The Last Sunday

Today is the last Sunday of the regular season, but it isn't the last day of the season.

I don't remember a baseball season whose last scheduled games were on a day other than Sunday. 

It's done this year to get the playoffs started earlier, and thus keep the World Series from running past Halloween and some still unknown hero from becoming Mr. November.

And they want to add yet another wild card in each league. (Sigh ...) 

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The Tiger fan would expect his team to do well against a starting pitcher -- the Orioles' Brian Matusz -- whose ERA resembles a street address uptown (10.86). A stat so off the page that, after six earned runs in five innings, it increased by only .03.

Three of the Matusz runs scored via homers (Cabrera 1 on, V-Mart 2 on). Donnie Kelly added a three run shot in the seventh, and Jhonny Peralta a solo homer, his 20th, in the eighth.

Final: 10-6 Tigers, but the Rangers also won to stay a game ahead in the race for home field advantage in the Division Series. 

The Rangers play their last three at Anaheim, while the Tigers host the Indians and will be rooting for Jared Weaver, to beat the Rangers in the season's final game. 

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Jim Thome got into what might be his last game in the town where his career started, Cleveland, as a pinch hitter in the ninth inning. He walked, and replaced Lonnie Chisenhall at third for one pitch before coming out to another thunderous standing O. 

His 2011 Strat-O-Matic card will now have a position, thirdbase-4 e48. Chisenhall, for the one pitch he played in left field, will be a leftfield-4 e25. 

Thome hadn't played third since 1996, on the same Jacobs Field infield. He hadn't played a defensive position since 2007 (one game at first for the White Sox) and didn't even own a glove. He borrowed Jack Hannahan's. 

It might be the end, but who knows? In the last half of the season, he didn't play like he was through. I'd bring him back, if only for the home runs he hit against the Tigers at Comerica.

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Cub starter Randy Wells went the distance and pitched wells enough to win. Solo home runs by Yadier Molina in the eighth and Rafael Furcal in the ninth gave him an L in the box score, and the Cardinals a 3-2 win. 

That win, and the Braves loss in DC, moved the Cardinals to within one game of the NL wild card; and now you know they wish they had that Mets' ninth inning back. 

The days have dwindled down to a precious three, and the Cards finish at Houston, while the Bravos -- hee hee -- host the best-record-in-baseball 99-60 Phillies. 

Only a 14th inning homer by Jacoby Ellsbury kept the Red Sox, now 6 for 18 in September, from falling into a tie with T-Bay for the AL wild card.

Ellsbury's shot, minutes before midnight, gave the Sox a split in today's makeup (all players wear makeup) day-night doubleheader in New York. 

T-Bay plays three with the Yankees at home, and will finish before a few fans and a lot of empty seats, even for a Yankee series. The Sox go to Baltimore, where the fan hopes they play as well as they did in Comerica, and against the rest of the league all September.