Springfield (90-72) and Terre Haute (114-48) made it into the CL Wild Card game at the end of the season in opposite ways, as TER couldn't complete its charge to best SHI while SPR did successfully overcome STL.

As expected, both teams put their aces on the mound as visiting SPR had Yu Darvish (20-8, 3.27) facing TER's Walker Buehler (15-1, 2.55).

TER would draw first blood as a walk and three singles in the first resulted in a 1-0 lead, but the team's plodding take-or-rake sluggers couldn't advance further to exend the margin.  Nick Ahmed added an RBI double in the 4th but SPR halved the lead with an Allen solo homer in the 5th when TER's manager decided to leave him in for a third time through the order.  Verdugo would add an RBI single in the bottom of the inning to close the book on a substandard Darvish outing (9 hits, 3 ER in 5.1 IP), prevented from being worse when a 4th run was gunned down at the plate.

Buehler came out in the top of the 7th after performing admirably (6.1 IP 3 hits 1 ER) and lefty Wilson was sent to face the lefty-heavy top of the SPR lineup.  Fans were immediately questioning the decision when Duvall launched a long homer to cut the lead to 3-2.

Holding a one-run lead and having been burned by the lefty reliever, TER brought R/9L Petit in to start the 8th...and he promptly hit two guys while only getting one out.  Hoyt came on and allowed an RBI single to the desiccated corpse of Brett Gardner but TER returned the earlier favor by gunning a runner down at home to preserve the 3-3 tie.

Neither team scored in the 9th so we got bonus baseball!  Baez recorded a 1-2-3 top of the inning and Forster retired Albies and Chris Owens, defensive sub and last rated outfielder for TER stepped in...and smashed the ball into the stands for a walk-off homer!  All hail Chris Owens!

So TER wins 4-3 and advances into the playoffs.  Congrats to Kevin for a great SPR team which obviously could've won this game at any number of points.