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. 51 · Friday, the Eight-and-Twentieth of August, Two Thousand and Twenty-Six

Reporting 7 contests from the day prior.

The Game of the Day

AT SEVEN-AND-THIRTY YEARS OF AGE, SALE REACHES BACK TO 2018 AND FINDS ONE HUNDRED MILES TO THE HOUR — ATLANTAS 1, ANGELENOS 0

The old left-hander walks the full nine innings alone and walks not a single batsman: eleven strikeouts, five scattered hits, and a fastball swifter than any he had thrown since 2018, while the game's entire scoring is transacted on its opening swing — Baldwin greeting Yamamoto's first offering with a leadoff homer no catcher since 1900 had ever made stand alone in a one-to-nought verdict — and the sweep of the twice-reigning champions is complete

The radar instruments at Truist Park registered a figure above one hundred miles to the hour on Thursday night, and the man who produced it was born in 1989. Chris Sale, seven-and-thirty years of age and pitching as though the almanac had misfiled him, had not thrown so swift a pitch since 2018, nor completed a shutout since June of 2019 — and he chose the evening of a sweep's completion to do both at once, scattering five hits across nine innings, striking out eleven, walking none, and delivering the Atlantas a one-to-nought victory over the Angelenos that closed a three-game sweep of the twice-reigning champions of the world. "The look in his eye is always pretty good, but it was even a little bit different tonight," testified his manager Weiss, and the arithmetic of the bullpen explains part of it — Atlanta had but three relievers available, and only the closer Iglesias among them trusted with a lead — but the heart explains the rest: Sale had learned that very day of the passing of Ashley Foss, a family friend of two-and-forty years of age, whose father has long kept the pitcher's accounts. "She watched all these games," Sale said afterward. "It felt weird out there, because I felt like I had a little something else helping me tonight. There's no question, that was her out there."

The game's entire commerce was concluded before most patrons had settled into their seats. Drake Baldwin, the young catcher, stepped in against Yamamoto to open the home first, received a splitter as the game's first Atlanta offering, and deposited it beyond the fence — his two-and-twentieth homer, and by the certification of the Elias researchers the first leadoff homer ever struck by a catcher in the Modern Era to stand as the whole of the scoring in a one-to-nought victory. The records desk below has the fuller marvel of the night, for Baldwin was not even the only catcher to write a leadoff-homer record into Thursday's ledger. Yamamoto, it must be said, deserved a kinder fate: six innings and a third, four hits, eight strikeouts, the lone run — and a defeat, his ledger falling to twelve-and-eight. But Sale was not to be argued with. At seven-and-thirty years and one hundred fifty days, he became but the sixth pitcher since 1900 of such an age to record ten strikeouts or better and walk no man in a shutout — the most recent being Randy Johnson, the idol of Sale's boyhood, who managed it in 2004. "That's probably one of the top two pitching performances I've seen during my time in the big leagues," said Baldwin, who had the best seat in the house. "Sucks being on this side," offered Mookie Betts, two of the five hits notwithstanding.

The standings felt the blow directly. Three consecutive one-run verdicts have carried Atlanta, nine-and-seventy wins against five-and-fifty defeats, to within a single game of Los Angeles in the contest for the National's second first-round bye; the Angelenos have now dropped three running, and their once-serene August wears a furrowed brow. Sale's earned-run figure settles at 2.06, second in all baseball to Milwaukee's young Misiorowski — of whom the card below has business — and his victory total at thirteen. The shutout was Atlanta's first since Fried blanked Miami in April of 2024; the club did not appear to miss the wait.

News Around the League

THE LABOR QUESTION: THE LEAGUE OFFERS WEEKLY ROSTERS AND A TIDIER WINTER — EVERY OHM OF IT WIRED TO A SALARY CAP

The proprietors' negotiators called upon the players' union Thursday bearing a portfolio of proposals on the transaction question: a weekly roster, whereby each club would fix its six-and-twenty men every Monday and cease the daily shuttling of arms to and from the minors; reforms to the Rule 5 draft; and a new winter calendar, complete with a quiet period after the season's close and a frozen period deeper in the offseason — the latter conceived, by the wires' account, to concentrate the free-agent commerce into a frenzy of signings after the fashion of the football and basketball leagues. The Herald finds much in the portfolio worth admiring, and notes with a raised eyebrow the ribbon binding it: every item, by the league's own declaration, is contingent upon the installation of a salary cap and floor. "A cap-and-floor system would unlock additional opportunities to improve the game for players and fans," pronounced the league's spokesman Caplin, adding that under the present economics such changes "would be too harmful to competitive balance." The reader of Tuesday's number will recall this paper took the commissioner's pledge to play in '27 under advisement, and it extends the same courtesy here: the postseason ledger of the last decade shows a churn of champions and a variety of October guests that no capped league need envy, and the Herald observes that when an improvement everyone desires is offered only at a price the sellers have long coveted, it is the price, not the improvement, that is being negotiated. The talks continue; the paper keeps its ledger open.

