For The Birds

The Cardinals and the Orioles advanced with road wins in the Wild Card games on Friday.

St. Louis doubled up the Atlanta Braves, 6-3 while the Baltimore Orioles knocked the Texas Rangers out of the post season with a 5-1 decision.

The Cardinals will now face the Washington Nationals in the National League Division Series while the American League Division Series foe for the Orioles will be the mighty New York Yankees.
The Cardinals got a big home run from Matt Holliday to pace the win that was marred with an interruption when Atlanta fans littered the playing field with debris and beer bottles after the left field umpire called an "infield fly rule" on a sky high fly ball (with two runners on base) that dropped in betwen the left fielder and shortstop, who appeared to call each other off the ball.
That 8th inning play pretty much squashed the best chance the Braves had in the game to catch up as they trailed by three runs.
Meanwhile, the Orioles rode the pitching of veteran Joe Saunders, who allowed just one run over 5 2/3 innings to earn the win.
Orioles outfielder Adam Jones drove in the go ahead run  with a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning to make it 2-1 and the Orioles were on their way after adding on three insurance runs over the last three innings.
Baltimore is now 75-0 when leading after seven innings this year thanks to a stellar bull pen, which did the job once again as closer Jim Johnson induced a weak fly ball with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth to finish off the Rangers, who had been the American League champions the past two seasons.