Weekly MLB Report 10/23: World Series Edition

I slip away to Texas for a week and this is what happens? The best possible outcome for a World Series matchup? Friends of the Comic Book Clique, I'm back, you're back, it's the MLB Weekly Report!

Admittedly, I’ve got a bit of vacation brain and didn’t do any Immaculate Grids and to be honest with the World Series upon us, I do want to jump right in but I cannot skip over either Championship Series.

I was away from my home but this doesn't mean I missed a beat of the ALCS and NLCS. Although, Brewers vs. Dodgers was as “blink and you'll miss it” as a series can be. I'm still reeling from the sweep of the Dodgers, in a good way. I knew the Brewers were damn good but I didn't expect Goliath to go down so easy. If I had predicted the NLCS, I'd have gone with the Dodgers in seven. I'd delightfully be eating all of my words.

Milwaukee Brewers posing for their team photo after sweeping the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

The Brewers were and are the better team. They trounced the two times reigning champions in every fashion. Timely hitting from NLCS MVP, Jake Bauers, huge contributions from William Contreras with table setters David Hamilton and Brice Turang scoring 11 of the Brewers 21 runs in the series. It seemed that every time the Dodgers scored, the Brewers weren’t too far behind with a response. Hard to believe it but the Dodgers did have a lead in every game of the series but that response from the Brewers was swift and often. Even in Game 4, when Shohei Ohtani launched a three run homerun, with gusto (link), to put a four spot on the board in the second inning, by the end of the sixth, the Brew Crew had rallied to take the lead and would not relinquish it. 

The biggest X factor in this series, maybe even the entire postseason, might be the Brewers bullpen. Just like in the NLDS, the bullpen won every game. Remove Dustin May from the equation, and the numbers are astounding: 17 ⅔ innings, 7 hits, 2 earned runs and 20 strikeouts. Basically, they pitched two complete games and gave up one run in each and struck out ten. If a starter did this in the playoffs, it would be the stuff of legends. The contingency of Aaron Ashby, Jojo Romero, DL Hall, Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill has been nothing short of dominant and leaves me wondering, do the likes of Jacob Misiorowski, Logan Henderson and Robert Gasser even need to pitch into the fifth? With four more wins needed to complete the goal and win the World Series, the answer is yes. But with a bullpen that is this “lights out”, manager Pat Murphy may have to consider taxing this core.

What does this, quite frankly, embarrassing sweep mean for the evil empire, Los Angeles Dodgers? I’ll go in depth on this in the offseason, but to put it briefly, they looked old, beaten and outmatched. The bats of Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, Mookie Betts and Teoscar Hernandez disappeared and that cannot happen. Ohtani provided more production in one swing than any other player did the entire series. The hardware-laden rotation pitched to a 6.50 ERA and patchwork bullpen didn’t do much better. For fans of the other 29 teams in the league, it feels like justice has been served and that the team with all of the answers now has many questions going into the offseason.

Tampa Bay Rays celebrating their ALCS win at home. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)

Over in the American League, I didn't expect such resilience out of the 84 win team from Cleveland, that had to win three straight against the Chicago White Sox to even get to the ALCS. Even with believing that Cleveland underperformed in the regular season, dealing with an injury-riddled season for Jose Ramirez, I had the Rays taking the Guardians down in five. It happened in six, but those first three games of the ALCS were close and there’s a universe where Cleveland goes up 3-0.

Instead, the Rays were down 2-1 in the series before proving they are the cream of the crop in the AL the rest of the way. The three-headed dragon of Nick Martinez, Drew Rasmussen and, ALCS MVP, Freddy Peralta, gave up a combined three runs in games 4, 5 and 6. The offense popped off for 17 runs, mostly from the usual suspects: Junior Caminero, Jonathan Aranda and Yandy Diaz but also from the seemingly always on base, Richie Palacios and Chandler Simpson. Although not Brewers-esque, the late inning options in Cam Booser and closer, Bryan Baker, did come up big when they needed to. But, like the Brewers, the Rays will come into the World Series with a multiple game winning streak.

For Cleveland, I said they underperformed in the regular season and I’d also argue they overperformed in the postseason. They took advantage of a weak American League and found themselves in the Championship Series above teams like the Yankees and Red Sox, both who had better regular season records. Fueled almost entirely by starters Gavin Williams and, rookie, Parker Messick, it’s clear what this team lacks: offensive firepower. Chase DeLauter and Travis Bazzana provided really solid rookie years, especially the former, and a healthy Jose Ramirez can cover some blind spots but in truth, this team is one bat or two away from being serious.

(Photo by MLB)

Alas, it’s all come down to this. The Milwaukee Brewers vs. the Tampa Bay Rays. Exactly how you drew it up, no? Even if it wasn’t, these are the two best teams in baseball this year and that is exactly what the World Series should be. No less that one of these teams will be winning their first championship - it’s top tier sports drama.

For the Rays, it will be their third time participating in the Fall Classic, coming up short in 2008 to the Philadelphia Phillies and again in the shortened season of 2020 to the Dodgers. I was rooting for them both times, against Mets rivals in the former and baseball’s rivals in the latter. It’s hard to forget what the late 90s, early oughts Devil Rays looked like and it feels like such an achievement to see them in the World Series again, even if they’ve shaken off that stench. I believe they have a better chance this year to win it all this year than any other year previous, even if their opponent is as stingy as it gets.

Out in Milwaukee, it’s been 44 years since the Brewers were in the World Series. So long that they were an American League team at the time. I could depress you with the usual “this was how much X cost the last time the Brewers were in the World Series” but I think the number of years is already enough to depress you. It’s almost rare that the Brewers make it to the NLCS, with this being the fourth year since 1982 that they did. In 2011, they lost to the eventual World Series winner in the St. Louis Cardinals and then lost twice to the Dodgers in 2018 and 2025 before exacting their sweet revenge this year.

It won’t be the first time these two teams meet this year with an extremely early regular season series at the end of March into April where the Brewers took two out of three at home. And while there isn’t much applicable from that series to use here, Game 1 starter for the Rays, Nick Martinez, did pick up the sole win in the series and Brewers offense did manage to get off seven and eight runs in their two wins. The Rays are sporting a slightly different team as they have been without Shane McClanahan since (look up date), who pitched in the second game of that regular season series, and midseason acquisitions of starting catcher Liam Hicks and the aforementioned ALCS MVP Freddy Peralta have them more prepared for the seven game series coming up.

There wasn’t much, if any bad blood in their regular season matchup this season but I’d be lying if I said there was no bad blood:

Abner Uribe is sure to get plenty of innings and thus the Rays chances to get some redemption.

As far as matchups go, these two teams seem fairly split but let’s break it down by offense, starting pitching, bullpen, managers and who has the better clutch performers:

Offense: Advantage Rays

 I’ll preface by saying, most of these categories are close, almost to the point of splitting hairs. The Brewers offense has been really good and I may be about to help make the argument why the Brewers should have the advantage. Jake Bauers continues to find ways to get on base at elite rates, .441 of the time to be exact, and with his NLCS performance, is also being productive with runners on. Jackson Churio slowed down after driving in six runs during the NLDS to just drive in one against the Dodgers but the lights are about to be brighter and I believe he’ll show up. William Contreras leads the team in homeruns for the postseason wuth three, showing up a big moments for both series. If Brice Turang and David Hamilton can continue to get on for that trio of bats behind them, I could see it being advantage Brewers.

However, Tampa has Junior Caminero, who I believe to be the best hitter on either team, especially when he’s on. After being a non-factor in the ALDS against the Yankees, Caminero showed up in the ALCS with energy, four RBIs and a homerun in Game 6 that turned out to be the first dagger in the Guardians. Yandy Diaz has also turned it on after a slow ALDS, matching Caminero’s output with four RBIs plus an additional homerun, coming the inning after Caminero’s, providing the second and final dagger. Jonathan Aranda has been pretty consistent throughout the playoffs, supplying the Rays with the most RBIs this postseason and Chandler Simpson has been the sparkplug he’s proven to be all season, keeping opposing pitchers and defenses on their toes when he’s at the plate.

Truly, I could go back and forth on who has the advantage here, but so long as Caminero, Diaz and Aranda are being productive, this is a slight edge to Tampa.

Starting Pitching: Advantage Rays

Despite the obvious talent the Brewers are sporting, outside of Robert Gasser, the other two studs in the rotation haven’t been without their blemishes. Jacob Misiorowski hasn’t made it out of the fifth inning in either of his postseason starts and Logan Henderson had a good showing in the NLDS against the Padres, also could not get out of the fifth inning in his NLCS start.

It couldn’t be more different on the Rays side. Drew Rasmussen and Freddy Peralta are carving out a piece of lore this October. For the former, in 21 innings, he’s given up 3 runs and struck out 23. Peralta has been almost as good, only allowing two runs over 16 2/3 innings. I don’t want to sound like the old man yelling at clouds here but this is how great starting pitching used to look like in the postseason.

The Rays will be throwing Nick Martinez out for Game 1 of the World Series, who had a much better ALCS start than ALDS, as the unshakable veteran they’ll need to anchor the beginning of this series. Combatting him will be The Miz, who surprisingly isn’t the youngest game 1 starter in the World Series, despite looking the part. The talent is obviously there but the lights may just be too bright for me to pick Misiorowski over Martinez.

In game 2, the Rays will throw out 1A Drew Rasmussen against Logan Henderson and right now, I don’t think I can pick any pitcher over Rasmussen.

Bullpen: Advantage Brewers

A definitive advantage the Brewers have over the Rays; That bullpen. The Rays don’t even have a bad bullpen. Cam Booser and Bryan Baker haven’t given up a run in their collective 11 and 2/3 innings this postseason. It’s the options behind them, Kevin Kelly, Ian Seymour and God forbid Kevin Cash give the ball to Tyler Wells and/or Cole Sulser. Kelly and Seymour have been fine, a couple of mistakes have kept them from being as shutdown as Booser and Baker have been but, it’s the World Series. Every mistake is a win or lose situation.

That’s why the Brewers have the advantage here. They’re not just two deep, they go five deep, often bailing out their starters. I gave you the stats earlier, so I won’t bore you with them again but, on top of chasing that elusive championship, a bit of history is also in play. This bullpen has won every game for the Brewers this postseason and should this trend continue and they reach the promised land, they’d be the first to ever accomplish that feat.

Managers: Advantage Brewers

This is another close one. Kevin Cash is in his 12th season managing the Tampa Bay Rays, with Manager of the Year honors twice and now, his second World Series with this organization, he’s far and away the best manager the Rays have had in their short history. He manages a tight game, even tighter when the calendar strikes October. He doesn’t always ride with his starter, no matter how dominant they’re pitching – just ask Blake Snell (link). The eyes of the baseball world will all be looking to see if that trend continues with what I think is the Rays clearest advantage.

Pat Murphy, not just on the basis of being the most likeable manager in baseball, may have the advantage here just because he’s never managed in a World Series before. He hasn't made the same mistakes in the limelight that a Kevin Cash has, nothing to dissect. So far, he's done a good job in knowing when to pull his starters and bring in that S-tier bullpen. My only concern is seeing how far he'll go with this bullpen and how much he'll ask of them in these games that matter the most. And really, that is it. He manages the lineup well, knowing when to even bench his captain, to the point that it's a not a talking point. For both teams, this will come down to the pitching and the puzzle they have to put together to make The Commissioner's Trophy picture appear. 

The X Factors: Even

Ok, so having five categories builds the drama and allows me to make this as even as possible! Truth is, I do believe it's that even.

