The Morning Horsehide Herald — the Seventh of August, Two Thousand and Twenty-Six

Is it spring training yet? No — but the championship season is upon us, a finer thing still.

The Game of the Day

FOUR TIMES CORNERED, FOUR TIMES LEVEL, AND DURBIN SPEAKS LAST IN THE THIRTEENTH: CRIMSON HOSE 12, PALE HOSE 11

Boston trails in the ninth, the tenth, the eleventh, and the twelfth, ties thrice running upon sacrifice flies to the selfsame center fielder, and wins its eighth straight when Caleb Durbin's single at last sends the verdict home — Meidroth's two circuits and four runs batted in going for naught in four hours and three-and-twenty minutes of stubborn baseball

The lamps at Fenway labored four hours and three-and-twenty minutes Thursday night before they were excused, and no man of the seven-and-thirty thousand who stayed will begrudge them the coal. Chicago built the early case: Chase Meidroth opened the scoring with a two-run circuit in the third, Colson Montgomery singled two more across behind a throwing error by Rafaela, and the visitors stood four to the good before Connor Wong answered with a two-run homer of his own. Seigler's two-run double leveled the affair at five in the fourth; Braden Montgomery's two-run single — another Boston throw gone astray — restored the Chicago lead at seven to five; Yoshida's double drew it to one; and in the ninth Wilyer Abreu singled home the tying run, the first of four separate evenings' worth of escapes compressed into one.

Then the extra innings became a fugue with a single subject. Meidroth struck his second homer of the night in the tenth — his eleventh of the year, four runs batted in on the evening — and Boston tied it on Monasterio's double and Seigler's sacrifice fly. Chicago went ahead in the eleventh on a sacrifice fly; Abreu answered with a sacrifice fly. Antonacci singled the visitors ahead in the twelfth; Rogers lifted — the reader will have guessed it — a sacrifice fly. Three innings running the tying run rode home upon a ball flied to the same beleaguered center fielder, Peters, who by rights should have billed the Boston club for cartage. In the thirteenth, Caleb Durbin singled to that same tract of grass, Sogard crossed with the twelfth run, and the argument was over.

The arithmetic, cooled overnight: sixteen Boston hits, a bullpen decision to Bello, the loss to Fedde, and an eighth consecutive victory — nine in the last ten — that lifts the Crimson Hose to three-and-sixty wins, a bare half-game behind the Pinstripes for the American's first wild-card chair and five behind Tampa Bay. The Chicagos have now dropped three straight yet still hold the Central by three; their truer wound was struck in the seventh inning, when a fastball found their new catcher's hand — the news column has the particulars. The clubs part company, each to fresh business this very evening.

News Around the League

THE MAGISTRATES RENDER THEIR VERDICT IN SEATTLE: THREE GAMES FOR SPEIER, ONE FOR HIS MANAGER

The kettle the Herald left upon the stove yesterday has been attended to by the authorities. The league on Thursday handed Gabe Speier, the Seattle left-hander, a three-game suspension and a fine for what it termed the intentional throwing at Detroit's Torres in Wednesday's eighth inning — the spark that emptied both benches. Manager Dan Wilson drew a single game and served it at once, the first suspension of his baseball life as player or skipper, with Manny Acta holding the tiller for Thursday's finale. Speier has entered his appeal, so his sentence waits in abeyance; managers are afforded no such recourse. As for the field, Detroit's answer to the whole affair was an eleven-run thrashing, itemized upon the card below — vengeance, it seems, prefers the scoreboard to the fist.

THE INFIRMARY WARD RECEIVES TWO: BART'S HAND IS BROKEN, AND PIVETTA'S ELBOW COUNSELS PATIENCE

A grim intake at the ward. Joey Bart, the catcher Chicago's Pale Hose fetched from Pittsburgh at Monday's deadline, took a fastball of seven-and-ninety miles upon his left hand in the seventh inning at Fenway — his second start in his new colors — and the examination found a fracture of the fifth metacarpal. To the injured list he goes, and the club must improvise behind the plate, for Kyle Teel already convalesces there with a turned ankle; Drew Romo finished Thursday's marathon in his stead.

In the desert, the Friars have drawn the reins on Nick Pivetta's comeback. The right-hander, absent since April with a flexor strain, left Tuesday's rehabilitation outing after fourteen pitches with tightness in the elbow, and the club has paused his progression some days while the cause is weighed — he missed his scheduled bullpen session Thursday, and his next start will not come on time. San Diego preaches diligence over haste, and with new arms lately added to the rotation, it can afford the sermon.

