(Getty Images)Score and situation: In the first ever wild-card play-in game, the St. Louis Cardinals advanced to the NL Division Series with a wild 6-3 victory over the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field.

Leading lads: Kyle Lohse rewarded Mike Matheny's faith with a strong five and two-third innings. The only two runs he allowed came on David Ross' controversial second inning home run after home plate umpire Jeff Kellogg awarded a late timeout, wiping away a strikeout. Offensively, Allen Craig stepped up again with a big RBI double in the fourth. Also, Matt Holliday continues to be a strong man, as evidenced by his sixth inning home run.

[Related: Terrible call mars first wild-card game]

Head hangers: In his final game, Chipper Jones went 1 for 5 and committed a throwing error on a would be double play ball that opened the door for the Cardinals three-run fourth inning rally. In the seventh, Dan Uggla's bobble and throwaway led directly to two more runs. Rookie shortstop Andrelton Simmons also committed an error in that frame. Earlier, Simmons' failed safety squeeze attempt killed a Braves rally after he was ruled out for interference.

For the first time ever, four wild-card teams will battle it out in the brand new one-game, sudden-death format on Friday that sends the loser packing and the winner into a League Division Series against the top seed.

With the St. Louis Cardinals playing the Atlanta Braves and the Baltimore Orioles taking on the Texas Rangers, it's almost guaranteed to be a wild day. Chances are a hero or two will emerge that currently flies under the radar with casual fans. Call them sleepers. Call them unheralded role players. In some cases maybe even late bloomers. Call them whatever you like, they will step forward today and become household names by tomorrow.

Here are four players who could step up big on the big stage. Perhaps it will be one of them, perhaps it'll be somebody deeper down the bench. We'll have to watch to find out.

(AZ Central Sports)In news we could see coming for the past couple of months, the Arizona Diamondbacks officially relieved indefinitely suspended play-by-play man Daron Sutton and color analyst Mark Grace of their announcing duties on Thursday after both finished the 2012 season on the sidelines.

Though the announcement was expected by many, particularly in Sutton's case, there remained a lot of unanswered questions surrounding the circumstances of his suspension and overall status leading up to his dismissal today. When it was first announced on June 28, there was speculation ranging all the way from personal matters to philosophical differences to Sutton's choice of attire in the television booth. The team dismissed the dress code rumors pretty quickly, but it wasn't until CEO Derrick Hall's statements on Thursday morning that any definitive light was shed on the situation.

From the Arizona Republic's Nick Piecoro:

Until Thursday, the team had been cryptic about its reasons for suspending Sutton. Hall said Sutton was not too negative on the air nor did he have any run-ins with the law.

"It's things that have happened over the years," Hall said, when asked to elaborate on what he meant by "philosophical differences."

"The collaboration here of our personnel, dealing with Daron and us trying to go in a direction that was different than he wanted to go as a broadcaster. It's no knock on him. It's style differences and differences of philosophies, as I mentioned. Daron's going to be a good broadcaster for years to come, I certainly hope."

(MLB.TV)Chances are your attention was directed somewhere other than Rogers Centre during Tuesday night's Twins-Blue Jays battle. We obviously don't blame you, but those who did tune in — and the 13,930 in attendance — were treated to a pretty fancy piece of maneuvering by Minnesota's Trevor Plouffe, who used every bit of his quickness and creativity to avoid a disaster on the bases.

The baserunning blunder turned spectacular retreat happened after Plouffe hit a rocket into the left-field corner for certain extra bases. Or maybe it wasn't, because Toronto left fielder Rajai Davis played the ball expertly off the padded wall and then followed up with a strong throw into second base that was just a little offline.

Had the throw been online, Plouffe, who hustled the whole way, would have been a dead duck. As it turned out, he was a dead duck anyway due to his late, overly aggressive slide that carried him past the base into no man's land. What followed was a little game of cat and mouse between Plouffe and second baseman Adeiny Hechavarria, which Plouffe amazingly won — as ruled by Tim McClelland — by sneaking his left hand back in after narrowly avoiding both of Hechavarria's quick tag attempts.

Here's a look at the play:

(AP)Despite dealing with soreness in his right shoulder for the past two weeks, Max Scherzer was all set to start and throw around five innings in the Detroit Tigers season finale on Wednesday in Kansas City as a tune-up for a potential postseason start next week.  Those plans have now changed, however, but not because Scherzer suffered a setback with the shoulder.

