Congrats to Mike Bush (Beartooth) on winning the AL East. He defeated Steve (Minnesota) 4-2 in a one game tie-breaker. Mike won the AL East last season. Steve is making his first BYOF postseason appearance after winning the AL Wildcard.
2009 AL East Tie-Breaker BoxscoreGame Summary: by Mike Bush
With the AL East Championship on the line, Minnesota made the trip out to Montana to play a one game play off. Chris Volstad started for the powerful Minnesota team and Aaron Cook for Beartooth. This pair of groundballers indicated that the teams better be ready to grind out runs as home runs would be few and far between despite two powerful lineups.
Game time temperature was a chilly 56 degrees.
Inning One: Santiago playing SS for Nice was immediately K’d by Aaron Cook to get Beartooth off to a strong start. Ramirez and Edmonds went out in order to end the top of the inning. Volstad got David DeJesus and Milton Bradley (on his good behavior because he wants to play in the playoffs!) to ground out before ARod doubled to deep LF. Mark Teixeira came up with the crowd on their feet and noisy only to ground out as well.
Inning Two: David Wright struck out leading off the inning for Nice before Loney singled but true to his groundball ways Cook got Werth to ground into the first DP of the game. Joyce lead off the second for Beartooth flying out, then Volstad lost his command and hit Dioner Navarro before duplicating Cooks success by getting Kelly Johnson to ground into a double play.
Inning Three: Inglett and Iannetta managed to get the ball in the air against Cook but both resulted in harmless flyballs before Sweeney and Santiago hit consecutive triples to put the first dent in the scoreboard, ManRam produced the third out. Nice was up 1-0. Rowand walked to lead off the inning but Orlando Cabrera, DeJesus, and Bradley went down in a row to end the inning.
Inning Four: Edmonds grounded out to Cook to start the inning, then David Wright singled but Loney grounded into the second DP that Beartooth turned on the day. Beartooth’s fourth started with Volstad K’ing ARod but Teixeira followed with a double, Joyce walked, and Navarro singled to centerfield. Beartooth’s 3rd base coach took one look at Werth loading up for the throw home and threw up the stop sign for Teixeira holding him at third to load the bases with one out. Volstad seemed to become rattled at that point as he walked Kelly Johnson to square the game at 1-1. Rowand then singled one run home and Cabrera singled home two as Beartooth took a 4-1 lead. Manager Miles faced a tough decision early in the game but he went and got Volstad bringing in Arredondo who promptly set DeJesus and Bradley down to end the inning.
Inning Five: Cook walked Werth to lead off the inning but induced Inglett to hit into the 3rd DP of the game for Beartooth and then retired Iannetta to complete the inning. Arredondo K’d ARod but walked Teixeira before retiring Joyce and Navarro to finish the inning with Beartooth still leading 4-1.
Inning Six: Cook still going strong retired Sweeney, Santiago, and Manny in a row to get to Beartooth’s half inning. Frank Francisco came on for Nice and got Kelly Johnson to hit a squibber that Iannetta pounced and and got him at first. Rowand then singled and Cabrera walked to mount another Beartooth challenge before Francisco got DeJesus and Bradley.
Inning Seven: Cook walked Edmonds to lead off the inning, but he then got David Wright to ground out to second on a hit and run before retiring Loney and Werth. Francisco put down the heart of Beartooth’s lineup in order K’ing Teixeira and Joyce.
Innning Eight: Inglett singled and got to second on a throwing error to mount a challenge with no outs. Cook struck out Iannetta and then saw Inglett advance to third on a ground out by Sweeney. He then reached way back into his bag of tricks to get Santiago to fly out to right field to end the half inning with Beartooth still up 4-1. Adrian Devine then came on to pitch the eighth for Minnesota and he Navarro to pop out to first before he (Devine) flubbed a ground ball off the bat of Kelly Johnson putting the first runner on. Rowand popped out to second and then Cabrera singled sending Johnson to third. Cabrera took off for second and went in standing up on catcher’s indifference. Devine was in quite a hole with runners at 2nd and 3rd with only one out. He was up to the task however as he quickly retired DeJesus and Bradley to end the threat.
Inning Nine: With a 4-1 lead, Aaron Cook was left out on the mound to face Manny. BAM, one pitch, ball 355 feet deep into the left field seats, bye bye Aaron Cook. JP Howell was brought in. Edmonds was immediately replaced by Perez to pinch hit, but Howell promptly struck him out. Howell then K’d David Wright for the second out. Loney then was removed for Garciaparra and Howell was removed for Heath Bell. Manager Miles countered by setting down Garciaparra in favor of Alphonso Soriano. Bell fired the ball in, Soriano fired it back out twice as fast, lining a single into LF. Bell bowed his back, faced Werth, fired it in and Jayson flied out to RF ending the game giving the division championship to Beartooth!
It was a good game, could have gone either way but the early walk with the bases load made a huge difference.
Congrats to Steve on a great season and good luck in the playoffs.
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