THE INFIRMARY WARD: CRUZ'S ELBOW DELIVERS THE VERDICT HE FEARED, WHILE JUDGE PLOTS A SEPTEMBER RETURN WITHOUT A MINOR-LEAGUE DETOUR

Grim news first from the Bronx dispensary: Fernando Cruz, the splitter artist of the Yankee relief corps, has been diagnosed with a partial tear of the right ulnar collateral ligament, the examination having followed the game-tying homer he surrendered to Peña on Tuesday and the lingering ache he had hoped to pitch through. Season-ending surgery is on the table; the six-and-thirty-year-old seeks a second opinion from Dr. Meister, and meets the matter with characteristic serenity — "I'm really peaceful in terms of how I'm feeling," he said. "I know the best is yet to come." His 3.13 earned-run figure across one-and-sixty appearances will not be simply replaced. The same ward offers brighter tidings one locker over: Aaron Judge, absent since the last day of May with a fractured rib, told the assembled press he hopes to rejoin the lineup in September without any minor-league rehabilitation at all — "Tomorrow, if I can," he answered, when asked to name the date — his program having advanced from the tee to the cages, with high-velocity pitching the next checkpoint. The ward's Wednesday number tracked his graduation from the tee; the volume, as the captain says, now builds. And in Kansas City, the second baseman Massey goes to the seven-day concussion list, two days after his head struck the ground on a tumbling throw; the club expects him back within the week, and has amused itself meanwhile by discovering that the outfielder Collins plays a perfectly capable second base.

THE CALL-UP DESK: MINNESOTA SUMMONS JENKINS, THE PRIDE OF THE FARM, WITH BUXTON'S HIP SOUNDING ITS ALARM ONCE MORE

The Twins have rung the bell for their finest prospect: Walker Jenkins, the left-handed-hitting center fielder ranked first in their system and fifteenth in all the minors by the Pipeline assessors, is promoted from St. Paul and expected to make his major-league debut this very evening when the White Stockings call at Target Field. The timing is no mystery — Byron Buxton, whose right hip this ward has monitored since May and whose alarm was noted in Wednesday's number, aggravated the complaint on Tuesday reaching awkwardly for a ball in the left-center gap, and the club summoned its insurance the moment the premium came due. Jenkins has spent August rendering the American Association's pitching into kindling, his power lately joining the speed, defense, and patience long advertised, and the wires pronounce him unstoppable at the plate this month. The Herald, which has watched a summer's worth of rookies seize the league by the collar — Peters and Caglianone among them, both of whom appear elsewhere in this number — makes room at the table and awaits the first swing.

THE COUNTING-HOUSE DESK: TAMPA'S COUNCIL BLESSES THE RAYS' FOREVER HOME BY A SINGLE VOTE, WITH THE COUNTY'S VERDICT DUE THIS VERY MORNING

The Rays stand one vote from the end of a two-decade wandering. The Tampa City Council on Thursday approved, by the narrowest arithmetic of four votes to three, the agreement for a ballpark of two thousand three hundred sixty millions to anchor a mixed-use development upon Hillsborough College's Dale Mabry campus — the "Forever Home," in the club's own coinage. "Incredible news for the entire Tampa Bay community," pronounced the club's chief executive Babby, with gratitude distributed to the council and a look ahead to the final hurdle: the Hillsborough County Commission, which takes up the matter this Friday morning. Should the commissioners concur, the future of the base ball enterprise in Tampa Bay is secured and the longest-running stadium serial in the game reaches its final chapter. The Herald notes that the club whose home is thus debated owns, at nine-and-seventy wins, the American League's finest record, and suggests the commissioners consider what a civic embarrassment it would be to misplace it.

THE RECORDS DESK: TWO CATCHERS, TWO LEADOFF HOMERS, AND TWO PAGES OF THE ANNALS REWRITTEN IN A SINGLE EVENING

Let the almanac mark Thursday as the night of the leadoff catcher. In Atlanta, Drake Baldwin opened his club's first inning with a homer that proved the game's only run — the first time since 1900, by Elias's certification, that a catcher's leadoff blast has furnished the entire scoring of a one-to-nought victory, as the lead column relates. And in Toronto, scarcely an hour earlier, Carter Jensen of the Royals had crushed the second pitch of the evening some 421 feet above the bullpens — his fifth leadoff homer of the season while serving as his club's catcher, which breaks the tie he had held with Paul Lo Duca of the 2001 Dodgers and stands alone as the most leadoff homers ever struck in a season by a man of the mask and mitt. That two such entries should arrive in one night, from a man of but two-and-twenty years in Toronto and another young hand in Atlanta, the desk records without explanation, there being none; the position once reserved for tired knees and eighth-place hitters is apparently now the leadoff man's office. Jensen, the wires add, marks the first anniversary of his debut on Wednesday next — having in the interval inherited the everyday catching from his idol Perez and the leadoff post besides.

