Just a bit of editorializing here.  Just because the Yankees have won 27 world championships over the 88 seasons since they won their 1st crown in 1923, that doesn’t automatically make them baseball’s greatest team in 2011, as the Detroit Tigers aptly showed.   In my humble opinion, they are a long way from the eras of Ruth/ Gehrig, Joltin’ Joe, Whitey Ford, Mantle and Maris or Mr. October.  Alex Rodriguez (aka A-Rod, or A-Roid),  Derek Jeter, Sabathia and company are just a bunch of grossly overpaid, under-working spoiled brats on a wacko team in a wacko town — New York City.   The Yanks are going nowhere, but to the golf course, in 2011 and forseeable seasons to come!   And it’ll sure be nice to walk down the street without being accosted by young Yankee fans shouting insults at the Phillies.

Check out the video above: the Tigers committed NO errors during the 5 game series.

AP’s game recap for Yahoo sports provides game highlights here and here.

In Friday’s deciding game 5 between the Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals, ace Roy Halladay, who won game 1,  is scheduled to oppose Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter.

For all of Thursday’s and Friday’s scheduled playoff games throughout MLB, click here and here.

The only bright spots for Phillies, once their offense ran dry, were 2 excellent one inning relief efforts; an 8 pitch seventh for Joe Blanton and a 10 pitch eighth inning, including a strikeout for Brad Lidge as the last 6 Cards went down in order.

Beyond that, there was little to cheer about as the Phils’ flatter than Israeli lafa offense couldn’t bail Oswalt out after his 2 mistakes, although the game was still reachably close, even after Freese’s dinger.  AP’s game recap provides further notes on Wednesday’s game.

For all of Wednesday’s playoff results in both leagues, click here.

In Friday’s deciding game 5, ace Roy Halladay, who won game 1, is scheduled to oppose Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter.

For all of Thursday’s and Friday’s scheduled playoff games throughout MLB, click here and here.

     

In other playoff games, the Arizona Diamondbacks got into the win column as they battered Milwaukee starter  Shaun Marcom for 7 runs enroute to an 8-1 win.  Milwaukee leads the series by 2-1.   In the American League, the Texas Rangers edged the Tampa Bay Rays to win their playoff series by 3 games to 1.   Meanwhile, the  Yankees pounded Detroit for 6 runs in the eighth inning enroute to a 10-1 rout to deadlock their series at 2 games apiece.

The Cards had runners on in every inning of the game but could only plate 2 late-inning runs as Hamels shut out them out through six innings despite giving up 5 hits and issuing 3 walks.   Hamels struck out 8.

AP’s game recap for Yahoo sports provides highlights on Tuesday’s game:

So much for Francisco’s postseason futility and his lack of success against Jaime Garcia before his game-changer.

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa’s decisions in the crucial seventh inning were ripe for second-guessing. He let Garcia bat in the sixth with two men on and then let Garcia keep pitching, and both moves backfired.

Garcia struck out on Hamels’ 117th pitch to end the sixth and keep it scoreless, and just a few minutes later served up a fat pitch that Francisco hammered over the left field wall and into the visitor’s bullpen.

“Well, it didn’t work, so that’s bad managing,” La Russa said. “I’m watching him pitch and was really pleased. I thought he was the guy to continue pitching and I knew the matchups were in our favor. It didn’t work.”

Even Garcia dissociated himself from the call to intentionally walk Carlos Ruiz before Francisco’s homer.

“That wasn’t my idea,” Garcia said. “That’s what (La Russa) wanted to do and that’s what we did.”

Second baseman Chase Utley was perfectly positioned to turn a double play to end the eighth on   Allen Craig’s sharply hit grounder with the bases loaded. Madson allowed Yadier Molina’s RBI single in the ninth before earning the save.

“That was a lot of fun, a lot of fun,” Madson said. “I wish I was a lot better but I guess I was good enough and that’s all that matters.”

After stranding 14 runners to frustrate a season-best crowd of 46,914, the Cardinals are in an yet another win-or-else predicament. They won the NL wild card on the final day of the season, erasing a 10 1/2 -game deficit on Aug. 25 to overtake the Braves.

“Somebody was going to be up 2-1 after this game anyway, so the series doesn’t end just because they’re up 2-1,”  Lance Berkman said.  “We’ll come back out tomorrow and see what happens.”

Several Cardinals said it was no coincidence that neither team scored the first six innings. Shadows during games with late-afternoon start times have bedeviled the hitters and Berkman joked that when he learned Game 3 would begin at 4:07 p.m. CDT, “I threw a tantrum, stomped my feet and stuff like that. Didn’t do any good.”

“I didn’t know it was a homer, I knew I hit it good,” Francisco said. “I saw it bounce over the fence and just pure excitement, pure joy.”

Hamels struck out eight in six scoreless innings and reversed a disturbing trend after allowing nine homers in September, with a pair of doubles by [Albert] Pujols the only extra-base hits. He’s a franchise-best 7-4 in the postseason with a 3.09 ERA.

Pujols and Ryan Theriot had four hits apiece for St. Louis with Pujols getting his 22nd career multihit game in the postseason. The Cardinals came up empty despite three hits in the eighth, including a pinch-hit single by Matt Holliday in only his second appearance of the series.

For all of Monday’s and Tuesday’s playoff results in both leagues, click here and here.

Roy Oswalt hopes to lead the Phillies to a series win in Wednesday’s game 4, thus avoiding a return home to Philly for a decisive 5th game in Citizen’s Bank Park.  He opposes Edwin Jackson who lost and was pounded in his only career outing against the Phils.  Oswalt was 1-1 vs the Cards this season, most recently tossing seven innings of 5 hit shutout ball on September 17th as the Phils clinched the division title with a 9-2 win.

For all of Wednesday’s scheduled playoff games throughout MLB, click here.