The Brewers have the pieces to make this series very uncomfortable for the Rays. Even if their starters just go five innings, if they can manage to mitigate the Rays offense before passing the baton to the unhittable bullpen, this could be a faster series than any baseball fan would want or hope. If Chourio bounces back to his NLDS form and Bauers keeps his NLCS form, the melding of that could spell disaster for the Rays as well. The Brewers are pesky, they don't rely on home run threats, really neither team does but the Brewers build their offense on contact and speed and then boom, the big hit arrives.

The Rays also want some ALCS forms to stay, particularly for Caminero and Diaz and that their stellar starting pitching continues through the World Series. The longer the series goes, the more it benefits the Rays. If the rotation goes two times through, as they did in the ALCS, I don’t see the Brewers outlasting the Rays.

Final Prediction: Rays in seven 

Barring unforeseen performances from unlikely heroes, a staple of the World Series, I do think the Rays will be getting past the Brewers, in seven. If the Brewers starting pitching can match what the Rays will do, it makes the outcome more interesting and may lead to the Brewers in seven. It’s that close.

Your How can you not be romantic about Baseball moment comes from Milwaukee. I love watching fans react to their team making it to the World Series, especially if it’s been a while or, in this fan’s case, the first time in his life:

Todd Bowles Isn't the Sickness in Tampa Bay, Rather the Symptom of Jason Licht

Bucs head coach Todd Bowles and general manager Jason Licht. (Photo credit: Cliff Welch)

The tonal whiplash in the Tampa-St. Pete area from day to day today is a story of two separate teams: a baseball team inching closer and closer to the World Series by sweeping the New York Yankees in the Bronx to book a ticket to the ALCS, and a football team who flies into Arlington to play the Cowboys on Thursday Night Football as the worst team in the NFL.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have not relieved a head coach of their duties midseason since the termination of Ray Perkins in 1990, and nearly four decades later, as the seat heats up for a Todd Bowles team that’s 0-4, it’s not just time to discuss a coaching change, but a regime change. 

The Bucs have never fired a General Manager during a season, and the closest they ever have gotten was, in fact, current GM Jason Licht’s predecessor, Mark Dominik the morning after the NFL season ended alongside head coach Greg Schiano back in 2013.

But here we are, well over a decade into Jason Licht’s tenure as general manager, and one can argue it’s a successful tenure overall as the Bucs have won a Super Bowl under his leadership, but as Bucs fans continue to erroneously tout ‘best GM in sports!’ when he’s at best the third best GM by a significant margin in his own city which only has three major sports teams, something doesn’t quite add up. 

The more time goes on, the clearer it becomes. Let’s look at some facts. When Jason Licht hired Bruce Arians, most fans in the city were already willing to give up on the experiment. That came from a myriad of inexplicable decisions that kept the team in the dweller Dominik forced them into, most notably the 2016 draft decision that’s one of the biggest draft blunders of all-time. We shouldn’t forget in any conversation discussing Jason Licht’s legitimacy as a football mind that the man traded up to draft a kicker in the second round, and in doing so, not only did he give up crucial capital, but also did it for one of the biggest kicker busts in NFL draft history. The only decent player in that draft for the Bucs ended up being future Pro Bowler Luke Rhodes, and that’s a long snapper who never played a single snap for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

Funnily enough, the Bucs haven’t drafted a Pro Bowler since the 2020 draft, where they drafted two.  One was Tristan Wirfs. Wirfs is a fantastic player, but Wirfs is also the player Bruce Arians personally scouted and circled as a gamechanger. The other was Antoine Winfield. The last four future Pro Bowlers drafted by the Buccaneers were selected under Bruce Arians advisement in 2019 and 2020, with zero coming in the last five NFL drafts. In the 12 years that Jason Licht has been a general manager, there are as many Pro Bowlers to play a snap for the Bucs drafted by the eye of Bruce Arians than the rest of his tenure combined, and Arians only accounted for three drafts, coming in with a heavy say in the draft strategy as part of his agreement. That’s including Jameis Winston, who notoriously wasn’t the player they expected to be. To say the draft is a sore spot for Jason Licht’s tenure is an understatement, as the team consistently botches their draft day strategy. 

When you botch your draft day strategy as much as Jason Licht does, that forces strong free agency to be a necessity. This is the one area where it’s a little dicy to truly attack the GM because he signed the greatest football player of all-time to come to Tampa Bay. The problem with bolstering his free agency argument with that is that Licht himself has noted that Brady was the one who made the pitch. From there, the big signings were Rob Gronkowski, Antonio Brown, and a number of former Brady teammates in New England. Essentially speaking: the Super Bowl offense was Tom Brady, Chris Godwin, Mike Evans, and then Brady’s entourage that were always going to sign wherever Tom Brady signed. That’s not a reflection on the general manager, it’s a reflection on the quarterback. Funnily enough, if Tom Brady doesn’t sign here, Jason Licht was putting all of his eggs in the basket of…Kyle Trask QB1. Kyle freaking Trask. 

The same quarterback who, when signed here, noted he was excited about Arians aggressive playcalling on offense and his ability as proven throughout his career with a number of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time being under his guidance, to have a collaborative playbook. The moment Tom Brady wanted him gone, Brady retired. Suddenly, Arians is forced into a front office spot and Brady is no longer retired, and Brady goes out under the new leadership he himself wanted and sucked so badly he immediately retired again. The decision of the general manager to not back up the head coach that completely changed the culture in Tampa is the reason the Bucs are currently under advisement of one of the worst head coaches in team history, and that’s saying quite a bit considering their coaching history. I mean, Dirk Koetter? Sam Wyche? This coaching history isn’t exactly filled with the Bill Walsh’s of the world. 

That inability to back up the head coach, a crucial miscue, seems to have had Licht 180 on how he backs up his management team. On multiple occasions, he’s told fans publicly on his Twitter to ‘find another team to root for’ if they aren’t enjoying the Todd Bowles experience. The problem isn’t so much that Todd Bowles is bad, which he is. Because of Todd Bowles, Raheem Morris is no longer the worst clock manager in team history. Todd Bowles has no fire, isn’t aggressive with his decision making, doesn’t have an overly creative playbook (which, no defensive coach does. That’s why offensive coaches usually win because their teams know how to pivot on the field), and he’s absolutely horrible with the media. The problem with Bowles even goes beyond those issues we can see. Let’s take a look at Mike Evans. The greatest offensive player in the history of the Buccaneers. A true Tampa lifer. Licht himself has gone on record to say that the Bucs made a ‘significantly higher financial offer’ to Mike Evans than San Francisco. That man wasn’t leaving for the money, the moment that video dropped last year of him angry with the coaching costing us games is the moment everybody should have known that there was nothing Tampa could do to get him to stay, and it’s entirely on Todd Bowles. This core group clearly does not want to play for him. 

But Bowles is still working with what he’s given. What did the team do in free agency this year? Outside of making Baker Mayfield one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in football, something that’s already looking like a bad move, his biggest deal was for…Alex Anzalone? A $17M contract for an aging Alex Anzalone should be paying dividends, right? Not the dividends you’d want. Beyond being slow to react, there’s an absurd volume of penalties and he’s constantly blowing his coverage a month into the season. Scheme can only take you so far when your roster is clearly underperforming, and the answers to address that is to downgrade your front seven and overpay to extend the guys who aren’t getting it done. The question becomes outside of Tom Brady and the people that can directly because of Brady, what huge free agent signing has made a statement and done anything to help the team? At this point, if you aren’t counting a cheap flyer on Baker, and rather significant in-real-time signings, you’d have to go back to Ryan Jensen in 2019? 

The guy can’t draft, the guy can’t identify quality free agents, and he’s so far in bed with Todd Bowles that we now have to address another elephant in the room: the offensive coordinator. Under Arians, that position was whatever. Was Byron Leftwich good? Of course not, but let’s be honest about who was calling the shots on offense. Since, Tampa’s had a slew of really good offensive coordinators, notably Dave Canales and Liam Coen. Canales is now in the division and while he struggled in the first year or two, Carolina’s culture has really been impacted for the better, with their offense showing major steps forward since he let Idzick take the reins on the snap-to-snap playcalling. Meanwhile, Liam Coen’s doing a tremendous job with a lot less in Jacksonville. The biggest problem isn’t that they’re gone. Canales was the coordinator on a Tampa team where firing Bowles was realistically not that tangible of an option, you hate to see him leave in the division, but it is what it is. Coen, however, is not just inexcusable, but him leaving is the least of our worries, considering the Licht regime did everything in their power to vilify Coen in the media on his way out. Was Coen perfect and professional in the process? No, but that doesn’t mean the Bucs going after the illness in his family was okay, nor should it mean that an offer to make him the highest-paid coordinator in the NFL hinges entirely on him not even being allowed to interview for a larger position within the league. So we’re clear: NFL league-wide policy forbids the kind of agreement that Licht leaked to the press to sway public opinion on Coen. This is under a clause in the 2020 amendments to the Rooney Rule, making any condition Licht claims Coen had in violation of league-policy. You’d think a GM of one of the 32 NFL franchises would know that. But when the verbal agreement is ‘we only give you a contract if you snub the team,’ even if it isn’t enforceable, you’re putting the man’s employment at jeopardy. That’s the kind of institution Licht runs as GM, and I guarantee you he knew that it wasn’t an enforceable agreement, but squeezing Coen could have forced him to stay. For anybody who says ‘he’s unprofessional not honoring a verbal commitment,’ I’d argue violating the rules of the league you’re supposed to uphold to manipulate somebody into not taking a promotion and then making them the enemy is far more unprofessional.

But his unprofessionalism is okay in the city because he goes on Tampa radio stations and talks about how much he loves AC/DC and he’s such a fun, normal, relatable dude! Look, I get it’s a “Long Way to the Top,” but when the strategy of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap have you at 0-4 in the worst division in football, it’s time to light some TNT and blow it up. 

None of this reflects the Bucs record under Licht. So, without further adieu, I present to you the record from when Arians and Brady were de-facto running the team and the record from when Licht has full control:

With Bruce Arians as coach *or* Tom Brady as quarterback: 44-29, 6-2 in the playoffs.

Without either Arians or Brady: 54-83, 1-2 in the playoffs.

For those who aren’t great at math, that means with Arians or Brady calling the shots for him, Jason Licht has had a sub-40% winning percentage as general manager of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs have had a winning percentage a total of two times in the seasons that aren’t coached by Arians under Licht. This will now be the tenth season under the Licht regime not coached by Bruce Arians. One of those seasons was a 9-8 record. The early years would be relatively simple to excuse due to the incompetence of Mark Dominik, but those were the years he was drafted up to take a kicker bust in the early rounds and thought that Kyle Trask was a high-end quarterback prospect, who was also drafted in the second round, mind you. In the years since, there’s no excuse. It’s just bad football that people want to blame entirely on the personnel Jason Licht himself thinks is his best option. 

So as you watch the Bucs this year, remember that so far they’re the worst team in football at protecting the quarterback because they have no offensive line. Remember that part of the special teams struggle is that we’ve never even had a good punter under Licht. There was the 2023 season where Bucs fans thought Jake Camarda was really good for an average punt just slightly above league-average, but when you’ve never seen a good punter, a league-average punter looks like the second coming of Shane Lechler. For those who may be thinking ‘who gives a damn, it’s a punter?,’ I’m here to tell you that you massively undervalue special teams and field position, especially when your offense can’t move down field under a certain coach with certain players. Camarda lost the starting job a year later and is no longer in the NFL, primarily because average players regress to their means. When you see how inept the coaching is, don’t think about complaining because the GM who likes all of it will tell you publicly on Twitter to find another team. 

