There really is a reason they play the games. Several teams have once again demonstrated the reason, some that were widely expected to be playing games this week but won’t be, some that were not expected to be playing but will be.

Those assessments were made before the season began. Others, involving different teams, developed during the season, and they have been affected, too, by the necessity to play all 162.

If I had to pick one team that most belied its status in each of the first two categories, I would designate the Detroit Tigers and the Tampa Bay Rays. The Tigers, after adding Miguel Cabrera, Edgar Renteria and Dontrelle Willis last winter, were all but conceded a spot in the World Series. The Rays, after 10 dismal seasons, were considered improved but were relegated to the scrap heap nevertheless.

The Tigers and the Rays, interestingly, are closing their season together, playing a series in Detroit, where the Tigers had been expected to tune up for October and the Rays making plans to go home for the winter. The Tigers, however, began the weekend series in last place in the American League Central. The Rays were on the verge of becoming A.L. East champions.

If the teams were in the same division, the Rays would have been 23 ½ games ahead of the Tigers. Last season the Tigers were 22 games better than the Rays, making for a 45 ½-game swing this season.

“It’s been a bad year for us; we have not played well,” Dave Dombrowski, the Tigers’ general manager and chief executive, said.

What went wrong? Dombrowski mentioned the starting pitching, the relief pitching, the offense, the defense. In other words, it was a team effort.

“It’s disappointing because we thought we had a good team and would be playing in October,” Dombrowski said when asked for his personal reaction to the team’s season. “I’m sure it’s been disappointing for all of us.”

The Tigers are not the only team that has disappointed itself and its officials. The Yankees surely expected to be playing post-season games, foolishly believing they could get to October on the young arms of Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain.

Brian Cashman made those decisions, eschewing a trade for Johan Santana, but will nevertheless survive as the Yankees’ general manager.

Meanwhile, the Yankees are not in the playoffs for the first time since 1993, their streak of 13 consecutive appearances a matter of history. That the Red Sox are in the playoffs with a chance to win their third World Series in five years only deepens the Yankees’ disappointment.

The Yankees never challenged for a playoff spot in the last two months of the season. At the end of July they were four and a half games behind the Rays and a game and a half behind Boston. But their 13-15 effort in August dropped them a season-high 12 ½ games from the Rays and 7 back of the Red Sox.

Never in first place alone – they were tied for first after the opener and on only one other day in April – the Yankees spent 15 days in last place and eight days in fourth place in September.

The Arizona Diamondbacks were in first or tied for first in the National League West for 153 consecutive days in the first 159 days of the season. They fell out of first Sept. 6 and proceeded to die. They lost nine games to the Dodgers in the standings in 15 days, plummeting from four and a half games ahead to four and a half behind.

Pivotal in that period, running from Aug. 30 through Sept. 13, were losses by the Diamondbacks’ top two starters, Brandon Webb and Dan Haren, on successive days in two separate series with the Dodgers.

“It was a combination of Brandon Webb and Dan Haren cooling off over a few starts each and the offense, which seemed to slow down to a crawl during the same period,” said Jeff Moorad, the managing partner, explaining the Diamondbacks’ decline. 

Credit Colletti for Division Title

Joe Torre did an admirable job in his new job this season, winning his 11^th division title in 13 years and a post-season spot for the 13^th successive season. Before his fans begin touting him as manager of the year, though, consider where he might have been without Ned Colletti.

If any member of the Dodgers deserves an award, it’s Colletti, the general manager, who acquired Manny Ramirez at the trading deadline July 31. Without Ramirez, the Dodgers would be one of 22 teams going home after Sunday’s games.

Entering the final weekend, Ramirez was hitting .393, had socked 17 home runs in 183 at-bats (1 every 10.8 times at bat) and had driven in 53 runs in 51 games.

Colletti stopped short of saying that Ramirez had carried the team the last two months, but he said, “He certainly altered the team in a positive way the last two months more than anyone else. He altered the club drastically in a great way.”

Several days before the deadline, Colletti obtained third baseman Casey Blake from Cleveland to help stabilize an injury-decimated infield. Then on July 31 Theo Epstein, the Boston general manager, called, asking if the Dodgers would be interested in Ramirez. Epstein didn’t tell Colletti, but the Red Sox had suffered Ramirez long enough and felt a desperate need to get rid of him.

