The teams with the biggest payrolls in the Major Leagues are on the sidelines, leaving four evenly matched clubs to battle it out out in the League Championship Series.

The Orioles announced Saturday that president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail has elected not to return to the club for the 2012 season, confirming the long-rumored speculation that he wouldn't accept an extension.

The Phillies and their season-long fixation of playing in the 2011 World Series went up in flames at Citizens Bank Park on Friday night. It may be Spring Training before they're able to walk away from the ruins of this disaster. If ever.

The Cardinals dispensed the Phillies in five games in their National League Division Series not because of any one player or any one unit. They did it with everything going right at one time or another.

Cardinals right-hander Chris Carpenter, who improved to 6-2 with a 2.94 ERA in 11 postseason starts, allowed three hits and struck out three. He got 16 ground-ball outs, with his defense picking him up at nearly every turn.

Forget the friendly fraternization that pervades the game, because the Brewers and Cardinals are two teams who duel for a division (and now compete for a pennant) and do so with completely conflicting complexions.

The appetizing pitching battle between close friends and fierce competitors in Friday's Game 5 of the National League Division Series certainly lived up to expectations.

Like the story was written by the baseball Gods, edited by the St. Louis Mayor and told by Joe Buck — the fairytale 2011 season of the Cardinals will at least have one more chapter. And it's only fitting that'd it be the division-rival Brewers who get the next crack.

The Cardinals secured their first postseason series win since the 2006 World Series with a sensational 1-0 victory over the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on Friday night. Chris Carpenter blanked the Phillies on three hits in a thrilling matchup against Roy Halladay, who gave up a first-inning run.

Entering the upcoming American and National League Championship Series, we are satiated from a heaping helping of first-round goodness while primed and pumped for the second serving in America's favorite three-course meal.

In one swing of the bat, the Phillies endured a pair of losses Friday night, as slugger Ryan Howard suffered an injury to his left Achilles tendon. He will undergo an MRI on Saturday to determine the severity of the injury.

The national broadcast schedules have been released for the American League and National League Championship Series, which are set to begin with the ALCS on Saturday night in Arlington, Texas.

Welcome back to the Suds Series. Twenty-nine years after the Brewers and Cardinals last met in the postseason, they will meet again.

For most of the summer, the Cardinals had to squint to see the names Hudson, Hanson and Jurrjens on the backs of the players sprinting toward the postseason. The Braves were too far ahead for anyone with an allegiance to St. Louis baseball to consider a Wild Card berth for the boys. Then the resolute, resilient and resourceful Cardinals, the primary baseball residents in the Show Me State, showed 'em.

The highly-anticipated pitchers' duel between Chris Carpenter and Roy Halladay in Game 5 of the NLDS not only met expectations, but even set a bit of history.

D-backs center fielder Chris Young made a spectacular over-the-shoulder catch in front of the warning track to rob the Brewers' Jerry Hairston Jr. of a go-ahead extra-base hit with two runners on base in the sixth inning of the deciding Game 5 of the National League Division Series on Friday.

Nyjer Morgan sent a fastball from closer J.J. Putz bouncing into center field for the decisive blow in Milwaukee's 3-2, 10-inning victory over the D-backs in Game 5 of the National League Division Series.