Frayed Knot

See! If we had let Morabito swing away he would have driven a single up the middle with two runners on in each of his last two ABs. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Error was later reversed. And now the error in judgement in pitch location to Alvarez continues.

Sometimes other voices isn't such a great idea. I mean it's fine that The Doors wanted to carry on following Morrison's death but did anyone really want to hear them without Jim as the front man?

And just for kicks I looked up the top 24 leaders in All-Time Walks to see how Soto might compare to them. The only players with a higher BB-rate than Soto are Ted Williams [4th overall but tops in pct at 20.64% !!!] and Barry Bonds [20.29%] The remainder of the top ten in Rate are: Babe Ruth, Eddie Yost!!! (the original 'Walking Man'), Mantle, Thome, Frank Thomas (Big Hurt), Joe Morgan, Rickey Henderson, and Harmon Killebrew. 23 of the 24 have walk rates above 10% with only Pete Rose (9.86%) dipping below 1-in-10 but making up for it in volume. No one on the active list is all that close to cracking the top 24 in walk totals: Carlos Santana, Bryce Harper, and Andrew McCutcheon (top three active players) are currently in 40th, 61st, and 69th place on the all time list.

It doesn't have to be an either/or situation.

On the first part I'm merely saying that one 'solution' to the issue of rewarding better teams is to seed strictly by record. I wasn't suggesting that You were suggesting this as a fix but I do hear it at times (mostly in football but for MLB as well). And while no one directly says, 'Hey, let's get rid of divisions', but if winning a division has no reward to it -- as things currently stand no AL West team would even qualify for post-season under a 'strictly by record' scenario -- then why even have divisions. On the second part: the reason I cited IL play as a factor is because when every team's schedule is 30% against clubs playing for a different prize then the type of imbalance we see can get exaggerated. So this season has not only has an imbalance within the AL (best three teams all in the East) but also an NL vs AL imbalance* and the combination of those two factors make the possibility of barely .500 (or even sub-.500) division winners more likely. So while, yes, each AL division is now playing NL clubs at an (almost) equal rate as each other division, the AL is consistently and collectively getting beat by NL clubs which gives us the opposite effect of the 'Rising tide lifts all boats' scenario. My only problem with the 'middle ground' of reseeding once the first round is over is that you've got to justify changing seeds mid-stream. In this year's case HOU/TEX would go from being the 3rd seed in round one to the 6th after/if they advance as they're likely to finish with a worse record than all three WC teams. And if we want to give this year's West winner a 6th seed from the git go then we're back to not rewarding division winners. So while it's not always perfect, I'm comfortable sticking with the idea that if you want the best slots then win your division, and if you don't win your division then you have to deal with the potentially rockier road ahead. * NL has won nearly 54% of IL games this year. That gap isn't as high as it was earlier in the season but it's still a factor.

Well, he reached back for the plate after the slide so he did touch. Also, the ump called him safe on the original slide so he was safe either way.

Rays beat the Yanx 6 - 1 tonight (Yanx won an afternoon half of the split DH) but one win was all Tampa needed to clinch the AL East title.

Nice comeback by Francisco there because, no Gary, unfortunately that was NOT a surprising challenge by Alvarez. It was a typical one (wrong call, wrong spot, wrong situation).

There are two distance markers on the LF wall only a few feet apart. It's apparently 329 on the LF line but just a few feet over it's marked at 334. An odd choice to be sure.

Great negotiating strategy if true. I'm surprised as well, but certainly OK with it.

... avi

I still want to see division winners rewarded for their regular season. If folks want to seed playoffs strictly by regular season record then just blow up the divisions and stick them all into one 15-team league and seed them accordingly. A middle course, I suppose, would be re-seeding after the WC round: Tampa plays the worst record still alive while the other Bye team (whoever wins the TEX/HOU/CHW/CLE dogpile) is matched against the better WC round survivor. That distinction could be meaningful in some years or marginal at best in others. But as long as the set-up involves a schedule with massive inter-league play (approx 30% of each team's sked) and small divisions which in turn accounts for less than 40% of games within your division, then having this kind of 'imbalance' where one or more non-winning Wild Card teams end up with better records than one or more division winner are not going to be rare occurrences. iow, I blame the in-season set-up more than the playoff shuffle. What I suspect MLB will do is ride with the current format until whatever expansion/restructuring comes down the pike at the end of Manfred's term (2029?). Just keep in mind that if they opt for an eight division/four team set-up then your complaint isn't going to be solved but likely made much worse. Of course by then 24 of the 32 teams will qualify for the playoffs so it'll hardly matter. The playoffs will last two months culminating in the World Series to be held each year in Hiram Bithorn Stadium and wrap up just in time for Thanksgiving day weekend.