The Bucs 0-4 start has been brewing for a long time, and people in Tampa have become the proverbial ostrich with their head in the sand because a bad football team is lucky to play in the worst division in football. Todd Bowles isn’t the sickness in Tampa Bay, Todd Bowles is the symptom. It’s the symptom of a GM who thinks he’s a good head coach, who also thought that hiring Dirk Koetter and Lovie Smith were good ideas, and the players on the field are the ingredients cooked up by a man who can’t draft and can’t fill in the gaps with free agency. But because Tom Brady and Bruce Arians took a flyer at the turn of the decade, if you even consider the idea that Jason Licht isn’t a football guru on par with Bobby Beathard, people in Tampa will say you’re a bad Bucs fan and know nothing about football because they can’t look themselves in the mirror, reflect upon the facts, and say ‘we were wrong to put Jason Licht on a pedestal.’ Those fans have earned Todd Bowles, they’ve earned the 0-4 performance, and they’ve earned a return to what it used to mean when we say ‘It’s a Bucs Life’ because they’ll gladly accept bad football if it means their terrible general manager isn’t the problem.

MLB Division Series Preview

Friends of the Comic Book Clique, today begins a new round of the MLB playoffs and a step closer to crowning the Dodgers again World Champions of the 2026 season. It’s the Division Series preview!

Eight teams are left in the mix and I will be going series by series to see how these teams match up, who and what will be the determining factors going forward, and providing a prediction for each series. We start in Cleveland with the first of two actual division rivalries now going head-to-head with the season on the line.

ALDS: No. 2 Cleveland Guardians vs. No. 6 Chicago White Sox

Chase Meidroth (photo credit: Patrick Gorski).

The Chicago White Sox are the feel-good story of these playoffs and I can’t imagine that changing, even if they eventually come up short. How can you not root for a franchise that had lost 100 games three years in a row, just to miraculously make the playoffs with a team, on paper, that doesn’t read much better than the previous three years?

Honestly, I do believe the construction of the White Sox lineup was created with a lot of faith and hope. The development of Chase Meidroth and Colson Montgomery has been an exercise in that, hoping that the raw tools each possesses would translate to production. Gambling where 29 other teams hesitated in signing Munetaka Murakami. Partaking in a three team trade with the Dodgers and Cardinals where they may have actually won, landing their future All-Star, starting third baseman in Miguel Vargas while virtually trading next to nothing. Maybe miracle isn’t the right word. Perhaps serendipity might be more apt.

Meidroth was touted for having plus bat-to-ball control as a prospect and in his second full season, he’s been streaky offensively but really turned it on in the second half, especially since the beginning of September. With an OPS hovering around .900 since September 1st and a hero in game two of the Wild Card series, Meidroth has shown he can anchor an offense full of sluggers by making consistent contact rather than swinging for the fences. Montgomery is definitely the sexier of the two. He has the stats that pop off the page a bit more. Really, Chicago’s 3 Ms, Murakami, Montgomery and…Miguel are collectively the meat of this lineup. And while they each have their flaws, mainly in the swing and miss department, the power this trio displays cannot be overlooked. If they continue to feed off of each other’s energy, I’m curious to see how far they can take this team.

For all I’ve gushed over regarding the White Sox offense, I am not nearly as favorable towards the pitching staff. All season long, two truths have been clear: 1) The starting pitching has been atrocious and one of the worst in all of baseball. 2) The bullpen has been a bright spot but almost too bright and heavily leaned on.

Starters have the fifth highest ERA in all of the Major Leagues while pitching the fewest innings. They have trouble keeping runners off base, giving up the long ball and, outside of Sean Burke, most of them aren’t missing a ton of bats. The bullpen doesn’t face the same issues, they’re better about not walking batters and average at keeping the ball in the yard. Sean Newcomb and Grant Taylor have created an effective enough duo at the back end of games. The argument can be made that they’re overachieving with an Expected ERA of 4.13 while their actual ERA sat at 3.70 for the season. But that’s not what worries me. Having a bullpen that has pitched the most innings a bullpen has ever pitched hasn’t historically gone well for said team. That worries me. The runners-up in this category are the 2012 Colorado Rockies and the 2003 Texas Rangers. These teams didn’t have a winning record, let alone a spot in the playoffs.

The White Sox are playing with fire. They’ll continue to sap the bullpen of their energy but eventually, Davis Martin, Anthony Kay and Erick Fedde will all be handed the ball and they will live and die by those performances.

The Cleveland Guardians may be facing the inverse scenario. They have a pitching staff that is healthy and deep, consistently good all the way through. An overall ERA in the top 10 in baseball, a bevy of pitchers with swing and miss stuff that keep batters off base and away from the scoreboard. A starting trio in, sure to be AL Cy Young award finalist, Parker Messick, the AL leader in strikeouts, Gavin Williams, and neutralizing southpaw, Joey Cantillo. If firing on all cylinders, it’s a trio they could ride into the World Series. The weapons don’t stop there.

Cade Smith is as elite a closer there is in baseball. 13 strikeouts per nine innings, an ERA right below 2.00, giving up only five home runs over his 74 innings pitched. He’s got a brigade behind him with Erik Sabrowski (who’s got more strikeouts per nine than Cade), Hunter Gaddis and Tim Herrin. Finding a weak spot in the entire pitching staff is difficult. The weak spot is really when the Guardians are at the plate.

No matter how you slice it, the Guardians offense is not what got them here. A lineup that struggles to get on base and worse, struggles to drive in runs. It’s a team with very little pop that didn’t get some of the expected muscle from their juggernaut, Jose Ramirez. He played in 125 games this season, dealing with a hamate bone injury that required midseason surgery, but was ineffective in the games he did play. Steven Kwan stills gets on base at a great clip, .382 on the season, but with no real threats behind him, he’s often a sitting duck on the basepaths. Rookies Chase DeLauter and Travis Bazzana had serviceable years but shouldn’t be expected to be main contributors on a playoff team. If there’s a bright spot, it’s the month of September where the Guardians were able to crack the top ten in runs scored and third in home runs. How they respond to the extra six days of rest since their last game may dictate how this series goes.

Despite the offensive woes and the White Sox going 7-6 against the Guardians in the regular season, I’m picking the Guardians in four. It’s been a fairytale ride for the White Sox and they should feel good about trouncing the Astros out of the playoffs. But this team is not the Astros, even if the regular season records aren’t too far apart, and the roster constructions couldn’t be more different. I don’t believe the White Sox will have enough youthful energy to overcome that stellar Guardians pitching staff.

NLDS: No. 2 Los Angeles Dodgers vs. No. 3 Atlanta Braves

Mookie Betts (photo credit: MLB).

While the White Sox have the feel-good story of this postseason, the Dodgers have the most important one. Can they three-peat? It hasn’t been done since the 1998-2000 Yankees and even just repeating world champions has proven to be difficult but the three-peat would further cement just how dominant this dynasty has been.

It’s rare to see stats go against the Dodgers but I’ve got two topical ones. All time, the Dodgers and Braves have played 24 games against each other in the playoffs. They’ve split them right down the middle, 12 wins each. The last time they met in the 2021 NLCS it was the Braves getting the better of the Dodgers and going on to win the World Series that year. While I may not see that outcome exactly here, I believe the Dodgers will be in for a fight.

Then again, when are the Dodgers not in a fight. Year in and year out of late, teams have been vying for the opportunity to take down the Dodgers, just to have their hopes dashed by otherworldly pitching performances and clutch hitting. At this point, it’s not too dissimilar to watching a Floyd Mayweather fight in the mid to late 2000s. Are we all just tuning in to see if they’re going to lose, actively rooting for their demise?

In reality, there aren’t a ton of holes in the Dodgers game. Offensively, they continue to rank in the top five to ten in the major categories. Shohei Ohtani continues to lead the way in home runs for the team but Andy Pages has emerged as their top productive bat, leading in RBIs. An embarrassment of riches to have a compendium of huge contracts but still have your best bat this year be a homegrown talent. Max Muncy and Freddie Freeman continue to be the veteran stalwarts of this lineup, allowing for Kyle Tucker to crack under the bright lights and team go unscathed. Mookie Betts has bounced back with a return-to-form September that has him set up well for more postseason heroics.

The rotation thrown at Atlanta will be Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tarik Skubal, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. If any of them should falter, the Dodgers top tier bullpen will be the next hurdle to clear and while the talent, stats and the lack of Blake Treinen and Edwin Diaz will tell you the bullpen isn’t as good as the starting core, it is by no means a bad bullpen. Alex Vesia and Evan Phillips had untouchable Septembers, each with the ability to strikeout batters in high leverage situations. Justin Wrobleski, Tanner Scott and Roki Sasaki fill out the rest of the bullpen and may not be nearly as effective as Vesia or Phillips but can still be counted on for quality innings.

With home field advantage, the Dodgers have only thrived at Dodger Stadium this year with the fourth best home record in baseball. But that doesn’t even matter. The Dodgers had the best road record in baseball this season.

So all of that said, what real hope do the Atlanta Braves have to bypass the Dodgers and find themselves in the NLCS?

Yes, I did say the Dodgers have the fourth best home record this year. Right in front of them, you’ll find the Braves with a slightly better record. Head-to-head, the Braves have won the last five regular season games against the Dodgers. They found ways to get to many of the pitching names we talked about above. Tanner Scott took two of those losses, as did Wrobleski. The more intriguing stat? Back on August 27th, Chris Sale outdueled Yamamoto in a 1-0 win. Sale went the distance, striking out 11, allowing just five hits. Yamamoto wasn’t bad either, six and a third innings, eight strikeouts but one single blemish courtesy of a Drake Baldwin home run in the first inning made the difference.

It may not sound like much but spun with the right voices in the Braves locker room and they might be able to rally around those stats. Sale is likely to pitch in two of the five games in the series and if he gets his way, it might be more. He won’t pitch in game one, given the questionable decision to give him the ball to end game three of the Wild Card series, but If Sale can take down Yamamoto, it stands to reason he can outpitch anyone in that rotation.

The Braves ace won’t be able to do it alone, much as he may try. Tyler Mahle, currently day to day with an abdominal injury suffered in game two of the Wild Card series, will need to show up and be the 1B in this rotation. His 2.54 ERA in the second half on top of his ace-like performance in the aforementioned game two of the Wild Card series will be vital to snowballing this into more success. Grant Holmes will also have to continue his impressive second half if the Braves are to have a shot to contend with the Dodgers. He also got the ball in game three, coming in for two innings and being credited with the win.

Bullpen management will prove to be key here for Walt Weiss and company. It may be the one edge the Braves have over the Dodgers. The bridge from Sale, Mahle and Holmes to Dodd, Fuentes, Suarez and Iglesias will be critical in winning what I imagine will be close games throughout. Many of the bullpen arms had great second halves while not putting the innings to tax their arms down the stretch; Fuentes, Iglesias, Dodd and Brent Suter all posted ERAs under 3.00 with a minimum of 20 innings. Game one for the Braves will be a bullpen game, perhaps in hopes of saving the bullets in Sale’s arm for games two and a potential game five. It worked in game three of the Wild Card series, holding the Phillies to two runs but it doesn’t sit right in my soul to have bullpen games in the postseason.

