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. 50 · Thursday, the Seven-and-Twentieth of August, Two Thousand and Twenty-Six

Reporting 15 contests from the day prior.

The Game of the Day

THE LEDGER SAID TWO THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED EIGHT TO NOUGHT — THE NINTH INNING SAID OTHERWISE: CINCINNATIS 10, BAY NINE 9

Six runs in arrears with three outs left to their name, the Reds send eleven men to the plate against a franchise that in 2,208 previous trials had never once surrendered such a lead: the rookie Rodríguez opens the frame with a splash into McCovey Cove, Suárez — set upon the waiver wire by that very morning's report — answers with a grand slam, and the tying and winning runs arrive by bunt, theft, and sacrifice, the club's first such resurrection since 1958

In all the recorded history of the San Francisco franchise, the club had carried a lead of six runs or better into the ninth inning on two thousand two hundred eight occasions, and two thousand two hundred eight times it had come away the winner. That was the ledger the Cincinnatis consulted when they batted in the ninth at Oracle Park on Wednesday night, trailing nine runs to three — a deficit built while their starter Lodolo labored through four innings and Devers (his nine-and-twentieth homer), Cox and Whitcomb likewise clearing the fence, and Gilbert with three runs driven in feasted at their leisure. Cincinnati's manager Francona had spent Tuesday night in conference with his hitting counselors Benavides and Napoli before settling on a novelty: the two-and-twenty-year-old rookie Héctor Rodríguez, called up only this fourth of August, would bat leadoff — ahead of De La Cruz — and the experiment survived even San Francisco's late announcement, three hours before the first pitch, that the ace Webb had been moved up to oppose him. Rodríguez tied the game once already with a homer in the third; the ledger, as noted, was unimpressed.

Then came the ninth, and the ledger was burned. Rodríguez opened it with a blast over the right-field wall struck at 115 miles to the hour, a drive of some 423 feet that did not stop at the seats but found the waters of McCovey Cove itself — just the third splash hit ever authored by a Cincinnati man, and the first since Votto and Moustakas managed it on consecutive days in April of 2021. "That big homer by Héctor woke us up in the dugout," testified Eugenio Suárez — and here the morning's cruelest irony bears telling, for the wires had reported only that day that Suárez and his clubmate Friedl were placed on waivers, as the dealings desk relates below. The reliever Bivens filled the bases without recording an out, whereupon the waived man deposited a grand slam into the left-center seats, his nineteenth homer, and nine-to-three had become nine-to-eight. The rest was deadball chapter and verse: Myers beat out a bunt and advanced on the throw gone astray, McLain bunted for another single, stole second, and took third as Trevino's sacrifice fly leveled the account, and the pinch-hitter Stephenson lined the go-ahead single to left. Pagán closed the door on his seventeenth save; the win fell to Santillan, the loss to the unfortunate Smith, now nought-and-five.

Eleven men to the plate, seven runs across, and a page of history rewritten: the researchers certify it just the third victory in all the Reds' annals when trailing by six or more entering the ninth — and by some prank of the almanac both predecessors fell upon the eighth of May, one in 1918 at St. Louis, the other in 1958 at Chicago. Nor was the evening's only century concern the ledger's: Sal Stewart's sacrifice fly in the seventh, modest freight at the time, carried the rookie to one hundred runs batted in, of which the milestone desk sings below. Cincinnati stands but three-and-sixty wins against one-and-seventy defeats, and the pennant tables will scarcely notice; but a three-game skid is snapped, and the annals will remember this one long after the standings have forgotten the year.

News Around the League

THE DEALINGS DESK: CINCINNATI SETS SUÁREZ AND FRIEDL UPON THE WAIVER WIRE — AND SUÁREZ ANSWERS WITH A GRAND SLAM BY NIGHTFALL

The wires report — the account issuing from Rosenthal of The Athletic, the club itself declining to confirm — that the Reds have placed the veteran slugger Eugenio Suárez and the outfielder TJ Friedl on waivers, opening a window of eight-and-forty hours in which any of the other nine-and-twenty clubs may claim either man. Suárez, five-and-thirty years of age, returned to Cincinnati on a one-year engagement of fifteen millions after eight seasons there earlier in his career, and has struggled to a .705 mark by the OPS ledger across 103 games — though the reader of the lead column knows what he did Wednesday night with the waiver wire fresh about his shoulders, and his nineteenth homer of the year was no modest one. Friedl's season has run crueler still: a .476 OPS across six-and-seventy games, lowest among the 274 batsmen with two hundred fifty trips to the plate, and a June spent largely in the minors — a far cry from the .742 he posted only last season. The Herald observes that the waiver wire has rarely received a man on the very evening of his grandest swing, and awaits the claiming clubs' verdict with interest.

