See ya next year...
With the best pitching in baseball this year the Rays looked like a good bet to advance to the ALDS after taking an early 3-1 lead (and later a 4-3 lead) against Houston but the pitching let them down tonight and the bats went silent in the final four innings to send them to a 7-4 defeat and elimination from the 2028 playoffs so there will be no threepeat for the Rays. Ultimately injuries to their best player (Wander Franco) and best pitcher (Grayson Rodriguez) were too much to overcome as with them they may have won the division or at least this Wild Card series. As it was they won 103 games although given the way they played against Toronto in their 7 games in September (losing 5 of them), the ALDS probably would have been the end of the road anyway. Instead the Astros will get a crack at the 108-win behemoth in Toronto.
Over in the NL:
St. Louis advances to face Arizona while Wilmer Flores' massive 3-homer game forces a Game 3 between Washington and San Diego that went this way:
7 innings of 2-hit ball from former Rays farmhand Michael Mercado (traded way back in 2023 in the Juan Soto deal) led the Nats to victory and a date with the top-seed Mets in the other NLDS.
Speaking of the Rays' farm, Durham fell to Buffalo (the Jays affiliate, natch) in 7 games in the opening round of the International League playoffs while Montgomery holds a 3-2 series lead over Pensacola in the first round of the Southern League playoffs.
As usual when the Rays are eliminated, the next posts will be full-round recaps of the remaining playoffs, so one each for the DS, CS and World Series rounds.