The Braves lineup has also performed well in the second half and so far in this postseason. Michael Harris II was their top slugger in the second half, doing so at a .494 rate but there were many contributors to the Braves 39-28 second half. “Money Mike” was joined by Matt Olson, Ronald Acuna Jr., Austin Riley and Drake Baldwin, who all had 10+ home runs and 30+ RBIs from July 17th on. A consistent output they’ve mostly continued into the postseason with all, including Ozzie Albies, but Baldwin having 3 RBIs each in the Wild Card series.

Having six games in between the final game of the regular season and their first game of this postseason, I can see this affecting the Dodgers both positively and negatively. They have one of the older rosters in baseball that has seen its fair share of injuries this season. And while the Braves also sport a similarly older roster, they’ve been playing competitive baseball this past week. They won’t lose the rhythm, timing and momentum they accrued in the Wild Card series whereas the Dodgers will need to start from zero to find all of that. It’s not unfamiliar territory, they’ve won the NL West five years running now and have had that buffer time in between games each year. But that’s the thing about time and aging. At some point, you just don’t rise to the occasion when you have to do it year after year. The eyes of the baseball world will be watching to see if this is the year they don’t rise to it.

Ultimately, I’m not ready to declare that the Dodgers are going down in a series. It’s entirely possible, the Braves have the weapons to make it happen. A cold game one from the Dodgers, followed by a likely Chris Sale start in game two could have the Dodgers on the ropes before they’d hop on a plane to Atlanta. That’s the best case scenario for the Braves but maybe not the likeliest. I think this will be a fight with close games all throughout but I’ve got the Dodgers surviving the Braves in five.    

ALDS: No. 1 Tampa Bay Rays vs. No. 4 New York Yankees

Junior Caminero (photo credit: Reuters).

Let’s get this out of the way. Aaron Judge is not on the ALDS roster for the Yankees. They will need to continue this postseason without their franchise player.

It hasn’t been a problem in the two games they’ve played this postseason but maybe it’s better to say it hasn’t been a problem yet. Scoring nine runs in each of their Wild Card series games against a Boston team that, at the very least, had good starting pitching, without Judge, is impressive. However, they did that at home where that short right field porch and their lefty heavy lineup mashed and they’ll now have to contend with the Rays and their best home record in baseball at The Trop. As good as the Yankees have been on the road, somehow better than at Yankee Stadium, they went 2-5 in Tampa this season.

The offense played a pivotal part in getting the Yankees to the ALDS but pitching performances from Cam Schlittler and Max Fried were the most important keys and the rest of the rotation may dictate how this series goes. You can’t put Schlittler on the mound every day, otherwise the Yankees would be World Series favorites. Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon will be getting the ball in this series and that doesn’t exactly evoke confidence. They could turn to Ryan Weathers, whose been very good in the second half of the year but It’s odd because both Cole and Rodon also had good to great second halves. With the exception of a September where Cole got batted around to a 5.08 ERA. For Rodon, it’s his playoff history that comes abruptly into the spotlight. In seven postseason starts, he has a 7.53 ERA. Remove the two 2024 ALCS starts he made and he’s been even worse.

Given that giant, Carlos Rodon sized elephant in the room, the Yankees may have to tear at my soul again and perhaps think about a bullpen game. Paul Blackburn has been a top tier reliever, especially in the second half this year and can provide multiple innings as needed. In 36 second half innings, Blackburn has a sub 1.00 ERA, leaving 95% of baserunners he either inherits or obtains, on base. Brent Headrick and Ryan Yarbrough have been effective pieces out of the bullpen as well but neither keep the ball on the ground as often as they’d like. David Bednar rounds out the bullpen as the closer, who quietly had another good season, converting 35 of 39 save chances. His velocity is a touch down, leading to his strikeouts per nine not being as impressive as it was the year before but Bednar is still a top-10 closer.

The lineup without Judge, on paper, does read thin. Ben Rice has been the brightest spot for the pinstripes, leading the way in home runs and RBIs for the team this year. He continued his breakout in the Wild Card series, slamming the door on Boston with two home runs and six RBIs. It’s the pieces behind Rice that need to be more consistent, if the Yankees are going to contend. Fellow lefthanded slugger, Spencer Jones, had a nice second half to the tune of a .763 OPS but continues to strike out at an alarming rate. Trade deadline acquisitions Luis Garcia Jr. and Heliot Ramos haven’t exactly lengthened this lineup as originally though, especially the latter, Garcia Jr. has at least provided some pop and didn’t bat under .200 in the second half. Austin Wells has regressed tremendously at the plate and Jazz Chisholm Jr. was benched for game one of the Wild Card series in favor of Anthony Volpe. The Bronx Bombers may not have the ammunition to keep going.

The Rays on the other hand find themselves in interesting territory. They are far and away the best team in the AL and their toughest test on the road to a World Series is staring them in the face, in their first round. Get past the Yankees and a chance at a championship somehow gets easier, if only for just one round.

Offensively, it’s no secret the Rays can beat their opponents in a plethora of ways. AL MVP candidate and firestarter, Junior Caminero, slugged his way to 42 home runs and 101 RBIs. Yandy Diaz and Jonathan Aranda both provided 20+ home run and 85+ RBI production while getting on base a touch under 36% of the time. Chandler Simpson hit .306, didn’t notch a single home run but was a menace on the basepaths with 46 stolen bases, all while playing a fantastic left field. The Rays sole trade deadline acquisition, catcher Liam Hicks, accrued a .819 OPS in 41 games, providing another solid bat in the mix. When everything is working in harmony, the Rays have the ability to swarm opposing pitching staffs. They may not slug their way through, like the Yankees seemingly depend on for their offense, but the Rays make contact and don’t strikeout often. In fact, the Rays struck out the least in baseball this year. It’s fundamental baseball at its finest, a lost art to have a team so contact heavy while displaying top tier speed and defense.

We haven’t even covered what might be the Rays biggest weapon; Their pitching staff. It’s a trend, having three or more plus arms out of the bullpen seem to get you into the playoffs and it’s no different here. Kevin Kelly, Cam Booser and Bryan Baker make up the 7th-8th-9th inning combo. A trio that saved the most games collectively in baseball, including the individual save leader in Baker. All three produced ERAs under 2.50 in the second half and Kelly’s groundball rate ranks in the top five for relievers. Outside of Baker, they don’t walk a ton of batters and mitigate hard contact and, now adding Baker back in, do a decent job of leaving runners on base. Baker has been doing so at an elite level in the second half at 91%.

The starters paint a similar picture, though there may be some questions here. Drew Rasmussen leads the way and likely induces the least amount of issues. In 12 second half starts, his ERA was 1.86, struck out more than one hitter an inning, kept runners off base with a WHIP under one and left 80% of runners on base. Behind him, the Rays' other big trade deadline acquisition, Freddy Peralta did really well, especially in September, matching Rasmussen’s output and giving the Rays a potential series changing weapon in the postseason. Nick Martinez fell off in the second half but still provides a formidable number three in the rotation alongside the Griffin Jax starter experiment, these two will likely need more help from the bullpen to get them through.

What may hold the Rays back is the lack of playoff experience their rotation has outside of Peralta, which isn’t a positive for him. When the lights are the brightest and it is time to take advantage of an incredibly weak league, can the Rays do what they’ve done for most of the year and outclass their opponents.

The animosity between the division rivals will be there. The Rays held the Yankees back from winning a division title and now stand in the way of the Yankees yearly “World Series or bust” goal. For my money, I think the Rays pull it off. They’ve been too good this season to falter here. A lineup full of table setters and clutch performers, a rotation, at least in part, built for October baseball and a bullpen that feels like a sure thing when handed the ball. The Yankees just have too many questions on both sides of the ball where the answers won’t provide success. I’m taking the Rays in four.

NLDS: No. 1 Milwaukee Brewers vs. No. 4 San Diego Padres

Manny Machado (photo credit: Rafael Suanes).

Another matchup featuring the number one team in the league taking on a team with momentum and some questions. The Brewers have gone about their business very similarly to the Rays, excelling at the fundamentals of the game and shying away from the modern slugfest or strikeout scenarios most other teams face. The Padres on the other hand are the hottest team in baseball, dating back to the beginning of September, they’ve won 22 of their last 28 games. Something’s got to give.

The Padres didn’t always look like a playoff team. They struggled early in the year offensively with their stars, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado, getting off to very cold starts. Xander Boegarts continued his year to year slide and Jackson Merrill had an OPS just above .600 in the first half. Something clicked in the second half and while not every one of the names above found something, most of them did and it started with Tatis Jr.

It was public knowledge that Tatis Jr. was struggling at the plate. His first home run didn’t come until the very end of May and he scrapped five total in the first half. Three months of struggling and many adjustments later, Tatis Jr. was finding his swing again. As Boegarts put it in a post game interview earlier this week, “As he goes, we go.” Posting 20 home runs in the second half, his production felt infectious. Machado wasn’t far behind with 19 home runs, Merrill with 16. Tatis led the way with a .995 OPS, Merrill and yes, even Ty France, posted over .900 OPS’ in the second half. PCA will be the NL MVP this year but I’m not sure there’s a player more valuable to his team than Fernando Tatis Jr. is to the Padres and their success.

Where the Padres don’t look as good is in their starting pitching. Sure, Michael King was almost unhittable in his Wild Card game one start against the Cubs but, much like the argument I made for the Yankees and Cam Schlittler, King cannot pitch every game. Casey Mize would’ve been a good number two option behind King, if not for his ankle injury that will keep him out of the NLDS, maybe longer. Nick Pivetta, starter of game two in the Wild Card series, was effective enough to keep the Padres in it and that might be where he caps out. Randy Vasquez had a tremendous second half, pitching to an ERA under 2.00 in seven starts and will certainly be an option for game two or three. My only concern is no playoff experience, so it’ll be hard to gauge what we’re getting. Playoff games for every team in our current era of baseball are very bullpen driven, so maybe these problems won’t be enough to hold the Padres back.

Because once again, successful playoff teams are built on bullpens that can take the brunt of innings and come out on top. The Padres have that too. They might actually have the best bullpen of anyone in the postseason. Trios are nice but they’ve got a quartet worth fearing in Bradgley Rodriguez, Yuki Matsui, Adrian Morejon and, the grim reaper, Mason Miller. All four had ERAs under 2.70 in the second half and all were striking well over a batter per inning. In Miller’s case, he’s closer to striking out two per inning. How can any team even think they’re going to score off of that? In 31 second half innings, Matsui left a staggering 99.2%  of runners on base. So, one person scored in the second half on Matsui. One single runner. The starters become less of a problem when you can basically start calling on this squad around the fifth inning.

The Brewers should be the favorites here. They have the best record in all of baseball, a pitching staff that is nothing short of electric and an offense that, again similar to the Rays, is built to swarm opposing pitching, not with power but with speed and contact. I’ll tell you, after watching the Padres this past week and writing the above, I’m not convinced.

The Brew Crew earned six days off between games for winning the division and having the best record in baseball. It’ll pay off initially in the form of a returning Joey Ortiz, missing the final two regular season games with knee and abdominal injuries. Before that, Ortiz was having a killer second half with a .911 OPS to show for it and playing elite defense at short. Jackson Chourio provided the power with 27 home runs, getting close to 100 RBIs and Jake Bauer got on base at a whopping .411 percentage and a walk rate of over 20%. As a team, they got on base more than any other team in baseball for the season. A patient team that makes contact and draws walks while also scoring the second most runs in baseball is a dangerous team.