THE INFIRMARY WARD: SASAKI'S FINGER BETRAYS HIM IN ATLANTA, THE FIFTEEN-DAY LIST BECKONS, AND THE UNICORN'S RETURN DRAWS NEARER STILL

The Los Angeles rotation, so lately restored to nearly full strength, is short a man again. Roki Sasaki departed Wednesday's engagement at Atlanta in the fourth inning, undone by a blister upon his right middle finger — "My skin just ripped off, and then after that, it got worse," the four-and-twenty-year-old related through his interpreter — and his manager Roberts pronounced the sentence afterward: the fifteen-day injured list, there being, in the manager's words, no way to avoid it given the severity. Sasaki was charged four runs on six hits across three and one-third innings, an abrupt halt to a stretch in which he had pitched to a 2.31 earned-run figure over six starts; the left-hander Lauer stands in position to take his turn. The ward notes the fuller accounting: Glasnow returned Tuesday, Snell on the eleventh of August, and Shohei Ohtani — whose progress toward the mound this paper has tracked since the four-and-twentieth — is expected to rejoin the rotation within the week. The unicorn paws at the gate yet.

THE MILESTONE DESK: STEWART'S HUNDRED ARRIVES ON A SACRIFICE FLY, SCHWARBER IS FIRST OF ALL BASEBALL TO FORTY, AND ALONSO DRAWS LEVEL WITH ALVAREZ'S CROWN

Three vigils this desk has kept all week, and two of them ended in a single evening. Sal Stewart of Cincinnati, one stroke shy when yesterday's paper went to press, lifted a bases-loaded sacrifice fly in the seventh at San Francisco and became a man of one hundred runs batted in — master of all baseball's table, the Cardinal pair Burleson and Walker trailing at eight-and-ninety and seven-and-ninety after their own six-run fifth in defeat, as the card relates — with the rookie's larger distinction, a runs-batted-in title unclaimed by any freshman since 1950, still there for the seizing. In Seattle, Kyle Schwarber struck a three-run blast off Woo in the second inning, his fortieth of the season and the first fortieth in either league this year: a fourth forty-homer campaign in five Philadelphia summers, drawing him level with Ryan Howard for the most in that franchise's history, and level besides with Ohtani and Judge for the most among all men now active. And in the American, the crown of three this paper has chronicled upon Yordan Alvarez's brow is besieged at one corner: Pete Alonso of the Orioles drove home two at St. Louis, his two-and-thirtieth homer among them, and stands level with the idle-handed Houston colossus at one-and-ninety runs batted in apiece — though Alvarez holds the batting table at .322 and the homer column at six-and-thirty, with Caminero and Rice a single blast astern at five-and-thirty.

THE RECORDS DESK: FIVE EVENINGS, FIVE HOME RUNS — PETERS JOINS THE WHITE STOCKINGS' PANTHEON, AND NO CLUB SINCE 1900 HAS RAISED TWO SUCH ROOKIES IN ONE SUMMER

The watch this desk posted two mornings ago is concluded: Tristan Peters, the White Stockings' rookie left fielder, homered for a fifth consecutive game Wednesday — a two-run blast off the Texas reliever Ahlstrom in the sixth, and the first homer of his major-league life struck off a left-hander — to draw level with the franchise record, a summit shared by seven men across eight prior occasions, among them Frank Thomas twice in 1994, Kittle, Luzinski, and his own clubmate Murakami earlier this very season. Five straight likewise ties the longest streak ever fashioned by a rookie, and the researchers at Elias certify the stranger distinction: no club since at least 1900 had ever raised two rookies to a home-run streak of five games in a single summer until the South Side managed it twice in one. The all-time mark of eight, held by Griffey Jr., Mattingly, and Dale Long, now sits three evenings distant. "That's crazy," the author allowed. The arithmetic behind the fireworks: since the eighth of August, Peters is batting .400 with six homers across eighteen games — and for a second consecutive victory he finished a triple shy of the cycle.

THE ALMANAC DESK: SKUBAL IS APPOINTED FOR COMERICA PARK ON FRIDAY, WHERE THE TIGERS WILL BEHOLD THEIR OWN LATE ACE IN VISITING FLANNELS

The schedule, consulted and confirmed, offers Friday evening a reunion of rare theater: the Dodgers open their weekend engagement at Detroit at 6:40 by the Eastern clock, and Los Angeles has announced that Tarik Skubal — winner of consecutive American League Cy Young Awards in 2024 and 2025, all of it in Detroit flannels — will take the Comerica Park mound against the club that raised him, for the first time since the blockbuster that carried him west before the third-of-August deadline. The southpaw has pitched to a 3.38 earned-run figure across four Los Angeles starts, striking out thirty against seven walks, and collected his first victory in the new livery on Saturday last with eleven strikeouts against Pittsburgh. Of the parting he has said the emotions ran a rollercoaster — "The goal was always to win a World Series for the city" — and the Herald expects Comerica's reception Friday to say the rest.

