2011 Major League Baseball wild card chase
Baseball playoff chase / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 2011 Major League Baseball wild card chase was a playoff chase involving the Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals in the National League and the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays in the American League.
On the last day of the 2011 regular season, the postseason fate of these four teams fighting for two playoff spots across both leagues was decided.[1] In the National League, the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Houston Astros to win the National League wild card berth after the Atlanta Braves lost to the Philadelphia Phillies.[2] In the American League, the Tampa Bay Rays defeated their American League East division rivals the New York Yankees with dramatic home runs in the 9th inning by Dan Johnson and later in extra innings by Evan Longoria to win the American League wild card berth after the Baltimore Orioles defeated the Boston Red Sox on a walk-off single.[3][4][5]
On September 2, the Red Sox and Braves had led the American League and National League wild card races by 9 and 8+1⁄2 games, respectively. In their final 25 games, the Red Sox went 7–18 while the Braves went 8–17; in the same timespan, the Rays and Cardinals each won 17 games to secure the wild cards. The Red Sox and Braves became the first teams in history to hold leads as large as eight games in September and miss the postseason.[6] The Cardinals eventually rode the momentum of their win to win the NLDS and NLCS on their way to defeating the Texas Rangers for their 11th World Series title.[7][8][9]
The 2011 season was the final season of the single wild card format, as MLB added second wild card teams to each league starting with the 2012 season.