How much would you pay for a caught ball?The Sox paid 100 million for a dropped one

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BALTIMORE -- Carl Crawford's Wednesday night could not have been laden with more irony, disappointment or circularity.

It was a ball that just eluded the glove of a sliding Crawford in the ninth inning that plated the winning run for the Orioles, the team whose 4-3 victory was part one of two outcomes that eliminated the Red Sox from reaching the postseason.

With the game tied at 3 and the winning run on second base, Robert Andino hit a liner to left off Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon that Crawford charged. He went into a feet-first slide, keeping his glove low to the ground on the glove-side of his body, his right, but he couldn't snag it.

It was eerily similar to a play from two days earlier that Crawford also could not make, in a 6-3 loss to the O's.

"It was low, so I knew that I had to just try to slide," Crawford said of Wednesday's attempt. "I couldn't dive. I had to try to get up under it, and I wasn't able to. I had to try to make a sliding catch. I couldn't come up with it, though."

The ball stopped dead next to Crawford's glove. He sprung to his feet and fired home, but the throw was well off the mark -- he might not have had a chance to catch Nolan Reimold at the plate anyway -- and the Red Sox walked off in shock.