Then there’s the pitching staff. The starters, Jacob Misiorowski, Logan Henderson, Kyle Harrison and Robert Gasser. All of the eyes and attention have been on The Miz and rightfully so, he’s the likely NL Cy Young award winner. Henderson has, a little more quietly perhaps, matched Misiorowski in the second half, posting a similar 2.19 ERA to Miz’s 2.12 ERA, and just striking out fewer batters. But besides them lies Harrison and Gasser, lefties with two different styles. Harrison, that edges closer towards being a flamethrower with a hook that baffles hitters and Gasser, who is really nothing like his contemporaries, featuring a devastating sweeper and a sinker known to produce outs. In what could be a do-or-die game three for the Brewers, either Harrison or Gasser may be called upon and with no playoff experience, we will see what they’re made of.

I’ve got to play this broken record one more time. The Brewers have a fantastic bullpen that, in this case, is built to take on a Padres team that can boast the same. Again, a quartet: DL Hall, Aaron Ashby, Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill make up a bullpen that was second best at not allowing runs to score and third best at leaving runners stranded in the second half. Outside of Megill, they’re all strikeout heavy pitchers, albeit against a Padres team that does a good job at not striking out too much. The Brewers too have the ability to shorten games for their elite starters.

For the Padres, it’ll be picking their poison. Yes, they took the season series against the Brewers, including a sweep in San Diego back towards the end of August. Yes, they have a ton of momentum going into this series and their MVP is locked in. It could be enough to take this series from the Brewers. It’s just difficult to see how such a well oiled machine like the Brewers could fall in their first round of the playoffs. However, I’m going to go with the underdog here. I’m a sucker for them and I cannot ignore just how good the Padres have been of late. We’ve seen in October that sometimes, just being excruciatingly hot can be enough to make a deep playoff run or more. Padres in five.

I’ll be back with the Weekly Report next week and will look forward to seeing just how offbase I might be on some of these!

Weekly MLB Report 10/1/26

The Wild Card series is wrapped up, each series was decided in two games except for the NL East rivalry series between the Braves and Phillies. Our Division Series are set and begin this Saturday! Friends of the Comic Book Clique, it’s the MLB Weekly Report!

I’ve gotta say, I’m on quite the roll of late! If I can be real with you for a moment, dear reader, I am guilty of always picking my best grid of the week. When I say “I’m on quite the roll of late!”, it’s really “One day a week, I own this grid! The other days, I’m just as capable of rolling out a rarity score of 334 as I am <10.”

Before we dive into playoff baseball, I must remark on how we got here; Specifically, Game 162. We’ve passed the 15 year anniversary of what many, including myself, consider to be the greatest set of Game 162s on September 28 2011. I even watched this video from the MLB Vault YouTube Channel to get myself hyped. What happened next is probably my fault for hyping myself so much.

Our Game 162 was drab and uneventful. Not even just by comparison to 2011 but in general, as baseball games. Teams that had the advantage going into the final game of the season, the Astros & the Phillies, won and did so in decisive fashion. Those who didn’t, the Rangers & the Diamondbacks, were dead in the water early in their games, seemingly with nothing left in the tank to mount a fight, and lost. How disappointing. Maybe not more disappointing than this next question and subsequent answer.

Lucas Spence (Photo credit: Karen Warren/AP).

Q: What can a .500 record in the American League get you in the year 2026?
A: For the Astros, winning game 162 against the cityless Athletics came easy. A rout, a shelacking, absolute destruction. Nine to zero. In winning the division they earned themselves not just a spot in the playoffs but a piece of history. They became the worst division winner of all-time. 81 wins, 81 losses and the NUMBER THREE SEED IN THE AL.

We’re going to talk about just how abysmal the American League was this year at some point during the offseason and I’m sure it’ll continue to be pertinent throughout the postseason. It’s too juicy not to dive into. Here’s another question:

Q: What can a .500 record get you as a playoff team in the year 2026?
A: The most logical answer yet. A first round sweep and exit, courtesy of the upstart Chicago White Sox.

If you followed the White Sox this season, you saw an offense that scored the fourth most runs in all of baseball. The Wild Card series proved, so far, that their ability to produce runs has not been a fluke. The youth and playoff inexperience that I thought would work against them hasn’t quite kicked in and in fact may be working for them. They didn’t need to rely on the big bats of Murakami or Vargas to get them into the ALDS - neither recorded a hit in game 2. Instead, Chase Meidroth and Colson Montgomery, batting in the bottom of the order, as well as Kyle Teel and Sam Antonacci, provided the spark the offense needed.

The offense did what it has done for most of the season: score runs and get production from many different players. They took advantage of an Astros pitching staff that couldn’t keep the opposing batters off base, walking three in the first inning that eventually led to a run and giving up four hits the following inning, leading to two more runs. All but two in the White Sox starting lineup got on base and four players provided the six runs they needed to take game 1. The offense in game 2 wasn’t as spread out but still just as effective.

It didn’t get any better for the Astros in game 2. They sent their ace, Hunter Brown, out to try and even the series. Brown didn’t make it out of the first inning, giving up four runs over five hits and a walk. There’s no way to look at that as a recipe for success, a demoralizing blow even in a game that still had eight more innings to go. And sure, the pitching didn’t show up but this was a complete breakdown from the entire roster.

With runners in scoring position, the Astros did not have a single hit in nine chances. Yordan Alvarez, Isaac Paredes and Christian Walker went a combined 2 for 20 at the plate and that’s just not going to cut it. One starts to wonder with how lackluster the team played this year, squeaking into the playoffs and fully face planting their way out, if the window for contention is just about closed. 

If it makes Astros fans feel even remotely better, and it won't, they weren't the only ones swept out of the postseason.

Photo credit: Vince Carchietta.

Personally and ‘professionally,’ the Red Sox falling to the Yankees, at Yankee Stadium, not winning a single game, feels like a much bigger failure than any of the other teams swept..

Back to back games where the Red Sox pitching staff, primarily the bullpen, gave up nine runs, albeit with a large chunk of those runs coming later in the games, is never going to be a statistic that screams winner. Both starters, Payton Tolle and Sonny Gray, went four and two-thirds, giving up a combined three runs. Those other 15 runs, plus 15 hits and eight walks, were given up in the six and two-thirds innings pitched by the bullpen. The old adage strikes again; Pitching and defense win championships and The BoSox did not have enough of the former.

It’s a scenario the Red Sox may not have been prepared for. Their starters pitched well enough, managers in the playoffs are known to have quick triggers at the slightest sense of danger, so I’m not put off by the fact that neither starter completed five innings. It’s what happened after manager, Chad Tracy, handed the ball off to the bullpen. In the month of September, the Red Sox bullpen had the lowest ERA in all of baseball while being in the bottom five in innings pitched. This isn’t a matter of an overtaxed bullpen, it’s a matter of not rising to the occasion.

On the flip side, combining that failing pitching staff with their offense's inability to not just score runs but to even get runners into scoring position did not give the Red Sox any fighting chance. Just three squandered opportunities will and did lead to two embarrassing losses. If not for Willson Contreras & Nick Sogard, it would’ve been shutouts in back to back games and the ultimate humiliation - and to be clear, this isn't far off from that.

There is not much I can negatively say about the Bronx Bombers regarding their play in this Wild Card series. They lived up to the moniker, their ace and the unequivocal AL Cy Young award winner, Cam Schlittler, continuing his star rising year and Max Fried followed suit in game 2. It’s now the second year in a row where Schlittler faces the Red Sox, in the postseason, and strikes out 10 hitters, putting him rarefied air. The only other pitcher to accomplish that feat is Bob Gibson.

This will come as no surprise but the lefties in the Yankees lineup were mashing. Ben Rice, Cody Bellinger, Austin Wells, Luis Garcia Jr. and Ryan McMahon accounted for 16 of the 18 runs the Yankees scored. It’s no secret that Yankee Stadium favors those bats, the memes exist for a reason but it’s downright laughable to see it work to this effect. An Aaron Judge-less lineup, potentially for the entire postseason, isn’t a thought the Yankees or their fans would call are fond of but performances like the ones we got this week may still leave hope for a Yankees championship.

Padres superstar infielders Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis. (Photo credit: Gregory Bull/AP)

The last of the teams to be swept out of the playoffs were, to me, the least surprising. The Cubs went to PetCo Park in San Diego and lost both games, one brutally and the other less brutally but still deflatingly.

At home, the Padres had the fourth best record in baseball this season with the second highest attendance numbers. PetCo is home to one of the best playoff atmospheres in the league and cannot be understated how much of an advantage this gives the Friars. As for momentum, very important as you enter the playoffs, the Padres had the best record in September, once again, in all of baseball.

Michael King took the hill for the Padres in game 1 and provided an ace level performance. Seven innings, tied for the longest a starting pitcher has gone thus far in the postseason with Tyler Mahle of the Braves, eight strike outs and, most importantly, no runs given up. King was more than just effective, he was neutralizing. Coupled with the eight strikeouts, of the 21 outs King recorded, 15 of them were either a strikeout or a ground ball, the Cubs were unable to get anything going and squeaked out three hits total for the game.

On top of that strong outing, the Padres offense had this game wrapped up and out of reach by the fifth, scoring seven runs by then. Ignited by a leadoff homerun from Fernando Tatis Jr, shortly followed up by a solo shot of Manny Machado’s own, they never looked back. Four Padres hitters recorded two hits, totaling 13 for the game and they seized every opportunity, or mistake, the Cubs gave them to get on base and score.

As effective as Michael King was for the Padres is just about as ineffective as Matthew Boyd was for the Cubs in game 1. Having only thrown 58 pitches, 42 of those were strikes, to a team that scored the most runs in September and was more than pleased to swing early in counts to disrupt any rhythm Boyd thought of obtaining. The home run to Tatis was on the first pitch of the game. The home run to Machado was on the second pitch of the at bat and his RBI double two innings later, off the third pitch in the at bat.

Game 2 was at least more competitive, in the sense that the Cubs actually scored, albeit one run, and the Padres offense didn’t entirely wipe the floor with Cub pitching.

It came down to the Padres bullpen, spearheaded by the three headed monster of Yuki Matsui (pitched in game 1 but not game 2), soon to be coveted free agent Adrian Morejon and lights out, door slamming closer, Mason Miller. Each had a chance to shine in this quick series and in game 2, Morejon and Miller combined for three innings, giving up two hits and no runs. Add Matsui’s performance from game 1, a hitless eighth inning, and they’re firing on all fronts. Starter for game 2, Nick Pivetta, may not have been nearly as electric as King was in game 1, getting pulled in the fourth inning but with the shutdown bullpen he has coming in behind him, they stifled Cubs hitting. The Cubs just went 4 for 44 against the Padres bullpen, an atrocious number to look at if you’re a fan of the North Siders or sitting in that Cubs dugout.

There will be much conversation coming out of this for the Cubs. Pete Crow-Armstrong has already gone on record to take the blame offensively. It’s what a good leader does but not getting a single hit in the two most crucial games of their season is counterintuitive to good leadership. This was a Cubs team that was built for a deeper postseason run and a team that was active at the trade deadline to try and push themselves over the edge, only to come up shockingly short.

It’s debatable whether or not this is as embarrassing as the Red Sox early exit. The Red Sox scored one more run than the Cubs but the absolute obliteration they received from their most bitter rival will likely leave that same bitter taste much longer than the Cubs will have in theirs for losing to the hottest team in baseball over the last month or so. Not a consolation prize by any means.

