Touch 'Em All: Cardinals in the playoffs again
ST. LOUIS - The St. Louis Cardinals have clinched a playoff spot for the fourth straight season. The Cardinals were assured of at least an NL wild-card spot when Milwaukee lost to Pittsburgh on Sunday.
ST. LOUIS - The St. Louis Cardinals have clinched a playoff spot for the fourth straight season.
The Cardinals were assured of at least an NL wild-card spot when Milwaukee lost to Pittsburgh on Sunday.
St. Louis led the NL Central by three games over the Pirates going into its game Sunday night at home against Cincinnati.
"There wasn't a lot of high-fiving," Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. "The guys have their minds on, 'OK, what do we have to do to win the division?' "
Adam Wainwright, Yadier Molina, and the Cardinals went to the World Series last year and lost in six games to Boston. The previous two seasons, St. Louis made the playoffs as a wild-card team.
The Cardinals are the fifth team this season to clinch a playoff slot. Baltimore, Washington, the Los Angeles Angels, and the Dodgers are also in.
Hope for Yankees
A week from Monday, Derek Jeter will officially be retired, and the focus will shift entirely to what the Yankees will look like in 2015.
To that end, things could not have gone much better Sunday afternoon in the Bronx.
Masahiro Tanaka, though hit early, mostly looked like his pre-injury self over 51/3 innings of a 5-2 victory over the Blue Jays.
The sellout crowd of 48,144 reserved most of its noise for Jeter, who went 2 for 4, including an RBI double; Brian McCann, who homered twice; and Brett Gardner, whose solo homer in the fifth inning put the Yankees ahead for good and gave the franchise its 15,000th home run.
The Yankees, citing research from the Elias Sports Bureau, said they became the first team to reach the milestone. Mickey Mantle hit No. 5,000 on Aug. 8, 1954, at Detroit against Billy Hoeft, and Claudell Washington hit No. 10,000 on April 20, 1988, at Minnesota off Jeff Reardon.
Braves eliminated
The Atlanta Braves were knocked out of the playoff race Sunday after a stunning late-season collapse, losing to Jacob deGrom and the New York Mets, 10-2.
A half-game out of first place in the NL East on July 29, the Braves have gone 18-30 since then to fall 15 back of Washington. Atlanta was eliminated from the wild-card chase when Pittsburgh beat Milwaukee earlier Sunday. The Braves lost for the 14th time in 18 September games.