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

THE MORNING HORSEHIDE HERALD

"Every Score Set Down, No Deed Unsung"

~ Being a Faithful Daily Chronicle of the National Pastime ~

Volume I · No. 48 · Tuesday, the Five-and-Twentieth of August, Two Thousand and Twenty-Six

Reporting 10 contests from the day prior.

The Game of the Day

THE DESK'S APPOINTMENT IS KEPT, THOUGH NOT AS PHILADELPHIA DREW IT: RALEIGH, LONG BECALMED, STRIKES THREE HOME RUNS, WHEELER IS CHASED, AND THE STREAK DIES AT NINE — MARINERS 9, PHILADELPHIAS 2

The catcher who began the evening batting .159 ends it the thirteenth man in Seattle's annals with a three-homer game — a two-run blast to crown a five-run first, a back-to-back salvo with Young to open the fifth, a solo shot in the seventh — while the Philadelphia nine, riders of a season-best winning streak this paper has chronicled at every length, are sent to bed with two runs and a battered ace

The reader will recall that yesterday's desk note directed all eyes to Seattle at 9:40 Eastern, where Wheeler and his ten victories were to oppose Gilbert, and the Philadelphia nine were to unpack a nine-game winning streak from their westward luggage. The appointment was kept to the minute; the script was burned in the first inning. Philadelphia scratched a run from Bohm's ground-out, whereupon the home nine answered with five — Julio Rodríguez clearing the fence with two aboard for his twentieth, and Cal Raleigh, the switch-hitting catcher whose season has been one long penance at .159, capping the frame with a two-run blast. It was the first sentence of the finest chapter of his life.

For Raleigh opened the fifth with another homer, Cole Young followed him over the wall on the very next argument — the back-to-back salvo that chased Wheeler from the premises — and in the seventh he struck a third, a solo shot off the reliever Shugart, all three driven to the right-field quarter. No man had ever seen him do it: "I had never done that before — at any level. So, hard to fathom, and it was a fun night," the author testified, having gone three-for-three with a walk and lifted his average from .159 to .167. The researchers certify him the thirteenth Mariner to strike three home runs in a game — the last being his clubmate Canzone only last September — and the only other Seattle catcher ever to do it is one Dan Wilson, who now writes the lineup card on which Raleigh's name appears. The manager's fraternity, one supposes, has its own ways of passing down a trade secret.

The wreckage on the other side was considerable: Wheeler, sovereign of ten victories against four defeats at the evening's start, was relieved of nine hits, eight runs, and four home runs inside four innings, and departs at ten-and-five; Realmuto's ninth homer was the visitors' lone late ornament. Logan Gilbert took the decision, his eleventh, on five workmanlike innings. Thus the finest streak of Philadelphia's season perishes at nine — the Philadelphias remain three and a half astern of Atlanta and keep the National's second wild-card chair, so the mourning need not be prolonged — while the Emerald City nine, who gave their faithful two walk-off deliverances Friday and Saturday and then absorbed Chicago's nineteen-run sermon Sunday, have now taken three of four in that yard and stand three games from the American's final chair. The Sound, it appears, declines to be dull.

News Around the League

THE FRONT-OFFICE DESK: HOUSTON AND ITS GENERAL MANAGER PART COMPANY IN THE THICK OF A PENNANT RACE, AND ESPADA RETURNS TO HIS POST

The Houston club and its general manager Dana Brown have parted ways, the club announcing Monday what the wires describe as a mutual conclusion to a tenure begun in January of 2023 — two division titles to its credit, a contract expiring with the season, and a club that has lost six of its last eight engagements. The portfolio passes in commission to the assistant general managers Cook, Dickey, and Huff and to the senior adviser Jeff Bagwell, with the owner Crane overseeing the baseball operations himself through the transition — an arrangement the Herald observes without endorsement, owners' oversight of baseball matters having a mixed record in the annals. The timing is remarkable: the Houstons wake this morning half a game astern of the Lone Star nine in the West, their crown mislaid in idleness. There is gentler news from the same clubhouse — the manager Joe Espada, called away by a family emergency, rejoins his men for this evening's opener in the Bronx, which the schedule confirms for five minutes past seven, Eastern.

