Womack wonderful for Diamondbacks

Tony Womack (grounded), the Diamondbacks' hero

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Tony Womack went from villain to hero for the St Louis Cardinals.

His bloop single in the bottom of the ninth gave the Arizona Diamondbacks a 2-1 win over the Cardinals in the deciding game of their play-off series.

Womack's flare to left scored pinch-runner Danny Bautista from second base gave the Diamondbacks victory overall by three games to two.

And it sends them into the National League Championship Series against the Atlanta Braves.

Victory went to Curt Schilling, who won a tense pitchers' duel against Cardinals ace Matt Morris.

Orlando Hernandez tips his hat to the crowd

With the score 1-1 in the ninth, lefthander Womack appeared to have ruined his team's chance to end the game.

He failed to get his bat on the ball on a suicide squeeze play that had pinch-runner Midre Cummings sprinting towards the plate from third base.

Cummings was an easy out as the breaking ball delivered by left-handed reliever Steve Kline went past Womack's bat.

But on the play, Greg Colbrunn advanced from first to second base.

Bautista was then sent out to run for Colbrunn and he dashed home safely when Womack reversed his fortunes by slapping Kline's 2-2 pitch safely into left field.

Gritty pitching performance

The New York Yankees kept alive their drive towards a fourth successive World Series crown.

They beat Oakland Athletics 9-2 to level the best-of-five game American League divisional series at 2-2.

The Yankees were led by clean-up hitter Bernie Williams.

He stroked three hits and drove in five runs to support a gritty pitching performance by Orlando 'El Duque' Hernandez, who gave up two runs, scattering eight hits in 5 2/3 innings.

Athletics starter Cory Lidle took the loss, tagged for six runs, four earned, in 3 1/3 innings of work.

Lashed ground single

The Seattle Mariners, baseball's best team during the regular season, stayed alive in the postseason after a 6-2 win over the Cleveland Indians forced a decisive game five in their play-off series.

Trailing 1-0 going into the seventh inning, the Mariners erupted for three runs in the seventh, one in the eighth and two more in the ninth.

Japan's Ichiro Suzuki lashed a ground single to right to score the go-ahead run in the seventh.

And designated hitter extraordinaire Edgar Martinez belted a towering, two-run homer in the ninth to clinch the victory.

Sunday's results:
Arizona 2-1 St. Louis
New York 9-2 Oakland
Seattle 6-2 Cleveland