The Rest of the Card

THE COLLISION'S SECOND ACT GOES TO THE HOME NINE AT THE LAST SWING: KIM, HITLESS SINCE JUNE, SINGLES HOME THE VERDICT — PEACHTREE NINE 6, BOYS IN BLUE 5

The heavyweight engagement between the National's two grandest records produced a second straight one-run verdict for Atlanta, and an ending no dramatist would have dared submit. Level at five apiece in the ninth — Edman having driven home three for the visitors and homered his fifth, Olson's seven-and-thirtieth and the catcher Murphy's first anchoring the home ledger — the home nine put the winning run aboard with two out and sent up Ha-Seong Kim, a man without a base hit since the third of June, owner of an 0-for-27 famine, a .068 opening act across his first seven-and-twenty games, and a twenty-million-dollar salary lately whispered of as sunk cost. Kim ran the count to three-and-nought against the closer Scott, took a called strike, spoiled three further offerings, and laced a 97-mile four-seamer to left for the walk-off — his first hit in nearly three months, and the sweetest of his American life. The win fell to Mederos, the loss to Scott, now one-and-five; Sasaki's early exit is the ward's business above. Atlanta has won three running; the third act goes this very evening at 7:15, Yamamoto opposing Sale — Sale and Yamamoto owning the National's second- and fourth-best earned-run figures respectively, and one box score to share between them.

A CORRECTION ADMINISTERED IN THE BRONX, AND THE CROWN QUESTION HOLDS: PINSTRIPES 9, SPACE CITY NINE 3

New York settled Wednesday's business early and thoroughly: Rice struck his five-and-thirtieth homer — drawing level with Caminero, one behind Alvarez's American lead — while García Jr. added his eight-and-twentieth with two driven in, and Bellinger chipped in a pair of his own as nine runs crossed against three in reply. Blackburn, whose work this paper commended only Monday against Toronto, ran his ledger to six-and-two; Sousa bore the Houston loss. Varsho's tenth homer and Altuve's double were the visitors' consolation, and the arithmetic holds its breath: with Texas also beaten, Houston keeps the West's crown by the same half game, the finale of the set appointed for 7:05 this evening with Cole opposing Wesneski.

PERALTA, TWICE TRADED AND LONG SUFFERING, FINDS HIS FASTBALL AT COMERICA: SUNSHINE NINE 3, BENGALS 0

Freddy Peralta — dealt by Milwaukee to the Mets in January, dealt again to Tampa Bay on the second of August, and carrying a sorrowful five-and-eleven ledger into the afternoon — pitched six scoreless innings on two hits with nary a walk for his first victory in his newest flannels, looking every inch the man who won seventeen a season ago. The Bengals' entire offense was two opposite-field singles, by Dingler and Callahan; Kelly and Wells (his fifth save) closed the whitewash. Hicks drove home a run, DeLuca doubled home another, and Mullins cashed the third, and the rubber game broke Tampa Bay's season-high run of three consecutive series lost. The league leaders thus hold the East by three games and a half over the Bronx; the Bengals surrender the set a day after Clark's heroics graced these pages.

RODRIGUEZ OUTDUELS BOYD, AND THE BALK THAT WASN'T DECIDES WHAT THE BATS COULD NOT: SNAKES 2, BRUINS 0

A proper pitchers' argument in the desert — Eduardo Rodriguez running his ledger to fourteen-and-four against Boyd's dazzling eight innings' work — turned on a call not made. With Crow-Armstrong at third in the sixth, Rodriguez appeared to step off the rubber mid-windup as the runner broke for home; no balk was called, the play being beyond review's reach, and the crew chief Márquez confessed afterward that one should have been. Chicago stranded its man, whereupon Lawlar homered in the bottom half, his third, and Waldschmidt — Tuesday's midnight hero in these pages — drove home the insurance. Two hits the whole evening for the Bruins, Morillo sealing the second save. The Snakes take the rubber match and draw within a single game of San Diego for the National's last chair; the Cubs, their cushion in the wild-card row still four games, will want the memory of this trip burned.