“I wanted to make sure he was serious about moving Manny,” Colletti said. “We worked on it for about four hours and made the deal. He galvanized our club a little and produced. He made other players relax and play better.

Although there were questions about Ramirez, Colletti satisfied himself that Manny would be a good fit for the Dodgers. He recalled a conversation he had two years ago with Bill Mueller, a third baseman he knew from their time with the Cubs, who later played for the Red Sox.

“He told me this guy was his best teammate,” Colletti related, adding, “He has an idiosyncrasy or two, but he’s a player. He has a lot of pride and passion for the game. He wanted to win.”

Ramirez could have won in Boston, but he would not have been able to become a free agent after the season because the Red Sox would most likely have exercised his contract option. So he concocted a scheme to get himself traded. The Dodgers haven’t had to worry about a scheming Ramirez because he is playing for a big free agent contract.

Colletti didn’t want to take credit for what he deserves credit for but instead talked about Torre. “The manager did great,” he said, citing Torre’s “coolness, his evenness” and the way he dealt with the players. “He had more one on one meetings with players in a fatherly way, a brotherly way, a managerly way.”

And the way Ramirez goes so go Torre and the Dodgers.

A Guidry Pitch-alike 30 Years Later

Since Ron Guidry won 25 games for the Yankees in 1978, only one pitcher, Bob Welch with 27 in 1990, has won more. For a while this season, it appeared that Cliff Lee of Cleveland could exceed 25 or at least reach it. But Lee faltered in his last two starts and has a 22-3 record with one start left on the last day of the season.

Lee’s season, though, has been similar to Guidry’s but not as sparkling. Guidry won 13 before losing, won two more and lost, then won seven before incurring loss No. 3. The left-hander won his last three starts, including the playoff game against the Red Sox. He also picked up a pair of post-season victories, though they don’t count in his record.

Lee, also left-handed, won his first six decisions, lost, won five more games, lost, then won 11 straight before suffering his third loss.   

Guidry said Lee reminded of himself. “I’m pulling for him,” Guidry said, then added, “He’s kind of doing what I did. He’s winning the games that he has to. He has a little luck. When he has a bad game, the team scores for him.”

No More 20-win Questions

If you’re reading this after the final day of the regular season, you know if Mike Mussina became a 20-gane winner for the first time in his 17-year-career. He certainly hoped he did.

Yes, Mussina said two days before going for No. 19 in Toronto, he was tired of hearing and being asked about never having won 20. Would winning 20 be significant for him at this stage of his career?

“I don’t think it matters,” he said. “Everybody who gets a chance to do it would like to do it. I’ve had a couple runs at it and it didn’t work out. If I get another run at it we’ll see.”

Mussina beat the Blue Jays for No. 19, leaving Boston on the final day of the regular season for his possible 20th. Is it fair, I asked him, for people to question his career because he had never won 20?

“I think people are going to question everybody’s career,” he said. “That’s the nature of the business. They’ll look at what you’ve done or who I’ve done it with or against, whichever, whatever. It’s just part of it. I haven’t won any individual awards, I haven’t been on a world champ, I’ve never won 20. Somehow with all that, I’ve won as many games as Jim Palmer, I’m 100 plus games over .500 and I’m in the top 20 of all-time in strikeouts so somewhere in there I did okay.”

Mussina, boosted by his best season in a long time, entered his last start with a 269-153 career record. It would take another season or two pitching as well as he did this season for the right-hander, who will turn 40 in December, to reach 300. Would the number of victories affect his decision whether to continue playing?

“I don’t think it will,” he said. “I think how I feel mentally, how I feel physically, what opportunities come up will. We’ll have to see. I don’t know where I’m going to get a chance to play, who I might play with. There are a lot of factors that go into it.”

Before Mussina signed a six-year contract with the Yankees as a free agent in 2000, he narrowed his options to the northeast because he lives in Pennsylvania.

“That doesn’t change,” he said of his geographical preference. “I’m not going to end up 2,500 miles away just to play another year or two. That’s not part of it for me.”

And money?

“Money doesn’t play anything,” he said. “I won’t play for nothing, but I’ve made a lot of money. It’s not a huge factor.”