The Catastrophic Moment

...Another term coined by the great Mike Rhyner. It is the moment in a sports season when a team is seen for what it is. Their fate is sealed in your mind. Last night, without a doubt, it occured to the Texas Rangers.
There will probably be some debate. Even in my own mind, I'm not completely sure. The most obvious would be when this guy unfurled his majestic swing with the bases loaded in the top of the 11th. Thus wasting a fine pitching performance of John Wasdin, who went 8 and only gave up one run. Well, that was the moment I knew I was right in claiming the catastrophic moment. The play where that moment actually occured came some 5 pitches earlier. When that dang Darin Erstad inside-outed a Kam Loe fastball to left and Kevin Mench was not able to come up with it, thus putting runners at second and third with no outs. I'm not saying Mench should have got there, or didn't try hard enough, but I still don't know how a left-handed batter gets jammed but still is able to get it over the left-fielder's head. And when it landed, it looked like it was it almost hit Mench in the head to get to that spot. I knew it then. By the looks on their faces, I think Mench and Young and Buck knew it, too. "These guys are better than us, and we're never gonna catch'um." So, there you go. The Rangers are D-U-N...done, done, done.
This is what it looks like when you just clinched the division in June with one swing of the bat...