TWICE IN TWO NIGHTS THE NINTH BELONGS TO CLEVELAND: FOREST CITY NINE 4, ANGELS 3, AND THE STREAK RUNS TO SEVEN

One evening after Ramírez's three-double resurrection graced these pages, the Forest City men did it again: trailing three-to-two with but two outs remaining, they summoned DeLauter — kept from the starting lineup a third straight day by a balky left hamstring — and he promptly singled the tying run aboard. Two runs crossed before the inning closed, Bazzana driving home a pair on the night and Kwan and Lowe the rest, and Sabrowski recorded his first save behind the winner Gaddis. The particulars beggar belief: Anaheim managed but three hits and still nearly won; Cleveland has taken seven running, matching its season best, swept the set, and closed a road expedition six victories to none. The final wild-card chair is theirs by two full games over Texas, with the Central's summit but two and a half distant — and the Herald reminds the reader that this same club sat level at the break-even line only Tuesday morning.

SCHWARBER'S FORTIETH ANCHORS A SIX-RUN ARGUMENT BY THE SOUND: PHILS 6, SEATTLE MEN 0

The Philadelphias, twice beaten in this yard since their nine-game streak perished, salvaged the finale emphatically: two runs in the first, four in the second — Schwarber's three-run fortieth, the milestone desk's business above, and Harper's seven-and-twentieth in close company — and Luzardo did the rest, running his ledger to twelve-and-five with Seattle held to two hits entire. Woo absorbed the damage. The Phils hold the National's second wild-card chair at two games' cushion and depart for Anaheim; Seattle, blanked at home, remains in the thick of nothing so much as its own frustrations.

A SHUTOUT FROM THE SHORTHANDED: SAN DIEGO NINE 3, ALLEGHENYS 0

With the bullpen chieftains Miller and Morejon both unavailable, the San Diego relief corps followed Vásquez — ten victories now against six defeats — through a whitewash of Pittsburgh, the rookie Chandler taking the loss and Rodriguez sealing the second save. Merrill supplied a triple and a double and drove home a run, Cronenworth and Rengifo the others, and the Alleghenys' five hits included Gonzales's evening at shortstop marred by his fifteenth error. The Friars' grip on the National's last chair thus survives the desert's gains: one game, no more, as the card above relates.

FOUR ERRORS, NO RUNS, AND THE STREAK DIES AT FIVE: FISH 4, CRIMSON HOSE 0

Boston's five-game run of victories perished by its own hand at Miami: four errors — two apiece by Sogard and Wong — behind Gray, the American's leader in victories, who fell to sixteen-and-four despite modest damage of the earned variety. The Fish needed no more: Sanoja stole three bases and drove home a run, Hernández cashed another and swiped his ninth, and Gusto claimed his first victory of the season with the shutout's lion's share. Miami's home fortress now reads two-and-forty wins against seven-and-twenty defeats — and the Fish, quietly, sit four games from the National's last chair.

THE THIRTEEN COMES BACK WITH THE RECEIPT: COLORADANS 13, WASHINGTONS 1

On Monday the Washingtons dealt Colorado a thirteen-to-three drubbing; Wednesday the Coloradans returned the identical thirteen and kept the change. Four runs in the fifth, four in the seventh, five in the eighth — Goodman's six-and-thirtieth homer leading a quartet that included Carrigg, Norby, and Johnston, with Norby driving home five by himself — and the left-hander Gordon collected his first victory of the season. Chaparro's ninth homer was the Capital's lone reply. Two straight now for the visitors since the Monday humiliation, with the set's finale at 1:05 this afternoon; the Washingtons have lost eight of their last ten.

LUKES SETTLES TUESDAY'S DEBT WITH INTEREST: TORONTOS 3, KANSAS CITY NINE 0, AND THE ROYAL STREAK DIES AT NINE

The reader will recall Tuesday's ending in Toronto: Lukes cut down at second base by telegraph relay, the final out of a Kansas City victory. Wednesday the same man wrote the correction — a three-run homer, his ninth, all the scoring the Torontos required — while Dallas and the relief corps blanked the hottest club in the land on six hits, Varland sealing his thirtieth save. So perishes the Royal winning streak at nine, their longest since 2017, with Dobnak the hard-luck loser; the two nines conclude the series at 7:07 this evening. The Herald notes that redemption, like the post, is most satisfying delivered to the same address.