THE ABSENT ACE STIRS: CROCHET RESUMES HIS THROWING, AND THE BULLPEN DOOR STANDS AJAR

In Boston, where the club has compiled a scarcely creditable five-and-twenty wins against three defeats since the third of July, the man missing from the feast has begun to set his place. Garrett Crochet, idle since the five-and-twentieth of April with the ailing left shoulder, took up a throwing program at the week's beginning and pronounces himself hopeful of pitching again before the season's close — into October, if fortune allows. The club weighs whether a relief role might hasten the return, and the interim manager Tracy allows that the notion is squarely on the table. The ace himself, watching the surge from the rail, calls it the wildest run he has ever beheld — the Herald has amended his phrasing for a family readership.

THE WIRES RAISE THE STAKES ON ALVAREZ: NOT MERELY THE AMERICAN'S CROWN, BUT ALL OF BASEBALL'S

Yesterday the Herald noted Yordan Alvarez atop all three of the American's batting columns; today the wires enlarge the canvas. The Houston colossus — .329, five-and-thirty homers, five-and-eighty runs batted in — leads not just his league but the whole of the majors in average and home runs, and stalks the overall runs-batted-in lead besides, where Washington's Abrams sits at eight-and-eighty. No man has swept all three columns across both leagues since Mickey Mantle in 1956, seventy years gone. The pursuit is genuine: Arraez bats .326 in Philadelphia livery, and the power column crowds with Schwarber and Colorado's Goodman at three-and-thirty apiece. The Herald repeats yesterday's discipline — no prophecy — but observes that the company Alvarez now keeps is measured in bronze.

THE ALMANAC MARKS THURSDAY NEXT: BASEBALL RETURNS TO THE IOWA CORN

Let the reader circle the thirteenth of August. After a four-year absence for the refurbishment of the grounds, the major leagues return to the Field of Dreams site at Dyersville, Iowa, where the Quakers and the Twins — both clubs presently seated at the wild-card table — will contest the third edition of the corn-field game on Thursday next at half past seven, Eastern. The broadcast belongs exclusively to the Netflix concern, the third such live offering of its new arrangement with the league. The Herald, which holds that a diamond cut from a cornfield is precisely the sort of sentiment this column exists to indulge, will have its glass raised.

The Rest of the Card

EIGHTEEN KNOCKS AND A FOUR-RUN EIGHTH SETTLE IT BEYOND APPEAL: METROPOLITANS 13, LAKE ERIE MEN 6

New York battered Cleveland with eighteen hits, Semien and Torrens striking early circuits, Lindor a three-run blow in the seventh — his tenth — and the eighth inning yielding four runs by way of a double, two bases-loaded walks, and Bichette's single. McLean took his eighth victory against seven defeats; Griffin fell to twelve-and-four. Lowe's three-run homer had briefly kept the home nine in the conversation. The Metropolitans have won three straight in their spoiler's summer; the Cleveland nine has lost three running and clings to the wild-card line's last half-chair.

FOUR CIRCUITS AND A FIRST HOME SWEEP FOR THE QUEEN CITY: REDS 6, WHITE ELEPHANTS 5

De La Cruz, Stewart, Bleday, and Stephenson each cleared the Cincinnati wall — Stewart's five-and-twentieth runs his ledger to seven-and-eighty driven in, second in the National — and the Reds withstood a two-run ninth, Burke barring the door for his second save. The wires note it is Cincinnati's first home sweep of the season, and the club has won four straight to stay within sight of the wild-card table. For the Elephants, whose Serven homered in the late rally, the defeat is an eighth in succession — one win in the last ten.

MAY MAKES HIMSELF AT HOME AMONG THE LEAGUE'S BEST LEDGER: CREAM CITY NINE 5, CORSAIRS 2

Dustin May, newly arrived in Milwaukee, gave the sort of workmanlike start his new employers had in mind and took the decision, with Chourio and Sánchez supplying home runs and Patrick the fifth seal. Lowe's four-and-twentieth circuit accounted for Pittsburgh's scoring. The Brewers stand at two-and-seventy wins, still the game's finest mark; the Corsairs have dropped three running, and Ashcraft bore the loss.

THE WINNING RUN ARRIVES BY LARCENY IN THE ELEVENTH: BRUINS 3, TORONTOS 2

A curious evening at Wrigley: Toronto's first run scored upon a disengagement violation — the modern rulebook's gift to the scorer's imagination — and Chicago's last scored without benefit of a hit at all. Down two in the ninth, Bregman struck a two-run homer, his twelfth, to level matters; in the eleventh, Crow-Armstrong and Suzuki set off on a double steal, the catcher Valenzuela's throw sailed wide, and Crow-Armstrong trotted home with the verdict. Thornton took the decision in relief. The Cubs have won four straight and hold the National's first wild-card chair; the Maple Leaf nine departs for Philadelphia.