The Rest of the Card

NINE FREE PASSES DECLINED WITH THANKS: DISTRICT NINE 7, DENVER MEN 1, AND THE HONORS OF THE SERIES ARE DIVIDED

The Denver men were handed nine bases on balls Thursday — four of them to Rumfield alone — and converted the whole endowment into a single run, which is the sort of thrift no ledger rewards. The District nine, meanwhile, did their business in cash: Lile collected three hits and his eighteenth homer, Ruiz added a homer and a double with two driven home, House doubled, lifted a sacrifice fly, and drove in a pair, and Young contributed two hits and two stolen bases while his neighbor in the order, Nuñez, pilfered his three-and-fortieth base to keep the National's stealing crown. Cosgrove, in relief of the wild but unscored-upon Irvin, collected his first victory of the year; the unfortunate Hughes fell to nought-and-six. So ends the four-game engagement two victories apiece — the thirteen-run exchanges of Monday and Wednesday, both chronicled in these pages, having been answered by quieter verdicts on either side.

JORDAN'S FIRST BUSCH HOMER BUYS THE WIN, AND HIS ANKLE PAYS THE BILL: MOUND CITY NINE 7, BALTIMORES 5

The Mound City nine entered Thursday's finale with a bullpen game on the card and a five-game losing streak on the books, and the rookie Blaze Jordan settled both accounts: a three-run blast onto Freese's Lawn in the second — his first career homer at Busch Stadium — followed by Urías's two-run shot in the fourth, and the fleet of six Cardinal pitchers navigated home from there, Graceffo opening with three hitless innings in his longest outing of the season and the young Gastelum taking the decision. The Baltimores made a genuine argument of it — Mayo's three-run homer in the seventh and Henderson's run-scoring double in the eighth drew within two — but O'Brien, twice the victim of late calamities in this week's pages, closed the door without further incident for his four-and-thirtieth save, still the National's best figure. The victory came dear: Jordan, tagging Henderson on a bold throw to third in the eighth, planted his left ankle awkwardly and left the field gingerly, the club offering no verdict by press time. Burleson, with two hits and a run driven home, stands at nine-and-ninety runs batted in — one shy of the hundred that Stewart of Cincinnati reached in Wednesday's number — and the skid is dead at five.

WESNESKI OUTBIDS COLE, THE GLOVES BETRAY THE HOME NINE, AND THE WEST'S CROWN GAINS A FULL GAME'S PURCHASE: HOUSTONS 5, HIGHLANDERS 1

The arithmetic that held its breath in yesterday's number has exhaled in Houston's favor: Wesneski threw five innings of three-hit ball and the relief corps allowed nothing thereafter, Walker struck a two-run homer among three hits, Peña added a solo blast, and the Houstons took the rubber game in the Bronx five runs to one, converting a half-game crown into a full game's clearance over idle Texas atop the American's West. Cole pitched creditably in defeat — six innings, three runs — but his cause was not aided by the eighth inning's comedy of the gloves: the rookie shortstop Lombard failed to scoop a slow bouncer, his errant evening now stretched to an error in a sixth consecutive game to equal a dubious franchise mark, and Caballero's ensuing throw sailed wide for a second error on the selfsame play, a run crossing unearned. "It's not acceptable. It can't happen at this level," the one-and-twenty-year-old said afterward, and the Herald credits the candor. The Highlanders thus surrender the series and fall four games astern of Tampa Bay in the East, with the Red Sox arriving tonight and October's arithmetic sharpening; Chisholm stole two more bases, his eight-and-thirtieth leading the American, which was the extent of the home cheer.