Michael Harris celebrating his three-run homerun off of a Nola sinker out of the zone. (Photo credit: Braves social media).

We make our last stop at the only series that went the distance. Another bitter division rivalry between the Atlanta Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies. My inner Mets fan asks if both teams can lose but I’ve got my unbiased writing hat on so we’ll ignore him for now.

This series turned out to be actually competitive and fun to watch. Game 1 felt like a chess match. The Phillies struck first in the first with two outs and the Braves didn’t wait too long to answer back, tying it up in the bottom of the second, also with two outs. Both starters, Chris Sale for the Braves and Jesus Luzardo for the Phillies, would settle in and produce one-two-three innings in the middle of the game. The tie was broken in the bottom of the sixth by Ozzie Albies just for the Phillies to take the lead right back in the top of the seventh.

THIS is the playoff baseball I was looking for! The Phillies were in reach of taking game 1 on the road when Jhoan Duran gave up a go-ahead three run home run and I can’t help but ask, where have I seen this before? With two runners on and one swing, Austin Riley put the game away in the bottom of the eighth. Riley has statistically been one of the worst offensive players this year so it had to feel earth-shattering to be able to give his team the lead, at home, when it mattered most.

Game 2 was more of the same chess match, even inducing the only game in the Wild Card series to go into extra innings. Another back and forth affair that started with early runs traded. The first coming from Bryce Harper in the top half of the first with an equal response from Matt Olson in the bottom half. Things went quiet again from there with both starters, Cristopher Sanchez for the Phillies and Tyler “he’s not Jacob deGrom but he thinks he is” Mahle for the Braves, settled in and kept the game even going into the seventh. Sanchez wasn’t as sharp, surrendering five walks but gritting his way through the first six innings. Aided by a bases loaded double play to end the sixth, you could still see Atlanta was starting to get the wheels turning on offense and it wouldn’t be long until they’d strike.

Sean Murphy would get on base to start the bottom of the seventh, Ha-Seong Kim would follow with a bunt that would give the Braves two runners on. Drake Baldwin struck with an entirely catchable double to right field, over Bryce Harper’s head and Matt Olson would tack on another run.

This is where we take a turn. As one Atlanta Braves pundit told me, “Walt Weiss couldn’t manage a Radio Shack, and their management was so poor they’re no longer in business.” Weiss turned to the same relief core he went with in game 1: Dylan Lee, Raisel Iglesias and Didier Fuentes. Lee came on with a two run lead and gave the Fighting Phils the opportunity to come right back into this game. Lee, who has been wildly ineffective in the second half of the year, to the tune of a 6.00 ERA, gave up back-to-back home runs to Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper. With Robert Suarez sitting in the bullpen, Weiss would go to Iglesias for a scoreless ninth inning and Fuentes, the losing pitcher in the game.

Timely hitting for the Phillies and poor managerial decisions from the Braves take us to a deciding game 3. It’s almost like Weiss was purposefully giving away game 2 so he could have more weapons for game 3. And yeah, it technically worked, but managing a bullpen in the postseason is a do-or-die task; Championships are won and lost by these decisions.

Game 3 played a lot like the other postseason games so far. The Braves scored early again, this time with three runs in the first, but were not met with any answers. The pitching staff held up, even going to Fuentes for a third day in a row, and he was effective. Game 3 wasn’t a chess match, it was a statement. The Braves are the better team and had the stamina and perseverance to back it up.

Of all the teams to exit the playoffs thus far, the Phillies may be closest to a rebuild. It’s clear that having big names on paper and having the fourth largest payroll isn’t working anymore. To make matters worse, those big names are showing their age and are still locked in to long contracts - looking at Harper, Turner, Realmuto, Wheeler and Nola. They also don’t have the farm system to help usher in the next generation of stars either, with President Dave Dombrowski and co. focusing on top tier stars of the current over the organizational health of the future. I’m not saying the rebuild is imminent, even less so with where we’ll be come the offseason but we’re getting close. While this is more similar to the Tigers than the Marlins or Red Sox in the sense that they lost their World Series chance unlike the other two, this is the M.O. of the President that has been tabbed ‘Trader Dave’ for a generation because of how aggressive he is spending capital, both fiscally and in prospect value, to mortgage the future in a scenario your ballclub is ready to win now. The writing may be on the wall the way it had been in his other three stops with how much longer Dombrowski is in Philadelphia.

We’ll be previewing the Division Series separately from here and so I will bid you adieu with this week’s "How can you not be romantic about baseball?"

Weekly MLB Report 9/25/26

We’re in the endgame now. The final weekend of the regular season is upon us and guess what? There is still so much to settle. Friends of the Comic Book Clique, it’s the MLB Weekly Report!

Last week, I may have flexed about my Immaculate Grid and how I achieved my lowest rarity score at 5. I was hot last week and I think I may have found my mojo!

Cue up the "Price is Right" losing horn.

22 is a higher score than desired. In fact, any answer I get over 5% pretty much ruins my mood on the grid and thus, I give very little effort with the rest of the answers. I felt really good about so many of these answers! Until they said “Give me a Mariner pitcher who struck out 200 batters” and I zoned out for a solid eight minutes. If you said Erik Hanson, great, you probably got a 1% answer and I like whatever is wrong with you to have known that answer.

Without further ado, the final weekend of the regular season brings us the drama that only September baseball can bring.

Between the Cleveland Guardians and the Chicago White Sox, both teams will be playing in the postseason but are currently dueling over positioning. Winning the division guarantees a bye through the Wild Card and into the ALDS while the other team would be facing the AL West champion. And while the latter scenario would in no means be a formidable challenge, there’s a decent chance the winner of the AL West won’t have a winning record, I would much prefer not having to play more games to potentially win a championship.

Two of the five worst teams will have a chance, not to play spoiler, but to make one team’s journey through October just a little more precarious. The Kansas City Royals, stablemates to the Guardians and White Sox, because let’s face it, the Royals are rivals to only themselves, will host the Guardians. Despite another disappointing season for the Royals, they have managed to go 5-5 against the Guardians this season.

The surging Guardians, 8-2 over their last 10 games, have been getting by with a fairly average offense — scoring 4.7 runs a game over those last 10 games but only giving up 30 runs in the same span. They’ll send their second-best starter, Gavin Williams, to the mound on Friday. He had mixed results against the Royals, winning his first start against them in April but walking five, followed up by a performance in May where he gave up five runs in a loss.

Tanner Bibee (photo credit: The Associated Press)

Tanner Bibee will follow with his start on Saturday, ending a year that has only continued his four-year downslide in production. He hasn’t fared terribly against the Royals this year; a 3.68 ERA over three starts is serviceable. It’s that pesky average offense that has let Bibee down, with the Guardians scoring just four runs in his starts against the Royals. A starter for Game 162 hasn’t been named yet, likely pending the outcome of the first two games as well as where the White Sox stand.

MLB's worst team this year, unsurprisingly, is the Colorado Rockies, and how fortuitous for the White Sox to draw them in the final series of the year. A chance to win their seventh division title since the Division Era started in 1969, with a team most had in the cellar of the AL Central. They come into the series having a middle-of-the-road September, when they may have needed this month to gain momentum. Posting a 9-12 record, they lost their thin division lead back on Sept. 16 but continue to stay close to the Guardians.

The Rockies aren’t middle of the road. Actually, I don’t even know if the Rockies are on a road. Four straight seasons of 100 losses (or more), they’re 5-16 this month, typical Rockies baseball of the 2020s thus far. They are ripe for the picking; if the White Sox so choose to show a little bit of edge and take the division in the final games this season, it could go a long way to aiding a successful postseason. Let me be clear: a winning record alone makes this a successful year, full stop. Any wins in October will be the icing on this surprisingly layered cake.

Out West, standings are a tad more bleak. The Astros and Rangers continue to trade in mediocrity, holding down losing records while fighting for a division title. We’re a mere three games away from seeing history, no matter how you slice it. In the best-case scenario, either one of these teams sweeps the final series of the regular season, ends up with 82 wins and becomes the first American League division winner with 82 wins. Any other outcome produces a different bit of history — arguably, more interesting bits of history!

The Astros will continue their four-game series against the Athletics, another bottom-five team, this time with the ability to actually play spoiler. Houston took Game 1 in a close affair, a 7-5 win powered by the first three home runs of rookie Lucas Spence's career. At current writing, the Astros don’t have a single probable pitcher listed for the rest of this series, and that just screams September baseball. Sporting a 4-8 record over the past couple of weeks, they are skidding into these final three games. They hold the tiebreaker over the Rangers should they end up with the same record by the end of Sunday, a silver lining to a September where they’ve been outscored 77-88.

The offense has been running through Yordan Alvarez and Isaac Paredes, accounting for 35% of the runs over the past couple of weeks. The Astros are going to need more performances like the one they got out of their rookie center fielder, Lucas Spence, if they’re going to A) survive these next three games to win the division and B) have a shot at anything beyond the Wild Card series.

Of all the teams fighting for a playoff spot in the AL, the Rangers have it the toughest. That may not be saying much considering the other three teams are facing three of the worst teams this year, but these details are crucial heading into three must-win games in Minnesota versus the Twins.

Believe it or not, the Twins were only just recently eliminated from playoff contention on Sept. 20, winning two of three from the Giants right after. At this point, the Twins have nothing else to play for except the sweet revenge of taking a team like the Rangers down with them. Having swept them in the only other series they played back in mid-June, all signs point to this being a tough series.

2x Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom committed to staying and trying to win again in Arlington, denying a trade to Atlanta at the deadline. (Photo credit: Getty Images)

If the Rangers are to find a way into the postseason, it’ll be on the backs of their starting pitching. Jacob deGrom is set to pitch the opener in the series and they’ll need the ace to pitch like an ace. He’s done well this month, a sub-3.00 ERA with 29 strikeouts over 21 and 1/3 innings. After him lies nothing but question marks. It’s likely, no matter what happens Friday for both the Rangers and Astros, that Nathan Eovaldi will be given the ball on Saturday — a bold move. On one hand, Eovaldi is a veteran and understands the stakes about as well as anyone. On the other, his first 8 and 2/3 innings after missing a little over a month have been less than impressive. He’s given up five runs, it’s clear the velocity isn’t fully back yet, and thus his strikeouts and effectiveness just aren’t quite where you want them to be. The season may ride on MacKenzie Gore…

But truly, the formula for the Rangers may be really simple. Score five or more runs, win the game. They are an astounding 59-8 this year when they score five or more runs. In fact, nine of their 10 wins this September have featured them scoring 5-plus runs. With Josh Jung back in the mix, a real table-setter, the offense is in as good a position as it can be to make their final stand and take the AL West.

In the NL, all of the divisions have been set for some time now. The Brewers secured their first-ever 100-win season and the best record in baseball — wild when you put into perspective that it's their 57th season and just how talented some of the teams from just the past decade and a half have been.

The Wild Card is looking much closer to being set but still holds some unresolved scenarios, really in the placement of the current three teams with spots: the Padres and Cubs, who have already clinched their spots, and the Phillies, who are trying to fend off the hot-on-their-tail Diamondbacks.

At various points this month, the Diamondbacks went from sneaking into that final Wild Card spot to being several games back. They’re 12-8 this month, having won five in a row going into the final series against the current Wild Card No. 1 seed, the San Diego Padres. A Padres team that, yes, has already clinched a spot, but would likely prefer to hold onto their spot. They may not be willing to rest any of their bigger stars in the name of potentially being the away team in the Wild Card series, what with being one game under .500 on the road. Or the worse outcome, having to face the Atlanta Braves.

