Empyreal Environs

The Yankees guaranteeing themselves a playoff spot this season was inevitable but, like your parents having sex, it’s something that happens but you don’t need to see or hear it. Just please keep it down. Will you guys wait until you get into your bedroom? Appreciate it.

Juan Miranda’s tenth-inning bases loaded walk teased from Hideki Okajima was like amateur porn compared to the Red Sox winning the American League East on September 28, 2007. That night was like Amélie (from the movie, not the Boston Globe) imagining climaxes across the arrondissements of Paris; pockets of Red Sox fans in Baltimore and Boston and beyond were simultaneously experiencing exhilaration.

A scintilla of that exaltation shimmered briefly in the top of the ninth. Ryan Kalish swiped second and third as Bill Hall battled Mariano Rivera. Hall prevailed by shooting a single up the middle to plate Kalish for the tying run.

Inspired by Kalish’s larceny Hall also stole second and third, putting him in position to tag up on pinch hitter Mike Lowell’s sacrifice fly to center for the go-ahead score.

Jonathan Papelbon, who had partnered with Daisuke Matsuzaka three years ago to clinch the division, did not replicate his one-two-three ninth inning of yore. The closer got Derek Jeter to fly out to right but allowed consecutive singles and a walk to Alex Rodriguez to load the bases.

Rodriguez’s base on balls may have been aided by home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi, but Papelbon could have pitched to the situation rather than let it control him. Ineluctably Robinson Cano tied the game with a grounder past Marco Scutaro that Dustin Pedroia would have knocked down.

“The Tenth Inning” premiering tomorrow evening will be infinitely more enjoyable than the tenth inning of the last game of this series.

Game 155: September 26, 2010 ∙ 10 innings
Red Sox 86-69	3	BS: Jonathan Papelbon (8) L: Hideki Okajima (4-4)
		2B: Bill Hall (14)
Yankees 93-63	4	H: Kerry Wood (10) BS: Mariano Rivera (5) W: Boone Logan (2-0)
		HR: Alex Rodriguez (29)