1) The Natural - Prior to last night, Dan Johnson had arguably the most important home run in Tampa Bay baseball history off of the (then) unhittable Papelbon in 2008, which helped propel the "worst to first" Rays to the AL East title. That year Johnson was waived by the A's and spent most of the year in the minors before being an unlikely Setpember callup. 3 years later, Johnson spent most of the year as a disgruntled veteran minor leaguer, only to be called up in September as an extra bat off the bench, performing to the tune of a sub .400 OPS (not sub .400 OBP, a sub .400 OPS, which is really saying something). To call his homerun improbable doesn't do it justice. The fact that he repeated the "greatest homerun in franchise history" trick twice in 3 years is stupefying.
2) Carl Crawford, Double Agent - Just 3 innings later, Evan Longoria's walk-off pushed Johnson down to 2nd and 3rd on the historic franchise home run list. Longoria's HR was as shallow as McGwire's 62nd was, just squeezing over the wall near the left field foul pole, the same area of the field that Carl Crawford patrolled for 8 years before moving on to Boston. Just minutes earlier, Crawford completed an awful season patrolling left field for the Red Sox (his .289 OBP is particularly glaring) by making a diving attempt on Robert Andino's flyball to left. By diving, Crawford gave up any chance to throw out the slow footed Nolan Reimold, allowing the winning run to score without a play at the plate. After averaging over 3 wins above replacement during his time in Tampa, Crawford posted a big 0.0 in WAR this year. If you were to tell me the Rays sent Crawford to the Red Sox as some Cold War spy to submerge their playoff chances, I'd have a hard time disproving that theory, especially given his influence over the last play of the Red Sox season.
3) Fredi Got Fingered - It's been a running joke how badly Fredi Gonzalez has been abusing his young relief corps. Johnny Venters, Craig Kimbrel and Eric O'Flaherty all rank in the top 5 for relievers in the major leagues. Fredi simply went to the well too many times, and his bullpen imploded. Kimbrel had 4 blown saves down the stretch after being the best reliever in the majors for most of the season. The final game was like a case study for Fredi's inability to manage a baseball game - starting Matt Diaz over Jayson Heyward, batting Martin Prado (and his .302 OBP) second, allowing a SB attempt of third base by Michael Bourn with Dan Uggla at bat (the resulting home run would have been a 3 run shot instead of a 2 run shot had Bourn simply stayed put), not double switching to get a second inning out of Cristhian Martinez at the end of the game. I don't know how any Braves fans could have any faith in Fredi after this debacle.
4) Desmond Jennings Call Up - On August 31st, Desmond Jennings had a slash line of .333/.415/.611 with 8 HRs and 14 SBs in his first 37 games in the major leagues, resulting in the Rays getting criticized for blowing the wild card race by not bringing up Jennings sooner. Over the last month of the season, Jennings dipped to .167/.267/.255, and ended up with overall slash marks very much like what was expected of the talented rookie: .259/.356/.449. The Rays may have actually timed this call up perfectly, not only did they win the wild card and delay Jennings' service time, they also timed the callup for him to gain confidence against some low level competition (Royals, A's, Mariners) before facing some of the tougher pitching staffs in the league.
5) The Buck Stops Here - The Orioles went 11-6 to end the season winning facing playoff caliber competition (Rays, Angels, @Boston, @Detroit, Boston), winning 4 of those series' and tying one (2-2 against the Angels). Remember at the beginning of the season when Buck Showalter famously ripped Theo Epstein, saying "I'd like to see how smart Theo Epstein is with the Tampa Bay payroll. You got Carl Crawford 'cause you paid more than anyone else, and that's what makes you smarter? That's why I like whipping their butt. It's great, knowing those guys with the $205 million payroll are saying, 'How the hell are they beating us?'" Holy crap was that a prophetic quote, there is probably nothing else in Theo Epstein's head right now other than that very thought.
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