SIX RUNS IN THE SIXTH, SIX RUNS BATTED IN FOR CAGLIANONE, AND A HOMER STRUCK OFF A PITCH THAT AMBLED: ROYAL BLUES 13, MAPLE LEAF NINE 2

Blanked by seven Toronto relievers on Wednesday, the Royal blues returned Thursday with the patience of the wronged: Jensen opened the evening with the record leadoff homer of which the records desk sings above, a six-run sixth blew the accounts open, and Caglianone — five hits in six trips, a career-high six runs batted in — closed the festivities in the ninth by depositing his three-and-twentieth homer off an offering from the outfielder Straw, pressed into mound duty, that the instruments clocked at nine-and-thirty miles to the hour, a pitch that did not so much arrive as call ahead. Pasquantino's two-run homer supplied the sixth inning's dagger, and Cameron carried a scoreless streak of nineteen innings into the sixth before Springer's two-run homer ended it, settling for a quality start and his ninth victory. The visitors' newest employee, Lorenzen — signed off the free-agent wire only Thursday — was rushed into two innings of relief, a hard first day at the office. Ten victories in eleven games now for Kansas City, a fourth consecutive series claimed, and the happiest flight in baseball departs for Cleveland, where the hottest club in the American's Central awaits — of which collision the desk note has more.

THE MACHINE SPARES NO SENTIMENT IN QUEENS: SUDS MEN 8, FLUSHING NINE 2, AND CHOURIO RETURNS FROM HIS DAY OFF WITH TWO HOMERS IN HIS LUGGAGE

One evening after six consecutive singles and a squirrel graced these pages, the Suds men dispensed with novelty and simply administered the beating: Chourio, restored from a rare day of rest, collected four hits, two homers — his eighteenth and nineteenth — and four runs batted in, while Misiorowski was, by his own camp's admission, without his best fireworks and shut the Flushing nine down anyway: six innings, two hits, six strikeouts, a fourteenth victory against five defeats, and an earned-run figure that settles at 1.73, still the finest in either league, to say nothing of a strikeout ledger now reading two hundred twenty-two, the National's best. Manaea absorbed six runs and the loss. The Flushing nine managed three hits entire — Young's double and Morel's single accounting for their runs — and have now dropped the first two of the set with the best record in baseball, three-and-eighty wins against one-and-fifty defeats, still quartered in their parlor. The tenants of Queens, four-and-seventy times beaten, may be forgiven for consulting the schedule for the visitors' departure date.

ONE DAY AFTER THE UNTHINKABLE, THE ORANGE AND BLACK REMEMBER THEMSELVES: GIANTS 6, SONORAN NINE 1

The reader of yesterday's lead column will recall what befell San Francisco on Wednesday night — a six-run ninth-inning lead, safe on two thousand two hundred eight prior occasions, surrendered whole. The response Thursday was a complete performance of the sort that heals: Gilbert opened the first with his eighth homer and later added a sacrifice fly, Moreno's answering homer for the visitors was the desert's whole account, and the eighth inning produced four runs against the reliever Ginkel — Eldridge, restored that day from the bereavement list, doubling home the first of them, with Cox, Hill, and Whitcomb's squeeze completing the bill. Roupp claimed the victory; the loss fell to Cabrera, recalled from Reno only that morning and handed the start for his trouble. "Show the grit we have," ran the home clubhouse's verdict by the wires, and the standings took note in the other direction: the Sonoran nine, beaten while San Diego rested, slip a game and a half behind the Friars for the National's final chair — a costlier evening than its single run of damage suggests.

The morning tables, briefly surveyed. In the American: Tampa Bay's lead in the East is four games over the Highlanders, who greet Boston tonight; the White Stockings hold the Central by two and a half over a Cleveland nine whose seven straight victories rested idle Thursday; and Houston's crown in the West, half a game wide these three mornings past, now measures a full game over Texas. In the National: Atlanta's five-game cushion in the East and Milwaukee's seven in the Central frame the argument below them — Chicago's wild-card chair is safe by four, Philadelphia's by two, and San Diego's final seat now sits a game and a half ahead of the desert, with Miami four back and St. Louis, streak snapped, five and a half. Tonight's card runs to fifteen engagements, all verified against the schedule, and the desk directs the reader's eye to four: at 6:40 Eastern the appointment this paper has twice noted comes due at last, Skubal taking the Comerica Park mound in visiting flannels against the club that raised him to two Cy Young Awards; at 7:10 the Royals' ten-of-eleven surge collides with Cleveland's seven straight in the American's best argument of the evening, while the Friars visit Tampa Bay and McClanahan at the same hour; at 7:15 the Red Sox open at the Highlanders' park with Schlittler and his American-best 2.16 standing guard; and at 8:10 the White Stockings call at Minnesota, where Peters — five games running with a homer, three shy of the all-time mark, his vigil merely postponed by Thursday's idleness — bats against the ballpark where young Jenkins is expected to make his much-heralded debut in the home flannels. Until the morrow's dispatch, keep your scorecards near and your enthusiasms nearer.

~ THE HERALD ~

The Herald Acknowledges Its Debts