ONE PITCH FOR MAY, SIX SINGLES IN FILE, AND A SQUIRREL UPON THE NETTING: MILWAUKEES 8, METS 1

The evening at Citi Field began alarmingly: Dustin May's first and only pitch came screaming back off Ewing's bat at 106 miles to the hour and struck the pitcher, ending his night at once on a day the Milwaukee bullpen was already thin — the second day, no less, of sixteen games in sixteen days. Whereupon the best record in baseball showed its manners: Gasser supplied the better part of six innings' emergency relief for the win, and the second inning opened with six consecutive singles — the club's first such inning since 1998 — before Turang's seventeenth homer, his first since July, fattened the account to eight. Frelick, restored from his shoulder trouble, collected three hits. The proceedings were interrupted in the third by a squirrel descending the protective netting, which the Herald records as the evening's only Met to reach the field with intent. Milwaukee stands two-and-eighty wins against one-and-fifty defeats; the rematch this evening sends Misiorowski — sovereign of the National's earned-run table at 1.68 and its strikeout table at two hundred sixteen — against Manaea at 7:10.

THE ROOKIES CARRY THE SOUTH SIDE AGAIN: WHITE STOCKINGS 10, RANGERS 4

Beyond Peters's fifth consecutive blast — the records desk above has the full accounting — the South Side's evening ran deep: the catcher Doyle drove home four with his third homer, Peters himself finished with two driven in and stood a triple from the cycle, and Meidroth, Montgomery, and Acuña kept the doubles coming while Newcomb took the decision and Cannon his first save. For Texas, Pederson — lately ejected in these pages for quarreling with the automated arbiter — homered his three-and-twentieth in a losing cause, and Gore fell to seven-and-ten. The White Stockings hold the Central by two games and a half over surging Cleveland; the Rangers slip two astern of the wild-card row's last chair and half a game off the West's crown, a position best described as within sight of everything and in possession of nothing.

SEVEN RUNS IN TWO INNINGS, SIX GIVEN BACK IN ONE, AND THE NINTH DECIDES: ORIOLES 8, GAS HOUSE NINE 7

Baltimore struck five runs in the first and two in the second and appeared bound for a stroll; St. Louis answered with six in the fifth — Burleson and Walker driving home their eight-and-ninetieth and seven-and-ninetieth in the uprising, Church and Fermín and Gorman's eighth homer filling out the bill — and the affair arrived at the ninth level at seven. There the Orioles scratched the deciding run against O'Brien, the National's keeper of three-and-thirty saves, who thus absorbs his second late-inning calamity of the week in these pages. Alonso's two-and-thirtieth homer and two runs driven in carried him level with Alvarez atop the American's table, as the milestone desk relates; Taveras drove home three, Encarnacion-Strand doubled twice, and Kittredge sealed the seventh save behind Wolfram. Five straight defeats now for St. Louis, with the set concluding at 2:15 this afternoon.

THREE HOMERS ANSWERED BY ONE, AND THE ELEPHANTS' MARCH CONTINUES: A'S 7, MINNESOTANS 4

Minnesota did its scoring by the long ball — Lee's one-and-twentieth, Larnach's eleventh, the rookie Culpepper's third — and lost the argument anyway, Sacramento assembling seven runs behind Butler's twelfth homer, Williams's triple and two driven in, and small commerce from McNeil and Stefanic. Ginn pitched to his ninth victory, Morris took the loss, and Alvarado closed his fifth save. Two straight now for the A's, who play the spoiler with evident relish; for the Minnesotans, six games below the break-even line and slipping, the wild-card row recedes further from view.

With this number the Herald's ledger turns fifty editions old, and the arithmetic desk marks the occasion with a morning of settled furniture and unsettled margins. In the American: Tampa Bay holds the East by three games and a half; the White Stockings keep the Central by two and a half over a Cleveland club that has won seven running and owns the last wild-card chair by two full games over Texas, with Baltimore two and a half astern and Toronto three; and the West's half-game crown rests upon Houston's brow a second consecutive morning — a stillness itself remarkable, the same crown having changed heads three times in the three mornings prior. In the National the chairs hold: Chicago's cushion four games, Philadelphia's two, San Diego's last seat now but a single game ahead of Arizona with Miami four back, while Milwaukee's two-and-eighty victories remain the game's best. This evening's card runs to seven engagements, all verified against the schedule: the Coloradans and Washingtons settle accounts at 1:05, the Orioles and Cardinals at 2:15, Cole opposes Wesneski in the Bronx at 7:05, the Royals seek a new streak in Toronto at 7:07, Misiorowski carries his 1.68 into Flushing at 7:10, the collision's third act goes at Atlanta at 7:15 with Yamamoto opposing Sale, and the Snakes visit the Bay nine at 9:45 — where, after Wednesday's ninth inning, no lead in San Francisco will be presumed safe again. Friday brings Skubal to Comerica Park, as the almanac desk relates. Until the morrow's dispatch, keep your scorecards near and your enthusiasms nearer.

~ THE HERALD ~

The Herald Acknowledges Its Debts