THE LABOR QUESTION: MANFRED PLEDGES THAT BASEBALL MEANS TO PLAY IN '27, AND THE HERALD TAKES THE PLEDGE UNDER ADVISEMENT

From the same Williamsport broadcast that appointed next year's Little League Classic — as this paper related Monday — the Commissioner Manfred addressed the graver matter: the collective bargain between the clubs and the players' union expires at one minute before midnight on the first of December, and the question of the 2027 season hangs upon its renewal. "We want to make a deal. We want to play baseball next year. We're planning on playing baseball next year," the Commissioner declared, reporting weekly conferences between the parties. The Herald prints the pledge faithfully and notes what follows it: the owners' chief object in the negotiation is a salary cap, the union's answer that the economic order wants no such overhaul — their asks running instead to a raised minimum wage, a loosened luxury-tax collar, and a fattened bonus pool for the young and underpaid — and the wires' sober assessment that, failing a bargain by the deadline, the likeliest course is a lockout of the players by the owners, shutting the game's business entire. On the merits the Herald's sympathies are of record and lie with the workingmen; as for the owners' capacity to pay, the reader need only consult the counting-house item below, where a franchise has just changed hands for a sum with a b in it.

THE COUNTING-HOUSE DESK: SAN DIEGO'S NEW PROPRIETORS ARRIVE WITH A SONG, TWO JERSEYS, AND THREE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED MILLIONS

The Padres formally presented their new proprietors Monday at Petco Park: Jose E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones, husband and wife, who purchased the franchise at a valuation of $3.9 billion — the grandest price ever fetched by a baseball club — and were approved without dissent by the other nine-and-twenty owners a week past. The hour-long introduction opened with a song of Ms. Jones' own composition and closed with the couple in customized jerseys, and between came the substance: the purchase styled a "family investment," a pledge to spend "ambitiously" yet "judiciously," and repeated homage to the late Peter Seidler, whose open-handed stewardship the faithful of San Diego remember warmly. "We wanna win," Mr. Feliciano summarized. The Herald extends its welcome, notes that forty thousand four hundred forty-seven attended that very evening's twelve-inning engagement — the card below has its sorrows — and files the sale price where it belongs: in the ledger consulted whenever an owner next pleads poverty.

THE INFIRMARY WARD: FAIRBANKS' ARM SOUNDS ITS ALARM AGAIN, TOGLIA AND EMERSON GO UNDER THE KNIFE, AND PHOENIX HOPES FOR MARTE WITHIN THE WEEK

The gravest entry issues from Miami, where the closer Pete Fairbanks — seven seasons a Ray, now the Marlins' keeper of eighteen saves — felt nerve irritation and numbness through his throwing arm in the ninth inning Monday, walked the only man he faced, and departed; the walk became the deciding run, as the card below relates. The complaint is an old acquaintance, having cost him three weeks after a like episode in April — "Both of them weren't good," the patient allowed — and he submits to examinations this day.

Two seasons end upon the operating table. In Cincinnati, Michael Toglia — whose wounded shoulder this paper's ward first recorded Saturday — has his torn labrum repaired Tuesday, the price of a diving catch made in Arizona; the manager Francona reports the man had sworn he could play, which is admirable and immaterial. And in Seattle, the rookie shortstop Colt Emerson, one-and-twenty years of age and owner of an eight-year fortune signed before he had played a major-league game, will have a wrist tendon set right Wednesday, his trying freshman season closed at .190; the club expects him whole by spring, and his clubmate Bryan Woo, pronounced fit, takes his scheduled turn Wednesday. In Phoenix, at last, a hopeful line: the Diamondbacks believe Ketel Marte — whose saga this paper has chronicled past all appetite — may rejoin the lineup within the week.

THE MILESTONE DESK: STEWART STANDS TWO SHORT OF A HUNDRED, THE CARDINAL PAIR LURK AT SIX-AND-NINETY, AND ALVAREZ'S CROWN OF THREE SURVIVES AN IDLE MONDAY

The freshman Sal Stewart of Cincinnati was held without a tally in Monday's whitewash by the Bay, and so stands where he stood: eight-and-ninety runs driven home, master of all baseball's table, two short of the hundred mark and still pursuing the distinction — unclaimed by any rookie since 1950 — of leading the major leagues outright. His shadow has two heads and wears Cardinal red: Burleson and Walker, six-and-ninety apiece, idle Monday and losing no ground. In the American the arithmetic likewise kept the Sabbath: Yordan Alvarez, his club unengaged, holds his crown of three untouched — .320, six-and-thirty homers, ninety runs driven in, first in every column — though the Herald notes Caminero of Tampa Bay one homer astern, and observes that a Triple Crown defended from a deck chair is defended all the same.

