THE MORNING HORSEHIDE HERALD

THE PROTOCOL DESK: LOVULLO TENDERS AN APOLOGY, AND THE LEAGUE PRONOUNCES THE SPYGLASS LAWFUL WHEN WORKED FROM SECOND BASE

The shouting that enlivened Monday's contest in Phoenix has ended in a handshake. The reader will recall that during Arizona's seven-to-none defeat, the Diamondbacks' bench took loud exception to the Cubs' third-base coach Quinton Berry, who was observed relaying to Chicago runners at second base when the Arizona starter Kelly meant to throw his changeup — the runner then wiring the intelligence onward to the batsman. Manager Torey Lovullo, his pitching coach Kaplan, and his bench coach Banister hollered at Berry to knock it off; Chicago's bench coach Flaherty hollered back; and a fine cross-field row was had by all. Lovullo, believing a rule forbade such traffic, carried the question to Michael Hill, the league's senior vice president of on-field operations, and received his answer Tuesday: there is no such rule. Espionage conducted in plain view from the bag is honest labor, as it has been since the deadball days, and the remedy — as every catcher of the old school knew — is to change the signs, not to petition the authorities. Lovullo, to his credit, took the ruling like a sportsman and conveyed his apology to Craig Counsell. That evening Arizona beat Chicago anyway, by means entirely above board, as the lead column attests.

THE INFIRMARY WARD: JUDGE GRADUATES FROM THE TEE TO LIVING PITCHING, SCHMIDT PLOTS A RETURN BY WAY OF THE BULLPEN, AND BUXTON'S HIP SOUNDS ITS ALARM ONCE MORE

From the Bronx, encouraging bulletins: Aaron Judge, whose confinement to the batting tee this paper noted Monday, on Tuesday took his swings against overhand pitching in the indoor cages beneath Yankee Stadium — the first such since his right rib began mending — and ran the outfield besides, his throwing now stretched to a hundred feet. His manager Boone, nodding toward the dugout stairs, offered the medical opinion of the age: he looks good. In the same camp, Clarke Schmidt faced hitters in a live session and stands close to a rehabilitation assignment, the club minded to return him by way of the bullpen for the stretch drive.

The news runs darker in Minnesota, where Byron Buxton departed Tuesday's contest in the seventh inning after chasing a line drive into the right-center gap and pulling up in evident discomfort. The complaint is the familiar one — the right hip that has troubled him since May and twice lodged him on the injured list — and the deceleration required of an outfielder in full flight remains its cruelest test. He is to be examined again Wednesday, and the Twins hold their breath.

THE MILESTONE DESK: STEWART STANDS ONE SHY OF A HUNDRED, ALONSO GATHERS FOUR HITS IN PURSUIT, PETERS STALKS A CLUB RECORD, AND THE CROWN OF THREE GROWS HEAVIER

The hundred-mark watch narrows to a single tally. Sal Stewart of Cincinnati, who stood two short when yesterday's paper went to press, homered in the ninth inning at San Francisco — his eight-and-twentieth — and now sits at nine-and-ninety runs batted in, one stroke from the century. The Cardinal pair who lurk behind him, Burleson and Walker, were held at six-and-ninety apiece by an evening in which their entire club managed one run. In the American, Pete Alonso of the Baltimores put up four hits and four runs batted in at St. Louis, his one-and-thirtieth homer among them, and stands at nine-and-eighty — second in the league's table, now but two tallies behind Yordan Alvarez, whose crown of three grows heavier by the morning: the Houston colossus tripled and drove in his one-and-ninetieth in the Bronx, and leads the American in average at .323, in home runs at six-and-thirty, and in runs batted in, all at once. And on the South Side, the rookie Tristan Peters has now homered in four consecutive games — one shy of the club record of five, set by his own teammate Murakami earlier this summer — of which feat the rest of the card has more to say.

THE ANNALS DESK: NINE PITCHES, THREE VICTIMS — BRADLEY WRITES A PAGE NO TWIN HAD WRITTEN BEFORE

In the fifth inning at Sacramento's grounds Tuesday night, Taj Bradley of the Twins accomplished what no Minnesota pitcher is known to have accomplished in the franchise's long and pitching-proud annals: the immaculate inning — three batsmen retired on strikes, nine pitches, not one wasted. Cortes went down swinging at a splitter that dove beneath the zone; Serven chased a curveball to the same fate; and Bolte, the leadoff man, was frozen by a fastball of 99.8 miles per hour laid on the black at the bottom of the zone. The catcher Caratini confessed afterward that he called the final fastball simply because it was the best pitch, and history could look after itself. That the feat came in a losing cause — the Athletics took the game, four to two — is the sort of joke the pastime reserves for its finest single innings, and the Herald records it here so the annals need not blush.

THE WILLIAMSPORT DESK: MISS RASMUS OF ALABAMA REWRITES THE GIRLS' LEDGER

From South Williamsport, where this paper's attentions lingered all weekend, word of a legend still growing: Kinley Rasmus, the twelve-year-old two-way player out of Phenix City, Alabama — daughter of the former big-league pitcher Cory Rasmus and niece of the outfielder Colby — has set a new record for hits by a girl in the Little League World Series, five and counting, as her nine pulled out a four-to-two victory over the Soundview club of Tacoma to advance toward the tournament's final stages. This on the heels of Monday's work, when she tied Mo'ne Davis's mark of fourteen strikeouts, the most ever recorded by a girl in the Series — the pair of them numbering among just nine girls ever to take the hill at Williamsport. The Herald tips its cap, and suspects it will not be the last time it sets her name in type.