AN ELEVEN-RUN SERMON DELIVERED THE MORNING AFTER THE QUARREL: BENGALS 11, PUGET SOUND MEN 0

A day after the benches emptied, Detroit conducted its rebuttal entirely in runs: sixteen hits, McGonigle and Dingler over the wall — the catcher's six-and-twentieth, with three driven in, lifts him to eight-and-seventy runs batted in, second in the American — and Valdez pitching the shutout's spine for his seventh victory. Seattle managed seven scattered hits and no answer. The Bengals thus take the powder-keg series and creep within a game of the American's wild-card line, while the M's slide to four games below the level mark.

EIGHT DOUBLES CARRY THE FREIGHT, AND A DEBUTANT ANSWERS WITH FOUR HUNDRED FEET: QUAKERS 7, SENATORS 3

Philadelphia rapped sixteen hits, eight of them doubles — Stott claiming two — and lifted Sánchez to a league-best fifteenth victory on an evening when the great left-hander was, by his standards, mortal and brief. The visitors' consolation was historic: Andrew Pinckney, lately summoned to the capital's colors, struck his first major-league hit clean over the wall — a four-hundred-and-two-foot homer off the National's winningest arm, a first entry to tell the grandchildren about. Washington has now dropped eight of ten; the Quakers hold the National's second wild-card chair.

ACUÑA STRIKES TWICE AND THE MARCH REACHES EIGHT: TOMAHAWK NINE 11, FISH 3

Ronald Acuña Jr. homered twice — the first of them, the wires attest, glancing off Miami leather on its way over the fence — and drove in three; Olson added his two-and-thirtieth circuit; Harris legged out his first triple of the year among two runs batted in; and Atlanta, rain-delayed an hour and more, required but two hours and seven-and-twenty minutes of actual baseball to administer the 11-to-3 verdict. Miami's gloves committed three errors in sympathy. The Braves have won eight straight — none in the National can say the same — and stand at seventy wins, whence they proceed to the Bronx this very evening.

TWO SINGLES IN THE EIGHTH TURN THE LEDGER OVER: TWIN CITIES NINE 4, ROYAL BLUES 3

Trailing by one entering the eighth, Minnesota strung the rally plain and honest: Bell singled home the tying run and Brooks Lee singled home two more, whereupon the remade relief corps — Funderburk for the victory, Gómez for his fifteenth save — closed the accounts. Lewis's thirteenth homer had kept the club within reach. Witt Jr. doubled and stole his one-and-thirtieth base, the American's best figure, in a losing cause. The Twins climb back to within a half-game of the wild-card line; Kansas City's long season lengthens.

NETO'S TWENTIETH SETTLES A TIDY EVENING'S WORK: SERAPHS 4, O'S 1

Zach Neto reached the twenty-homer mark and drove in three of the four Anaheim runs, Farris earned the first victory of his campaign in relief, and Natera Jr. affixed his second seal upon a 4-to-1 verdict. Baltimore's reply was confined to Pozo's first circuit of the year, and Young — for all his handsome eight-and-three ledger — took the defeat. The Birds thus slip a game off the wild-card line's edge; the Seraphs, whatever their station, played the evening like gentlemen of means.

TWELVE KNOCKS AND THE SEASON'S SERIES SQUARED IN THE DESERT: SAN DIEGO NINE 5, D-BACKS 1

San Diego collected twelve hits — France doubling twice, Tatis Jr. once — and spread five runs across the evening while Rodriguez took the decision and the relief corps kept Arizona to Moreno's lone run driven in. The victory, the wires observe, squares the season's series between these desert rivals and draws the Friars within a game of Arizona's hold on the National's final wild-card chair — a pursuit now conducted at arm's length, with two months to run. Drake bore the loss.

Tonight the almanac grants the full fifteen, and the connoisseur should budget the evening accordingly. The centerpiece wants no salesmanship: the eight-straight-winning Braves call upon the Pinstripes in the Bronx at five past seven, Mahle opposing Fried — seventy wins paying a visit to four-and-sixty. Boston, eight straight of its own, entertains the Elephants at ten past seven and will apply for nine; the Lake Erie men carry their troubles to the Central-leading Chicagos at forty past seven; and Wheeler, whose ten-and-two ledger and 2.49 figure adorn the Philadelphia bill, receives Toronto at forty past six. Westward, the Rays open in Seattle at forty-five past nine, Rasmussen and his ten victories against Gilbert, and the Cubs visit Kansas City, where young Lynch and his 1.96 figure await at ten past eight. Until the next dispatch, keep your scorecards near and your enthusiasms nearer.

~ THE HERALD ~