Alex Bregman, who's been having a terrific August + September after a very slow start to 2026, suffered facial fractures after taking a foul ball in the face while in the on-deck circle. He's posted a post-injury mug shot of himself and it ain't pretty. But he's got eight days for it to heal (assuming the Cubs don't blow their playoff slot) so we'll see how things go.

And why 2024 doesn't crack the top ten.

Not going to win often when you're on the wrong end of nine walks issued vs zero. And I think at least four of the nine led off innings and most of the nine eventually scored. On a different note, Gary quoted a stat in Saturday's game about how the Mets were high up on the list both in scoring double-digit runs and in giving them up in double-digits. Today wasn't one of those obviously but it kind of confirms what seems to be the case here, that when it rains in pours and that's true in both directions.

Braves win today, with he help of a HR plus 3 RBIs by Mike Yastrzemski, and, with it, clinch the NL East. They'll almost certainly be the 3rd best division winner meaning no early BYE round for them. Instead they'll get the worst WC team in the best-of-three first round series with all games in Atlanta. The last time a title was clinched with clutch September hitting by someone named Yastrzemski Lyndon Johnson was still in the White House. With the Cubs, Phils, and Padres all winning today, it's looking like those will be the three WC teams so the worst of them plays the Braves while the other two play each other. The DBacks are winning vs the Yanx right now but, at best, they'll go into the final week four full games behind the Phils and five each in back of SDP and CHC. The Rays won this afternoon so if the Yanx lose (down 8 - 4 in the 8th) that'll put TBR six up with seven to play. Now four of those seven are head-to-head [at NYY Tuesday (x2), Wed, Thu] so the Yanx essentially have to run the table while the Rays do the opposite. Meanwhile BOTH HOU & TEX lost on Sunday leaving TEX with a one game lead. TEX has NYM x3 than @ MIN x3. HOU finishes up @ SEA and @ ATH (3x each) CLE (+1 in the Central when the day started) won today while the ChiSox are just in the 3rd inning of a lengthy rain delayed tilt vs DET. Wins by both would make it more likely the AK Central loser would snag the 3rd WC slot over the non-winner in the West although it's still possible that Toronto gets hot and snags the 3rd WC slot making it four AL East teams in the tourney.

This is now an official(ly bad) game.

The DBacks using their final home series of the season to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their lone WS win. Nice coincidence.that tonight's opponent happens to be none other than ... the Yanx! If GMSIII were still alive he'd be denouncing the league for intentionally embarrassing him and the schedule makers for being 'anti-Yanqui'.

Just been smackin' the shit out of the ball all inning!!

Line of the game. Gary: The Mets have been out of [ABS] challenges since June.

That partially makes up for his two (additional) atrocious ABS challenges today.

Is it true that his first minor league stop was for Stepford?

Playoff worthy series this weekend (for at least one of the teams involved): - Cubs @ Reds - A's @ Guardians - Red Sox @ Tampa - Tigers @ White Sox - Blue Jays @ Texas - Braves @ Astros - Yanx @ DBacks - Marlins @ Padres - Giants @ Dodgers

Turns out this was less than a minor deal because BACK to the IL goes da Judge. This effectively ends his regular season and, with the Yanx now extremely unlikely catch and pass the Rays for a first round Bye*, this puts him in jeopardy of missing the opening round of playoff games which start just 11 days from now.. * Yanx currently a full five games back with ten to play. Now four of those ten are against the Rays but it would essentially take a sweep (plus help) because, while three of four is nice, that wouldn't be enough to give NYY the season series edge meaning they are effectively six games out at this point. So, at minimum, they need to sweep AND play at least one game better than TBR over those five non-H-2-H games. And doing it without Judge just makes it that much harder.