card spot. Freeman slammed his helmet in frustration while the Cardinals celebrated with champaign from Houston.

The Braves had a commanding 8.5 lead over the Cardinals on August 31 and collapsed in September going 9-18 being outscored by their opponents 115-87 with a -28-run differential in 27 games. If you thought the Braves were horrendous in September, think again cause the Red Sox arguably played the worst baseball in September in the game’s history.

On August 31, Boston was 31 games above .500 at 83-52 with a 1.5 game lead on the Yankees with 27 games left on their schedule. The Red Sox went 7-19 during 26 of those games good for a .269-win percentage and entering Game 162 were tied with Rays with an 90-71 record for the AL Wild Card spot. The Red Sox matched up against the last place 68-93 Orioles whose season has long been over while the Rays took on the top dog Yankees at Tropicana Field.

Dustin Pedroia put Boston on the board first at Oriole Park at Camden Yards by lining a single right back up the middle plating Mike Aviles. Five minutes after Pedroia’s single, Mark Teixeira launched a grand slam to the left field stands blowing it open for New York and giving them a 5-0 cushion over the Rays.

Back at Camden Yards, with one swing J.J. Hardy gave the Orioles a 2-1 lead on a two-out two run home run. The Red Sox tied the game at 2 on an Alfredo Simon balk in the fourth and Pedroia broke the tie an inning later by drilling a ball over the left center field wall for a solo shot. The Red Sox defense kept the score at 3-2 with wonderful plays from Marco Scutaro who threw Mark Reynolds out at the plate in the fifth and Scutaro and Pedroia connected on a double play up the middle in the sixth frame. Then the rain came falling down in Baltimore at 9:33 PM where the grounds crew was on the field putting the tarp on the field.

After the Rays scored three times in the eighth on a Sam Fuld walk, Sean Rodríguez hit by pitch and B.J. Upton sacrifice fly, Evan Longoria came to the plate with two outs and drilled a three-run blast into the seats making it only a one run deficit. Then, at 10:47 PM with the Rays down to their last strike of the 2011 season, Dan Johnson lined a pinch-hit home run just fair down the right field line to tie it at 7 in the ninth.

Eleven minutes following the dramatic tying homer by Johnson, the grounds crew at Camden Yards takes off the tarp and play resumed in the bottom of the seventh inning. Carl Crawford sends a ball to the gap in left center and Scutaro is thrown out at the plate trying to score from first. This was costly for the Red Sox as instead of having runners on second and third with one out, there was Crawford at second and two down. In the next frame, Boston has the bases loaded and Ryan Lavarnway grounds into a twin killer to end the scoring chance.

Terry Francona inserted All-Star closer Jonathan Papelbon to close the game for the Red Sox. Papelbon made quick of Adam Jones and Reynolds by striking them both out, but Chris Davis kept the line moving for Baltimore after hitting a double into the right field corner. Five pitches later, Nolan Reimold drilled a ground-rule double one hopping over the wall and pinch runner Kyle Hudson scored the tying run resulting in Papelbon blowing only his third save of year.

Two minutes after midnight, Robert Andino hit a line drive to short left field where Crawford couldn’t make the catch allowing Reimold to score the winning run. The Red Sox lost a crucial Game 162 and had to wait for the outcome of the Yankees and Rays in St. Petersburg, Florida. 180 seconds following Andino’s walk-off single, Longoria lined a home run barely fair down the left field line for the biggest homer of his big-league career. Since the Orioles defeated the Red Sox and Rays walked off the Yankees, Tampa took the AL Wild Card spot.

The Rays played the Texas Rangers in the American League Division Series. They ended up losing the series 3-1 in 4 games and finished their season, but their September run will be remembered for a long time. As for the Red Sox, the aftermath of their historic collapse led to the front office and manager Francona parting ways and General Manager Theo Epstein exploring the vacant front office position with the Chicago Cubs. Epstein accepted the offer of Cubs President of Baseball Operations and led the organization to its first World Series Championship in 108 years in 2016.

Following a last place finish with Bobby Valentine in 2012, Boston hired John Farrell while Francona went to manage the Cleveland Indians in 2013. Farrell led the Red Sox to their third World Series Championship in ten years and Francona took the Indians to the playoffs for the first time in six seasons.

Unlike the Red Sox, the Braves were back in the playoffs in 2012 in Chipper Jones’s final game in the very first Wild Card Game in baseball history. It’s mostly remembered for the umpires calling an infield fly rule on a popup by Andrelton Simmons in the bottom of the eighth, causing the game to be played under protest by the Braves (MLB, 2013).

The team that benefited most from their September run was the St. Louis Cardinals. They upset the 102-win Phillies with or without the benefit of a squirrel dashing for the plate when Roy Oswalt was pitching during the bottom of the fifth inning of Game 4 of the National League Division Series at Busch Stadium (MLB, 2017).

In the National League Championship Series, St. Louis took down the NL Central Champion Milwaukee Brewers in six games and had a date with the defending American League Champion Texas Rangers in the 107th edition of the World Series. After 5 games, the Rangers were ahead 3-2 and had a golden opportunity to win their first World Series in St. Louis, but Tony La Russa’s bats woke up at the right time.

Heading into the ninth frame, Texas was ahead 7-5 needing three outs with Neftalí Féliz on the mound. With Lance Berkman and Albert Pujols on first and second, David Freese came up with two outs and down to his final strike when he hit a triple off the wall in right to tie the game at 7.

The Rangers regained the lead on a Josh Hamilton two run homer to right center field in the tenth making it 9-7. The Cardinals scored two runs to tie it at 9 and Berkman’s single to center with two outs made it a 9-9 ball game.

Jake Westbrook worked a scoreless eleventh and Freese walked it off 10-9 by hitting a solo shot to dead center and Joe Buck called: “Freese hits it in the air to center. We will see you tomorrow night” (MLB, 2013). St. Louis became the 1st team to ever comeback twice from 2-run deficit in 9th inning or later in World Series history. Also, the 1st team in World Series history to score in 8th, 9th, and 10th innings of WS game.

The Cardinals sent Carpenter to the mound to start Game 7 who pitched them to the playoffs a month earlier in Houston. The 36-year-old right hander tossed 6 innings allowing 2 runs, 2 of them earned, on 6 hits while striking out 5 and walking 2. Carpenter received 5 runs of support and the bullpen pitched three scoreless innings when the Cardinals added an insurance run in the seventh. Jason Motte was given the ball in the ninth working a one, two, three inning setting down Nelson Cruz, Mike Napoli, and David Murphy to take home the Cardinals 11th World Series title which is the most in the history of the National League. It was final game for Pujols in a Cardinal uniform and last game La Russa managed until he skippered the Chicago White Sox on Thursday, April 1, 2021.

If the 2011 season and postseason can teach us anything it should be that no matter how many outs or strikes you have left, you are still alive even if you only have one out and one strike remaining. Always remember, you may be down, but you are never out.

Sources

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