The Rest of the Card

TWO IN THE NINTH, TAKEN FROM A WOUNDED HAND: RED SOX 4, MIAMI NINE 2, AND THE COUNT RUNS TO FOUR STRAIGHT

For eight innings Miami had the better of the argument's texture — Alcantara dealing seven innings of one-run ball — and none of its arithmetic: Abreu scored the equalizer on a wild pitch in the eighth, and in the ninth the stricken Fairbanks walked Gasper and departed with the arm trouble the infirmary ward records, whereupon Seigler tripled home the go-ahead run and Sogard singled in another. Chapman barred the door for his thirtieth save. Four straight now for the New Englanders, seven of ten, their wild-card cushion ample; the walk Fairbanks issued became his defeat, and the Miami nine slip to four astern of the National's final chair.

THE MACHINE DOES NOT REQUIRE DRAMA: GULF COAST CLUB 4, TIGERS 1, AND RASMUSSEN MAKES IT SEVEN RUNNING

Drew Rasmussen collected his seventh consecutive victory by the simplest of recipes — six innings, three hits, one run — while Aranda supplied a sixteenth homer and two runs driven in, Simpson dropped a bunt for a run with the insolence of a man batting .312, and Baker sealed his eight-and-thirtieth save. The league leaders thus hold their three-and-a-half-game advantage over the Bronx; the Tigers, whose evening amounted to five hits and Callahan's sacrifice fly, have now dropped six running — one victory in their last ten — and the Motor City's September reading grows grim.

THE SHORTSTOP RETURNS AND THE OFFENSE REMEMBERS ITSELF: POTOMAC NINE 13, MILE HIGH NINE 3

Restored to the lineup, CJ Abrams scored twice, stole twice, and presided over a thirteen-run festival — Daylen Lile the chief celebrant with three hits, a sixteenth homer, and five runs driven in, Vivas adding three hits of his own — while Cade Cavalli struck out seven across six innings for his twelfth victory. "Now we go," runs the clubhouse verdict on the wires. For Colorado, Tovar's two hits and a homer were the ornament on a seventh consecutive defeat; the Mile High nine departed the Capital outscored beyond argument.

SEAGER CONDUCTS, BURGER AND LANGFORD SUPPLY THE BRASS, AND THE WEST'S CROWN FINDS A SINGLE HEAD: LONE STAR NINE 11, CHICAGOS 2

Texas struck early, often, and then again: Seager three hits and three runs driven in with a pair of doubles, Burger a two-and-twentieth homer among his two hits, Langford a fifteenth to close the accounts, fourteen hits in the whole demonstration behind Rocker's eight strikeouts. The visiting defense contributed its own theater — Nimmo at full extension above the right-field fence to rob Benintendi outright — and the home dugout its melancholy: Pederson, denied upon a challenge to the automated ball-strike arbiter, banged his bat and was invited to leave. Peters' two-run homer, the tenth of his year, was all the Chicagos could answer; and with Houston idle, the Lone Star nine take sole possession of the West's chair at six-and-sixty wins against the like number of defeats — a crown at the break-even line, but a crown unshared.

A HOMER FOR THE VISITING PEWS: GUARDIANS 4, SERAPHS 2, AND THE STREAK REACHES FIVE

Austin Hedges, with his parents in attendance, struck a two-run homer — his fifth — that stood as the difference, Kwan collected two hits, and Messick pitched to his tenth victory before Smith closed his four-and-thirtieth save. A fifth consecutive victory for Cleveland, seven of ten by the ledger, and the consequence is recorded in this evening's desk note: the American's final wild-card chair, so long a boarding-house, now holds a single tenant. The Seraphs' consolations were two hits off the bench from Lowe and the certainty of a warm evening in Anaheim.