No. Scherzer actually suffered an entirely new injury on Monday night, and it happened in the midst of Detroit's postgame celebration of its American Central division championship when he twisted his ankle after one of his teammates stepped on him while jumping into the pile.

Yes, it's one of those injuries. And for those who didn't immediately believe the news, as well as the ones questioned when it actually happened, Jim Leyland offered the following: "Somebody jumping on the pile stepped on his ankle. This is legit. This is exactly how it happened."

I believe you, Jim, because every time I see these celebrations and dogpiles with large athletes jumping on top of each other, I expect to hear someone injured something somehow. And even though it rarely happens, I'm always relieved when I don't see someone getting up slowly, or don't hear an injury reported the next day, because it just seems inevitable.

(AP)If you're already making preparations for your 2013 fantasy baseball draft, go ahead and give Seattle Mariners hitters like Jesus Montero and Dustin Ackley a nice little bump up your rankings while downgrading pitchers Jason Vargas and Blake Beavan.

Seriously. I'm not kidding.

Those adjustments are completely necessary because the team announced on Tuesday afternoon that Safeco Field — one of baseball's most pitcher-friendly ballparks since its opening in July of 1999 — will be undergoing some alterations this winter, and those alterations revolve around moving the fences in — in some areas drastically — to help even the playing field among hitters and pitchers.

From Greg Johns at MLB.com:

The fence will be moved in from four to 17 feet at different points in left field and four feet from straight center field to the right-center gap. Additionally, the 16-foot-high hand-operated scoreboard down the left-field line will be moved back and no longer be part of the fence, so the outfield wall will be eight-feet high all the way around the park.

Distances directly down the lines will remain the same, so the changes primarily affect the power alleys in left-center and right-center.

"Our goal was to create an environment that is fair for both hitters and pitchers," general manager Jack Zduriencik said in a statement. "Considering the current field dimensions, as well as the climate in and around Safeco Field, we feel this will be accomplished with this new layout."

(Getty Images)The Juice is back for its fifth season of fun! Stop by each weekday (and now on weekends) for an ample serving of news from the action, plus great photos, stats and video highlights.

Resilient A's: The 2012 Oakland Athletics certainly don't consider a 4-1 eighth inning deficit to be insurmountable. In fact, watching them storm back to defeat the Mariners 7-4 in 10 innings on Saturday afternoon made it seem like they were testing their own resilience more than anything else. The rally began in the eighth inning when Brandon Moss doubled home one to make it 4-2. In the ninth, Josh Donaldson tied the game up with a two-run homer off closer Tom Wilhelmson. And then in the 10th, Moss struck again, punctuating his big five RBI game with a three-run walk-off homer that sent the Coliseum into an absolute frenzy.

Back to even: With four games left to play, the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees again sport identical records at 91-67. The Yankees entered the day up one and took their turn first, dropping a 3-2 decision to the Blue Jays thanks to Rajai Davis' three hits and Adeiny Hechavarria's tie-breaking double in the sixth. Hours later, the Orioles improved to 28-9 in one-run games with their thrilling 4-3 victory over the Red Sox. Rookie Manny Machaco delivered the difference-maker there with his solo home run in the seventh.

Triple crown update: Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera moved back into triple crowd position — he already leads in batting average and RBIs — with his 43rd home run, which ties him with Josh Hamilton for the American League lead. The eighth inning three-run shot also helped Detroit secure a 6-4 win over the Twins, pushing their advantage in the Central to two games, and it helped Justin Verlander reach at least 17 wins for the fourth straight season.

(Getty)For the second year in a row, Ryan Howard's season will end on what would have to be termed a fluky, bordering on bizarre lower body injury.

Of course everybody remembers the torn left Achilles tendon the Philadelphia Phillies slugger suffered while leaving the batter's box on the final play of their disappointing first round loss to the St. Louis Cardinals last October. That led to a long offseason recovery that ended up extending deep into the 2012 regular season after Howard's incision wound developed an infection that required a second procedure to clean it on Feb. 27.

Not surprisingly, Howard suffered career lows across the board after finally returning on July 6, finishing the season with a .219 batting average, 14 homers and 56 RBIs, while appearing in only 77 games.

As for this year's season-ending injury though. Well, I'll let Todd Zolecki of MLB.com explain it:

Ryan Howard broke a toe when he dropped that led pipe he swings in the on deck circle on his foot. Manuel said he won't play again this year

— Todd Zolecki (@ToddZolecki) September 29, 2012