1 playoff spot left, baseball season goes extras

Then on Wednesday, the playoffs begin with three games: Manny Ramirez, Joe Torre and the Los Angeles Dodgers take on the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, the wild-card Brewers travel to Philadelphia and the Red Sox play the 100-win Angels.

On Thursday, the Tampa Bay Rays will make their postseason debut when either the White Sox or Twins travel to quirky Tropicana Field.

Before the Rays beat Detroit 8-7 in 11 innings Sunday, manager Joe Maddon held a brief team meeting.

"Joe just said to keep everything normal - like any other game. There's no reason to start showing up five hours before the game now," pitcher James Shields said.

Inside their clubhouse at Comerica Park, there also was a note on a dry erase board: Wear your AL East champs shirts on the flight back home, it reminded the Rays.

The Brewers and Mets went into the final day even at 89-72, facing the possibility of a wild-card tiebreaker at Shea.

Instead, in a moment's notice, the whole NL playoff picture took shape.

Right after the scoreboard at Miller Park showed the Mets had fallen behind - the bullpen again was their culprit, with Scott Schoeneweis and Luis Ayala giving up back-to-back home runs in the eighth inning, the Brewers struck.

With Milwaukee fans still buzzing about the big doings in New York, Ryan Braun hit a tiebreaking homer in the eighth inning. Sabathia then closed it out, pitching a four-hitter in his third straight start on three days' rest.

After their fans watched the Mets' loss on the giant video board in center field, the Brewers celebrated. Quite an end for a team that fired manager Ned Yost with two weeks left, promoted third-base coach Dale Sveum to run the club and overcame a 3-11 September start.

"I give all the credit to Ned," Sveum said. "He's one of my good friends. Just some unfortunate incidents. I love Ned from the bottom of my heart and I wish he was here right now."

The Mets and their fans could only wonder what went wrong.

A year ago, they blew a seven-game division lead with 17 games left. This year, they wasted a 3 1/2-game edge with 17 remaining.

Minus the 1981 split season, the Mets became the first club in big league history to hold 3 1/2-game division leads in consecutive Septembers and fail to make the postseason both times, the Elias Sports Bureau said.

Hardly a proper send-off to their old ballpark.

"It would have been better if we would have won today, but I don't think it spoils the celebration," general manager Omar Minaya said. "What's going on out there, it's about the history of this building, the history of the players, the history of this organization."