Tampa 4, Boston 3; The gap's back down to 3 games, with David Price facing Tim Wakefield in Sunday's finale.

-- Jeff Niemann gets the credit for picking off Jacoby Ellsbury breaking for 3rd base to end the 5th (with Boston behind by 2). But look who really made the play. (Hint: He also turned his MLB-high 34th DP in this game.)

-- Matt Moore is a top prospect, but you still have to give Joe Maddon a moxie point for the pitching change he made after Jeff Niemann had held the Sox to 2 runs through 5 IP with his pitch count only at 89. All right, kiddo -- we broke your cherry in Baltimore; now why don'tcha go get Pedroia, Gonzalez and Ortiz? Moore ended up walking the lefties, but he escaped damage in that inning and allowed 1 run in 3 IP, retiring Gonzalez and Ortiz in the 8th. The Rays didn't really have a quality lefty in the 'pen before they called up Moore -- in fact, their bullpen isn't deep at all -- so those 3 effective innings were a boon, and kudos to Maddon for not running scared.

-- Here's why one should take a very long view when considering structural changes such as realignment: Just a few weeks ago, columnists bemoaned the unfairness of Tampa's residing in the AL East. Through August 21, they were 8 games out of 1st and 7.5 behind the wild-card leader. They would have had a better postseason shot in any other division: at 69-56, they would have led the AL Central and the NL West; they'd have trailed by 2.5 in the AL West and 5.5 in both the NL Central and the wild-card race. Since then, the Rays have gone 15-11, but they would no longer lead any other division: Detroit went 20-6 and are 3.5 better than Tampa, while Arizona went 18-7 and stand 2.5 above the Rays. And Tampa would be just a half-game closer in the NL wild-card chase than they are right now with Boston.

And while contending in the AL East surely is a challenge, the Rays have done well against the 3 other winning teams in their division -- a combined 26-17 vs. the Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays. The division foe that's hung them with the most losses is Baltimore, splitting the season series at 9 apiece. Last year, Tampa won the season series from all 4 division foes and went 31-23 against the 3 winning teams, 21-15 against the Evil Empires. Over the last 4 years, they're 70-66 combined against Boston and New York; and Boston's overall record is only 5 games better than Tampa's in that time. My point: There are fiscal inequities within MLB, but competitive balance is more fluid than it often seems when looking at a small window.

-- Suddenly, the Giants have won 7 straight and closed to within 5 games of Arizona, after mounting a late comeback in Denver on the bats of Carlos Beltran and Brett Pill, while the D-backs dropped their 3rd straight road game, wasting a solid outing from each SP. The clubs have a 3-game set next weekend in Phoenix.

• What next from Pill? He homered in his 1st big-league AB on Sept. 6, and went deep again the next game. Tonight, he became the 1st Giant in over 3 years to hit 2 triples in a game, the 2nd one plating 2 runs to snap a tie in the 8th. I'm pretty sure that Coors Field is the only place where a RHB can hit a simple line drive into left-center and wind up with an easy triple, with no OF miscue. Pill runs pretty well, though; and that triple was "born between home and 1st base." Pill is now 7 for 21 with 5 extra-base hits, a Ruthian .857 SLG.
• See if you can make sense of the play description of Jeff Keppinger's AB in the Giants' 8th. I think there must be a typo. Anyway, that whole 8th inning was a mess for the Rockies -- including 2 failed fielder's choices, and throwing errors by 2 different pitchers.
• Carlos Beltran is 12 for 30 in the win streak, with 3 HRs, 3 doubles and just 2 strikeouts.
• Rookie SP Eric Surkamp had an RBI single for his 1st big-league hit. He had been 0 for 5 with 4 Ks before that; but watch this video and tell me he doesn't look "hitterish." Surkamp went 4 for 14 in the minors, with 3 RBI and just 3 Ks.
• Very nice play to start the 9th by SS Brandon Crawford: A high chopper up the middle is tipped by the pitcher, changing direction slightly and perhaps picking up spin, as it veers again on the bounce; Crawford reaches back to his right to barehand it and gets the runner by a step. It turned into a vital out, as the next 3 men reached base, cutting SF's lead to 1.

-- Twins fans can skip the next passage ... Barring a sudden and inexplicable hot streak, Minnesota (59-91) will post their worst record since 1982; by coincidence, that was their first in the Metrodome and the worst in Twins history -- a year when Ron Washington was the starting SS, someone named Bobby Mitchell roamed CF (his only full season), and Kirby Puckett (picked #3 in that year's draft) was shredding the Rookie League for a .382 BA and 43 SB in 65 games. That's the only time the Twins have lost 100 games since moving from Washington in 1961; this year's edition needs 4 more wins to avoid that fate.

They have 1 win in their last 13 games.

On July 20, a week after the Break, the Twins were just 5 games under .500 and 5 games out in the division. Since then, they've gone 13-40 -- a pace below that of the '62 Mets -- with losing streaks of 7, 7, 6 and 5.

Aside from occasional eruptions, the offense has mostly evaporated. The Twins were shut out on August 21, then scored exactly 1 run in each of their next 5 games. No other Twins/Senators team since 1919 has gone 6 straight games scoring 1 run or less. Not long after that, they had another stretch scoring 2 runs total in 4 games.

The pitching has been worse, allowing 5.7 R/G from July 21 and doing so at a fairly steady clip -- 5 runs or more in 31 of those 53 games. Scott Baker, their only SP with an ERA+ over 90, hasn't pitched since August 8.

Let's hope they turn it around next year. Our sport is better when the Twins are piranhas instead of plankton.

-- The Phillies clinched, finally. When was the last time this outcome was in doubt? Seems like it was springtime.... The Phils did fall out of 1st place ... for 1 day ... by half a game ... back in April.

12 games left for the 98-52 Phils to make a little history. The most NL wins in the last quarter-century is 106 by the '98 Braves; the '86 Mets and the '75 Reds are the only teams to win more than that since the 1909 Pirates.

-- Congratulations, Mariano. Especially for doing it 1-2-3 in a 1-run game.

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