Edit: Game 1 will start at 3pm on Wednesday, Game 2 at 6pm Thursday, Game 3 (in Milwaukee) at 6:30pm Saturday. Blame the networks' yen for Dodgers/Cubs and Red Sox/Angels in prime time. If the other AL series turns out to be Twins/Rays, I'm half-expecting it will air on local access channels at 3am, between infomercials.
Battling for the wild card deep into Sunday afternoon, both the Mets and Brewers were tied in the eighth inning today. But minutes apart, the Florida Marlins hit back-to-back homers--from former Phillie Wes Helms and Dan Uggla, who ends the season with a better New York memory than his all-star game disaster--and Ryan Braun clubbed a two-run blast for the Brewers. Neither the Cubs nor the Mets could respond, and the 2008 regular season ended with the Milwaukee Brewers emerging as the National League's wild-card playoff entrant.
Since the wild card team cannot play the champion of their division in the Division Series (the Cubs, who finished with the best record in the league), the Brewers return to Citizens Bank Park Wednesday to face the Phillies. Milwaukee's rotation is a work in progress, with one ace, Ben Sheets, evidently injured and the other, CC Sabathia, coming off a heroic complete-game win today on three days' rest. What we do know is that Cole Hamels will take the hill for the Phillies on Wednesday.