GAUSMAN DEALS SEVEN SPOTLESS AND THE DESERT GOES HUNGRY: CUBS 7, DIAMONDBACKS 0

Kevin Gausman threw seven scoreless innings on three hits, and his employers, fresh from Sunday's nineteen-run sermon by the Sound, kept the pulpit: Conforto three hits with a twelfth homer, Carson Kelly an eighth, the rookie Pedro Ramírez a triple among his two hits, and a three-run sixth followed by two more in the seventh to end the suspense. The whitewash is Chicago's second consecutive victory; for Arizona it is a graver matter, the Diamondbacks falling two games astern of San Diego in the pursuit of the National's final chair — with, as the infirmary ward relates, hope of Marte's return the week's best medicine.

BUXTON SCORES FROM EVERYWHERE AND THE NINTH-INNING RALLY ARRIVES TOO LATE: NORTH STARS 9, WHITE ELEPHANTS 6

Buxton crossed the plate four times upon three hits, the rookie Culpepper collected four hits, Bell drove home three, and Zebby Matthews carried a commanding evening through seven innings; when the White Elephants awoke for four runs in the ninth — McNeil, Gelof, and Butler doubling in file — the awakening was academic, and Morris recorded the final out for the save. Sixteen hits for the North Stars, who remain two from the American's final chair; for the Athletics, a twelve-hit evening wasted, and a reminder that arithmetic performed in the ninth earns no interest.

TWELVE INNINGS, FOUR HOURS AND TEN MINUTES, AND ONE RUN TO SHOW THE NEW PROPRIETORS: CORSAIRS 3, PADRES 2

On the very evening San Diego's new owners took their bows — the counting-house desk has the ceremony — forty thousand four hundred forty-seven watched the home nine spend twelve innings discovering that the visitors would not oblige. Valdez's fifteenth homer and Flores Jr.'s double built Pittsburgh's lead; a balk and Cronenworth's eighth-inning single leveled it; and in the twelfth Nick Gonzales — he of the .308 average, second in the National's batting table — singled home Triolo for the verdict. Yates profited, Ramírez sealed his second save, and the Padres' grip on the National's third chair holds at two games over Arizona, the evening's four hours and ten minutes notwithstanding.

FIVE RUNS IN TWO INNINGS OFF THE FOURTEEN-GAME WINNER, AND THE SHORN GIANTS SHUT OUT THE REDS: JINTS 5, CINCINNATI 0

The San Franciscans took the field Monday having consigned four men to the infirmary in a single day's transactions — Adames' elbow, Bericoto's knee, Brubaker's ribs, and Eldridge away on bereavement — recalled five from Sacramento to fill the pews, and then played their finest game in a fortnight: five runs inside two innings off Chase Burns, owner of fourteen victories against but two defeats at the evening's start, crowned by Devers' three-run homer, his seven-and-twentieth. Six pitchers passed the whitewash hand to hand, Foley taking the decision. Burns falls to fourteen-and-three; the Reds, blanked on five hits and further bereaved of Toglia — see the ward — find their September arithmetic unimproved.

The arithmetic desk reports a morning of consequence at both ends of the American's ledger. The final wild-card chair, which has been let by the room and by the half-week all month, this morning holds one tenant alone: Cleveland, winners of five running, at six-and-sixty wins against six-and-sixty defeats — and thus, for the first time in this desk's recent chronicle, the chair's occupant sits no lower than the break-even line. The eviction was accomplished upward, Texas departing the wild-card row entirely to take sole possession of the West's crown at the identical break-even figure, with Houston half a game astern in both accountings and this morning without a general manager besides, as the front-office desk relates. Behind Cleveland: Houston at half a game, Minnesota and Toronto two, Baltimore two and a half, Seattle three. In the National the chairs hold — the Cubs, Philadelphia with its streak freshly buried at nine, and San Diego, with Arizona two astern and Miami four. The card this evening runs to the full fifteen engagements, all verified against the schedule: the Brewers send Harrison and his ten victories to Flushing at 7:10; the champions and the Atlantas resume their collision at 7:15, Glasnow opposing Elder; Espada resumes his post as the Houstons open in the Bronx at 7:05; and by the Pacific, Skenes and his hundred-and-seventy-one strikeouts visit San Diego at 9:40. Until the morrow's dispatch, keep your scorecards near and your enthusiasms nearer.

~ THE HERALD ~

The Herald Acknowledges Its Debts