Nolan Arenado’s heater has kept the Diamondbacks hope alive amidst a Philly skid. (Photo credit: MLB)

Fueling the way are both future Hall of Famer Nolan Arenado and a former top prospect figuring it out in season five in Gabriel Moreno. Arenado has turned back the clock a bit after a couple of down seasons and is knocking on the door of his first 30-home-run season since 2022. In the month of September, he’s putting up some video game numbers, illustrated by his 1.131 OPS. Moreno hasn’t been too far behind, raking to the tune of a .975 OPS.

Not letting the offense carry all of the weight this month, Diamondbacks pitching has been fantastic. Sixth in ERA this month at 3.67 as well as fifth in WHIP means they’ve been keeping runners off the basepaths, and even the ones who make it mostly aren’t scoring. Timely pitching and good hitting is a classic formula that is more successful than not in baseball. I’m sure fans of the Snakes will be pseudo-Rays fans this weekend, in hopes that they get some help while they look to take down the Padres.

Before we move to our final part of our weekly report, we’d like to look at some season accomplishments that are worth mentioning.

Chris Sale continued his dominant resurgence with the Braves this year. (Photo credit: Brett Davis)

• Chris Sale had yet another season of 200K and fewer than 50BB, extending his record to nine. The second most? Hall of Famers Roy Halladay and Pedro Martinez. That’s every season he’s gotten at least 200K, putting his nine at only second behind Randy Johnson for southpaws in terms of most 200K seasons, officially surpassing Steve Carlton’s eight.

• The Milwaukee Brewers clinched the #1 seed this week for the duration of their tenure in the postseason, but they did so with their very first 100 win history in the history of the ballclub.

• Pete Crow-Armstrong became the seventh player in MLB history to go 40/40.

• Max Scherzer will likely pitch on Sunday on short rest. While he hasn’t officially announced his retirement, if this is it for the 3x Cy Young winner, congratulations on an outstanding career.
  

Announcers in their final year

The game of baseball is a simple game. A player from the team on the field throws a small, mostly white with red-stitched ball toward home plate where a player from the opposing team is standing and will attempt to hit the ball with a cylindrical bat. What gives the game any sort of color, any form of emotion or drama, are the broadcasters. Tasked with providing context as to why anything you’re watching or listening to matters, they are the link between the fanbase and the players. For many of us, the way a game is called over the air can stick with us and become just as integral to the memory as the game or specific plays themselves. And let’s face it, if you grew up with the National Pastime, then you simulated what it was like to hit that game-winning home run. You were the batter, maybe in your backyard or at the park, rounding the bases (or in my case, rounding my parents' bed in a railroad apartment in Brooklyn, NY), jumping and hollering, simultaneously playing the star and the overjoyed broadcaster.

It’s hard to value what a good broadcaster brings to a telecast, let alone ones whose tenure spans generations. As we wind down on the regular season, we’re also winding down on some historical broadcasting careers.

Out in South Florida, there is one voice synonymous with Miami Marlins baseball and that’s Tommy Hutton. Serving as a broadcaster for both of Miami’s World Series teams, Hutton has been in the booth for 25 of the Marlins' 34 seasons. Fans came to love and appreciate the honesty Hutton put out, whether it was discussing the state of Marlins baseball, a replay review that felt asinine, or proclaiming, “And his name is Dan Uggla” for every Dan Uggla home run. Hutton is a voice that won’t be forgotten. Fans have had to say goodbye to him before, having left the team after the 2015 season for several years, but this time, we say it for real.

The West Coast also says goodbye to a couple of longtime fixtures in the booth. In the Bay Area, Mike Krukow departs after 37 seasons. Like many broadcasters, Krukow played for the team he’d spend his “second career” with, having pitched for the Giants from 1983 to the end of his playing career in 1989. It’s so rare to have broadcasting partners have as long a run as Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper have had (all 37 of Krukow's years!), and I am sure longtime fans of the Giants will sorely miss Krukow in the booth. A true mark of a good team is in how they make baseball fun.

It both makes sense and doesn’t make sense that I was a big fan of the Seattle Mariners in the 1990s. On one hand, Ken Griffey Jr. was a beloved player in sports and I was no different in my feelings toward him. I had the Mariners hat that I wore backward and I wore out the Nintendo 64 game. On the other hand, what could a kid that was roughly 2,500 miles away know about Mariner baseball?

Rick Rizzs helped bridge that gap. I’d be rewriting history if I said that Dave Niehaus wasn’t as big a role in that as well. From 1983 to 1992 and then again from 1995 until now, Rizzs has been part of the Mariners organization, calling all of their biggest moments. From the 1995 Luis Sojo Little League “grand slam” to Cal Raleigh ending the 20-year playoff drought with one swing. To have one voice to cover so much of a franchise's history is a gift, and Rizzs provided that. I will always admire Rizzs’ ability to honor Niehaus and keep some of his calls in circulation post his passing, and can only hope current and future broadcasters of the M's honor Rizzs the same.

Lastly, Howie Rose. My bias will show, but Howie Rose is the first voice I heard when it came to Mets baseball. Several names stick out to me when talking Mets broadcasters of my era, but Rose was always the more articulate one. He could really suck you in with a story about how he got to watch Mickey Mantle play and be rather endearing when discussing his father and how they moved in 1962 to Queens, right as the Mets were born, making him an immediate fan.

Thirty-one years for the Mets, he called so many of my favorite moments. Every New Yorker was affected by 9/11 and maybe baseball was the furthest thing from any of our collective minds. If you were a Mets fan, Rose’s call of Mike Piazza’s go-ahead home run in the first game post-9/11 is nothing short of goosebump-inducing. How about his call of the Johan Santana no-hitter, the first in Mets history? The elation you can hear in his voice was no less coming from a broadcaster than a lifetime fan.

Yet, it’s the 2024 playoffs where Howie Rose would provide the soundbites that will echo in my mind for the rest of time. I could point to his call of the Pete Alonso go-ahead home run against the Brewers or the go-ahead grand slam Francisco Lindor hit in Game 4 of the NLDS and either would be enough. But the one that stood out most to me was the speech he gave during the ninth inning of Game 6 of the 2024 NLCS against the Dodgers.

The Dodgers were up in the series, 3-2, and in the game 10-4. The ride for us was over. Every miraculous comeback had been used. I was gutted. And against the Dodgers? It didn’t feel right. The Mets scratched and clawed their way into postseason play: Game 161 of the regular season, the absolute nail-biter in Atlanta. A Pete Alonso three-run homer in Milwaukee during the Wild Card series to push their way into the NLDS against the Phillies. Taking on our division rival and smacking them around for most of four games to get to L.A. The true final boss. And after all that, even taking the eventual World Series champions to a Game 6, I felt robbed.

But there was Howie Rose, being both optimistic for the future and truly grateful for the season that was about to end for him, too. Preaching that it isn’t always about the end so much as it is about the journey: "If you are emotionally invested in this Mets team, and you're sad right now, it's certainly understandable. But I promise you that won't take long to wear off if it ends here, because once the immediate disappointment if they don't pull off some kind of magical comeback here wears off, you'll realize what an incredible ride this team took you for this year.”

In that moment, my sadness stopped, replaced now by tears of joy and appreciation. I had so much hope for our future and a deep sense of gratitude for what I had experienced. I don’t know many broadcasters who could’ve delivered that message better than Howie Rose. It felt natural coming from someone who is from Brooklyn, like me, that has seen the entirety of Mets history. A voice I could trust, a distinct voice that truly bled orange and blue. And just how I felt in the moment the Mets' 2024 season came to a close, my tears of sadness that a wonderful career is over now turn to tears of joy and appreciation that I got to be in the same timeline as Howie Rose. A sincere thank you,

Put it in the books, we’ve reached the end of the Weekly Report. Here’s your "How can you not be romantic about baseball?" clip:

Weekly MLB Report 9/18/26

With a just a little over a week left in the baseball season, the playoff picture has become clear for some teams while others will seem to be fighting down to game 162. September baseball: it’s my second favorite time of the year. Friends of the Comic Book Clique, it’s the MLB Weekly Report!

We start with...an apology from me! Webster's Dictionary defines the word “weekly” as every seven days. It has been more than seven days since my last report. My bad! No less this is dropping on a Friday instead of my much preferred getaway day of Thursday. I strive for better and I strive to give you what I promised! What’s this? An Immaculate Grid flex from me after a weak apology?! Yes, yes it is.

5 is tied for my lowest rarity score, ok? I'll take my street cred now. Back to your regularly scheduled programming!

Most teams have around ten games left to play and of the 12 spots in the playoffs, just four have been grabbed. Back on Sept. 11, the Brewers became the second team this year to book their ticket to October in an absolute 20-0 decimation over the Reds, just after the Rays did the same with a dramatic Junior Caminero walk-off (His 40th of the season, making him the only player in franchise history with multiple 40 home run seasons!). A few days later on the 14th, the Yankees locked in their spot on the same day the Dodgers’ did, with neither game having anything of note.

That makes it 14 consecutive years the Dodgers’ made the playoffs, tying an MLB record held by the Atlanta Braves (1991-2005, the first 14 years on Earth for me…all as a Mets fan). It’s hard to imagine the Dodgers’ pre-2020 and the molding of the current ‘Evil Empire,’ but there was a time where it felt like they were coming by it more honestly. In 2013, when this streak started, their starting outfield featured Carl Crawford, Andre Ethier and rookie Yasiel Puig. A solid outfield, just not the loaded one we’re used to seeing. We’ve come a long way, but they’ve been successful for years.

Seemingly no amount of success satiates the Dodgers appetite for not just winning but continuing to field the best team in baseball. It’s not enough that the pocket book is so deep they can pay someone $60 million this year just for that player to produce a 0.4 bWAR, and still be a playoff team. No. They also develop a farm system that consistently ranks towards the top of MLB, year in and year out, getting fruitful results. Take a look at some of the current players (mostly) who came through the Dodgers organization:

• Corey Seager (Rangers SS)

• Joc Pederson (Rangers DH)

• Cody Bellinger (Yankees OF)

• Grant Holmes (Braves SP)

• Walker Buehler (Padres SP)

• Will Smith

• Miguel Vargas (White Sox 3B)

• Andy Pages

• Zach McKinstry (Tigers, UT)

• Michael Busch (Cubs 1B)

That list contains varying degrees of success and very few who’ve managed to stick around until now but the ceiling includes a guy who was pivotal in getting the Texas Rangers their first World Series title. Right alongside him? A former teammate who won the NL MVP in 2019. The only two remaining active Dodgers on the list? Andy Pages, likely their starting center fielder for the next 5 years at least, and Will Smith, the catcher they signed until he turns 39 in the year 2034.

They can develop talent, real game changing talent and they can go out and get the prized free agent in any offseason?

It doesn’t stop there. That was the last decade and a half. Let’s fast forward to just this past week. Their #1 prospect and 6th overall, according to MLB.com, outfielder Josue De Paula. Signed in 2022 as an international free agent, he made his MLB debut on Sept 11. In his 3rd game on Sept 13, he notched his first hit; A three run homerun into the second deck at Loan Depot Park in Miami. You could hear Dodgers broadcaster, Joe Davis, gushing with glee. An absolute bomb measured at 416 ft, you have to just sit back, admire and wonder “Where does it end for the Dodgers?”. With no answer in sight, the Dodgers will soon embark on their journey to nab their 4th World Series title this decade and 3rd in a row.

(Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images)

If I may, I’d like to keep things in the West, still in Los Angeles, or technically Anaheim. Don’t worry, I’m not entirely bringing the spotlight to the Angels. Honestly, what is there even to spotlight about the Angels organization that won't feel like a hit piece?  I am bringing the spotlight where I think it needs to be at the moment: Mike Trout.

This question gets posed every season, if not multiple times per season: Who is the best player in baseball right now? For a long time, more specifically the decade of the 2010s, that answer was simple and almost irrefutable. It’s Mike Trout. One glance at his Baseball Reference page will show he was basically a Hall of Famer by the end of the decade. And then came the 2020s.

Watching Mike Trout year after year miss extended periods of baseball has brought the fan in me some real despondency. It’s like watching Ken Griffey Jr. after the age of 30 all over again with a career filled with what ifs. Granted, a regression in production is expected once a player enters his 30s, no less one that amounted 75.9 bWAR (again, Hall of Fame level) in his 20s. No one wants to see a career weakened by what seems like a physical curse on the body of the Angels franchise player.

With 11 games left in the regular season for the Angels, Trout finds himself eight games shy of playing 140 games for the first time since 2018. I wish that were a typo. While his production isn’t quite what it was in 2018 as the AL MVP runner-up, take a peek at the Angels lineup from this year and you’ll see why it’s just another lost season in Anaheim.

Nonetheless, I’ll take more 140 game, 20 home run seasons from Mike Trout. The questions going forward are the same questions that continue to surround Trout and the Angels as a whole. Can we expect more 140 game seasons out of Trout? What are the Angels, now under new ownership, going to do to maximize the remaining years of Trout?

With the AL East more or less figured out, it’s the Central and West divisions that haven’t necessarily gotten clearer with the Wild Card tying those two divisions together very closely.

The once-insane seven team frenzy has realistically come down to a fatal four way between the Guardians, currently holding the third Wild Card spot, the Rangers and Blue Jays each being two games behind them with the Orioles bringing up the rear, just three games back.

The Guardians hold the cards here in the Wild Card, should it even come down to it. The White Sox haven’t exactly been playing stellar of late and this may well become a problem for the South Siders. If not, the Guardians are two games up and have the easiest schedule of any of the above teams the rest of the way. They face the lowly Athletics next, followed by a Red Sox team likely looking to rest some players and finally finish the season against the 5th worst record in baseball, Kansas City Royals. They’ve played well the past couple of weeks, winning eight of their last 13 games but holding pace at this time would likely seal their place going into next weekend's last games. 

Meanwhile in Texas, the Rangers begin their last homestand of the regular season. They’ll take on the Blue Jays in a must win series. The loser of two out of the three games, or worse all three, may find themselves in a well they cannot climb out of. The Mets fly into DFW for three games after that, where my house will unquestionably be divided. The blue and orange from Queens don’t necessarily have anything to play for at this point and I won’t actively root against the Rangers but should the Mets happen to take that series and play spoiler..well…

The starting rotation for the Rangers has missed a couple of its key pieces in Nathan Eovaldi and Jack Leiter. Former Met and de facto ace, Jacob deGrom has stepped up in a way only a two-time Cy Young Award winner can. In three starts this September, deGrom has pitched in 17 innings, struck out 27 batters to a tune of an ERA just above 2.00. He’s been electric.

Yet somehow, the Rangers have only won one of those three starts and Jake has been alone in pushing this team across the finish line and into October baseball. Over the past 13 games, the Rangers are 11th in runs scored and 15th in runs given up. Middle of the pack stats provide middle of the pack results, and they’re 7-6 in that span. Relating to Guardians in the AL Central, the Rangers are neck and neck with the Astros in the West that this could also end up being the other team’s problem.

Unlike the AL, the Senior Circuit has had less exciting races going into the end of the regular season. The aforementioned Brewers and Dodgers have already won their respective divisions and although the Phillies are still within grasp of the Braves atop the East, all signs point to Atlanta getting back to their division winning ways.

Also unlike the AL, the Wild Card scenario is interesting, not because of what happens with the third spot but what happens with all of the spots. The Cubs, Phillies and Padres are all within a game of each other and a game of Musical Chairs is on the horizon.

The Padres are that scary team that everyone should be fixating on. They may be in the rearview mirror of the top two spots but objects in said mirror are closer than they appear.

11-4 in the month of September, they’ve been fueled by Fernando Tatis Jr.’ .901 OPS and 9 home runs. Really, his second half might be the difference maker, separating a first half Padres team that sat solemnly in the middle of their division at .500 to a surging 36-21 second half record, the best in MLB, sparking hope for the Friars. It’s no coincidence that once Fernando got his bat going (.991 OPS in the second half), the Padres would go with him.

He hasn’t done it alone; their bullpen, ranked fifth in ERA this season, continues to shine. Seriously, the combination of Mason Miller, David Morgan, Yuki Matsui and Griffin Canning on the back half of games this month has been exceptional. 25 ⅔ innings, one single earned run. And when we talk playoff baseball, pitching is king and Los Padres find themselves matching up on paper against just about any other team headed for postseason play. Being able to run four deep after ace Michael King starts or midseason acquisition, Casey Mize, makes them unsavory for any lineup that has to face them.

The once promising Diamondbacks sit on the outside looking in, four games back of a Wild Card spot. Scoring 52 runs this month, their offense has been abysmal, despite Nolan Arenado’s first 1.000+ OPS month since August of 2022. They will likely have to run the table and go close to undefeated in their next six games in order for the last weekend of the regular season against the Padres to give them any real hope. And let’s say we go into that final series with the Diamondbacks down exactly three games to the Padres, surely their head-to-head record this year would provide some insight? Nope. None. They are 5-5 against each other this year. There I go, making drama where there is not entirely much. Arizona, make it happen.

That’s a wrap on this week’s MLB report! Until next time, I’ll leave you with my “How can you not be romantic about baseball” moment:

The Rays Secure Funding For New Stadium

Rays hitters Junior Caminero, Yandy Diaz, and Ryan Vilade. (Photo credit: TBTimes)

A two-decade saga spanning multiple ownerships has finally ended in Major League Baseball as the Tampa Bay Rays secured the vote for public funding from the City of Tampa on a 4-3 measure, and today secured the funding from Hillsborough County on a 5-2 measure.

The Rays, who are playing in a venue that was originally home to the Tampa Bay Lightning, have been planning new stadiums on-and-off since Stuart Sternberg bought the team in 2004. The team finally seemed to be on the precipice of a new deal until a hurricane re-allocated city funding and kiboshed it. Now, almost a year after Sternberg closed the deal to sell to Jacksonville real estate developer Pat Zapulski, the Rays are set to put shovels in the ground on a new stadium.

This stadium, planned to open in 2029 after the lease with Tropicana Field in 2028, represents a major victory for the Rays. Not only was The Trop very old and widely considered the worst ballpark in baseball, but moving from the St. Pete area where it had been impossible for Tampa families to get to the park after work by game time to the current site of Hillsborough Community College, integrated well into Drew Park across the street from Raymond James Stadium. The team will put up $1.4B, while the City of Tampa will put up $80M, and the county will put up $800M.

The park is set to feature a district similar to that of the Battery in Atlanta, promising to liven up the Drew Park area and make it closer to the commercial space of Westshore that sits just south of it. The city, which consisted almost-entirely of swing votes, expects a large sum of jobs to be created through this funding. The County was a lot less of a nailbiting vote primarily because not only will the College be relocated with a more state-of-the-art campus funded by the State of Florida, the money the county is putting forward comes primarily from its Tourist Development Tax, meaning that a majority of the money that taxpayers are footing the bill for was designed to go toward projects like this anyway, making it a significantly easier sell.

This ends a bipartisan saga from Mayor Castor and Governor DeSantis in recent years to bring the Rays into Hillsborough County, but for Major League Baseball it ends a two-decade frustration. Since Rob Manfred took over as commissioner just over ten years ago, he’s been adamant about keeping MLB in the Tampa metropolitan area because of how robust their teleivsion market is compared to other clubs, even despite the lower attendance. Manfred in recent years has clarified the league is ready to expand to 32 teams, and cities such as Nashville, Vancouver, Montreal, Portland, Salt Lake City, Orlando, and New Orleans are already in the process of preparing bids and have ownership groups ready to join. However, Manfred has stated that until the Rays and Athletics figure out their stadium woes, the league would not be expanding. With the A’s set to go to Vegas and the Rays set to move across the Howard Frankland, expect an announcement of expansion following the impending CBA battle this winter. Perhaps, which cities are the best fit is a future article at CBC?

While there should be fewer major announcements going forward, DSR/CBC will keep you as up-to-date as possible on any news regarding the new stadium in Tampa.

Jameus Mooney writer for Comicbook Clique covering sports and entertainment. You can follow him on Twitter here.

MLB Weekly Report 8/27/26

Welcome to the first Comic Book Clique MLB Weekly Report! Every Thursday, we’ll review the past 7 days in the MLB, highlighting the leagues best teams and players in that span as well as a week some teams and players may be looking to forget.

What a time to start! With the calendar set to turn a new page in just a few days, we’re in the home stretch of the season: September Baseball. Let’s take a look at the current MLB Divisional Standings:

The Cleveland Guardians are surging, having won seven in a row and gaining ground on the division-leading Chicago White Sox (not a sentence I thought I’d be writing at the beginning of the season). They sit just 2.5 games back of the White Sox - had to say it twice for it to really sink in.

In the National League, several teams had identical success with the Atlanta Braves, Philadelphia Philles & Los Angeles Dodgers going 4-2 in the past week.

The Boston Red Sox continue to play very well going 5-1 since last Thursday and 27-12 (!) since the All-Star break. They’ve pulled themselves out of the cellar and hold the 2nd Wild Card spot in the AL. Speaking of…

See, that is what will make this fast approaching September so interesting. The American League has been downright abysmal this year but it will lead to some great baseball going into the playoffs. The 3rd Wild Card spot could be anyone's and currently sees the Guardians fend off six teams within 5 ½ games and I don’t necessarily envy the fanbases of the Rangers, Orioles, Blue Jays, Mariners, Twins, Tigers or the aforementioned Guardians for that matter.

On the flip side of things - the once promising Washington Nationals have lost 6 of their last 7 games. An offense that has been consistently ranked at the top of baseball for large chunks of the season find themselves batting .190 and scoring only 21 runs during this 1-6 stretch.

In the AL, this past week has made a little more sense when it comes to the Detroit Tigers. Having offloaded Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize ahead of the trading deadline on August 1st, the Tigers went 7-3 for the first 10 games after. Since then? 2-10. We may be putting the final nail in the coffin of the Tigers season.

I’d like to end these weekly reports with some fun insights, a top play, a blunder or, to put it plainly, something that might make you go “How can you not be romantic about baseball?”

This week I’ve got two things! First, the Twins have been in Minnesota for 65 years and this past Tuesday, Taj Bradley threw the franchises first Immaculate Inning:

Taj Bradley throws the first immaculate inning in Twins history! pic.twitter.com/h3QnDa8GJz

— MLB (@MLB) August 26, 2026

I’ll say this last one may not be romantic per-se but it would be historical. I mentioned earlier that the AL has been abysmal this year. So abysmal in fact that the AL West does not have a single team with a winning record. Someone has to win the division. Should this trend continue through the end of the season it would be the first time in MLB history that a team makes the playoffs with a losing record in a standard season. Something to keep your eye on!