MLB season decided in two hours

At 7:10 p.m. Wednesday night, four major league baseball teams had their entire seasons resting on what would happen over the next five hours of baseball.

The Boston Red Sox had a nine-game lead in the American League Wild Card race heading into the month of September over the Tampa Bay Rays.

In the National League Wild Card race, the Atlanta Braves had an eight-and-a-half-game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals six days into September.

At 7:10 p.m. Wednesday night, both of those leads had been evaporated and the Red Sox and Braves were tied with the Rays and the Cardinals, respectively.

What would ensue over the next five hours was some of the most amazing baseball that I have ever seen.

Out of the four different games that these teams were playing, only the St. Louis Cardinals won by more than one run, as they dominated the Houston Astros in an 8-0 victory.

With the Cardinals winning, it forced the Atlanta Braves to beat the Philadelphia Phillies, which would force the Braves and Cardinals to play a one-game playoff on Thursday.

At 8:03 p.m., it looked like the Braves were on their way to having that playoff game as Dan Uggla hit a 3-run homer to put the Braves up 3-1.

Meanwhile, in Baltimore, the Red Sox were tied with the Orioles until Dustin Pedroia hit a solo home run thirty minutes later as the Braves took a 3-1 lead.

At this moment, it appeared that the Red Sox were well on their way to making the playoffs because the Tampa Bay Rays were down to the New York Yankees by seven runs.

Fast forward almost two hours, the Boston Red Sox were still up 3-2 and in a rain delay in Baltimore, the Braves were tied with the Phillies and in extra innings, and the Rays just put together a six-run eighth inning to pull back within one run of the Yankees.

As the rain subsided in Baltimore shortly before 11:00 p.m., Dan Johnson took the plate to pinch hit for Sam Fuld with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

After two strikes and two balls in the count, Johnson got a pitch down the middle of the plate from Yankees pitcher Scott Proctor and made contact, sending it down the right field line and into the stands for a home run.

Johnson's blast sent the game to extra innings just before 11 p.m. as the Red Sox game resumed in the bottom of the seventh inning.

At this point, the pressure was on for the Red Sox and the Braves. What seemed to be a guarantee that the Rays would lose to the Yankees has turned into a tie game that's going into extra innings, and the Braves lead over the Phillies, just like its lead over the Cardinals in the Wild Card, had evaporated.

Over the next hour, madness began. The Phillies' Hunter Pence hit a blooper in the top of the 13th inning, which ended up being the winning run for the Phillies, completing a total collapse for the Atlanta Braves and knocking them out of the playoffs.

About 20 minutes after the Braves failed to hold onto its last hope for making the playoffs, it was time for the Red Sox to show if they could hold their 3-2 lead in the bottom of the ninth inning.

With Jonathon Papelbon pitching, Red Sox fans had to feel safe. Papelbon is arguably one of the top two or three closers in the game and has come through in the clutch many times for the Red Sox.

Tonight was different, though. This September was different. The Red Sox weren't the same team that pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in baseball history in the 2004 AL Championship Series down three games to the Yankees. They were the Red Sox who had found a way to blow a nine-game lead in one month of play.

Just as it seemed in the beginning of September, the Red Sox looked to have a victory locked down with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning and nobody on base. After giving up a double, Papelbon had to find a way to get Nolan Reimold out to end the game. He couldn't.

Reimold hit a ground-rule double and tied the game at three, one minute before midnight.

At midnight, Robert Andino stepped to the plate and just two minutes later, he would hit the pitch that broke Red Sox fans' hearts around the Red Sox Nation.

Andino hit the game-winning single to give the Orioles a 4-3 victory.

It wasn't over yet for the Red Sox. They still had hopes that their most bitter rival, the New York Yankees could beat Tampa Bay and force a one-game playoff.

In the top of the 12th inning, the Yankees had that chance. There were no outs and runners on the corners for New York, but a ground ball to third base and bad decision making led to the man of third getting out. A double play ball later, and the Rays had avoided trouble.

Five minutes after midnight, the glass slipper was fit on Cinderella's heel. This time the heel belonged to Evan Longoria and the Tampa Bay Rays.

A mere three minutes after hearing that the Red Sox had lost, Longoria sealed the fate of both his team and the Red Sox for the 2011 season.

Longoria hit a walk-off home run that barely cleared the left field wall, but distance didn't matter. The ball barely clearing the fence was perfect symbolism for how the Rays had snuck into the playoffs in the last seconds of the season.

In just over two hours, the 162-game Major League Baseball regular season was decided by the outcome of four games.