Put away the bats and grab your golf clubs

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BALTIMORE -- The Red Sox had their bags packed for either a one-game playoff at Tropicana Field, or even better, a trip to Texas to start the American League Division Series. But by the end of one final unraveling, they had nowhere to go but home.

This, after the worst September collapse in baseball history.

A surreal month ended in jarring fashion, the Red Sox suffering a walk-off 4-3 loss to the last-place Baltimore Orioles with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

"We should have won that game," said slugger David Ortiz, "but it seemed like everything was going in the wrong direction. So many things happened that you think about -- you're very disappointed."

One strike away from victory, ace closer Jonathan Papelbon couldn't finish off the Orioles, who beat the Red Sox five times in seven games over the final two weeks. Nolan Reimold drilled a ground-rule RBI double to tie the game, and Robert Andino followed with the crushing capper, a line-drive single that Carl Crawford trapped, and then dropped.

"You get in that situation, you hope things go your way. It's a game of inches," Papelbon said.

And that was how Boston's 7-20 September ended, and shortly thereafter, the season.