The extraordinary events of Wednesday night, when the Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves completed historic collapses with horrific losses on the final day of the season, left the 2011 postseason field as strong and healthy as any in recent memory. No one backed in. No one shut it down at the end. In fact, the six division winners averaged nearly 97 wins apiece and won their divisions by an average of nearly 10 games. And the two wild-card winners, meanwhile, arrived after making heroic September charges. All eight teams posted winning records in September. The four first-round matchups — the Tampa Bay Rays at the Texas Rangers , the Detroit Tigers at the New York Yankees , the St. Louis Cardinals at the Philadelphia Phillies and the Arizona Diamondbacks at the Milwaukee Brewers — pit the merely hot against the scalding. Read full article > >

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Phillies’ aces set them apart, even in a strong postseason field