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. 57 · Thursday, the Third of September, Two Thousand and Twenty-Six

Reporting 15 contests from the day prior.

The Game of the Day

TWICE IN THE ELEVENTH THE BIRDS REACH SAFE HARBOR, AND TWICE THE MOUNTAIN MEN PULL THEM BACK OUT TO SEA: ROCKIES 6, BIRDS 5, IN ELEVEN INNINGS

Baltimore builds a three-run third, watches Colorado erase it by instalments through nine, seizes the lead afresh with two in the eleventh — and surrenders three in the bottom half, Brett Sullivan's two-run single closing the accounts of a Coors Field marathon that somehow produced eleven runs without one ball leaving the yard

No club in either league owes September less than Colorado. The Mountain men woke Wednesday more than eight-and-twenty games out of the West's race, six-and-eighty times beaten, playing for nothing but the pleasure of the thing — while Baltimore, a game under .500 and a game and a half from the American's last wild-card chair, played for everything the month can still give. The pastime, which delights in such asymmetries, arranged for the club with nothing at stake to win its second straight from the club with everything at stake, and to do it twice over in a single eleventh inning.

The Birds had begun properly enough: a three-run third on Pete Alonso's run-scoring single — his two-and-ninetieth driven in, second in all the American — and Luis Robert Jr.'s two-run double. Colorado's reply came a run at a time, and once by decree: Jake McCarthy's third-inning triple scored Amador, but McCarthy himself, waved home behind the ball, was ruled safe until Baltimore's challenge overturned the call at the plate. Cole Carrigg singled home a run in the fourth, and in the ninth, with the account still 3-2 against them, Zac Veen doubled home Carrigg to force the extra chapters. In the eleventh Baltimore did what a contender must: run-scoring singles from Samuel Basallo and Blaze Alexander, a 5-3 lead, the harbor lights in view. Whereupon the home half undid it entire — TJ Rumfield, whose Tuesday drive won the previous evening's contest as this paper recorded, singled home the first run, and Sullivan lined a single to left with two aboard, both runners scoring, the ledger reading six to five and the set to Colorado.

The win fell to Castaño, the loss to Wolfram, and the arithmetic falls hardest on the visitors: the Birds stand two under at nine-and-sixty wins against one-and-seventy defeats, still a game and a half behind Cleveland's chair — for the Guardians, beaten eleven to nothing in their own yard as the card below relates, contrived to concede not an inch of ground — and now share the pursuers' row at that identical figure with Texas and Toronto, three clubs pressed shoulder to shoulder against one door. Colorado, for its part, has now won two running, and the eleven-run evening's curiosity bears repeating: in the yard where the baseball flies thinnest of air, not one cleared the fence.

News Around the League

THE MILESTONE DESK: ACUÑA STRIKES HIS TWO-HUNDREDTH HOMER AND STANDS ALONE IN THE ANNALS — NO MAN EVER PAIRED TWO HUNDRED WITH TWO HUNDRED STEALS SO FAST

In the seventh inning of Wednesday's rout in the capital, Ronald Acuña Jr. jumped upon a first-pitch fastball from the Nationals' reliever Max Kranick and deposited it 379 feet into the bullpen walkway in left — a three-run blow, his two-hundredth career homer, and with it a record all his own: in his 904th game, Acuña becomes the fastest man in the history of the majors to pair two hundred homers with two hundred stolen bases, five-and-twenty games quicker than Alfonso Soriano managed the double. The names next on that list read like a gallery wing — Eric Davis, Bobby Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds — and the new leader received the honor with becoming modesty: "For me, it's an honor to be on that list with Alfonso Soriano." His manager Weiss put it plainer: "It's freakish talent."

The milestone had kept the man waiting sixteen games since his last homer in mid-August, a stretch in which he batted a spare .207; he answered Wednesday with three hits in five turns and his two-hundred-twenty-fifth career steal already banked. The fuller demolition his club visited upon Washington stands in the card below, and the calendar now hands the champion-elect of the East a proper test: a four-game engagement at Philadelphia opening Friday evening. "I love to play against Philly," said Acuña. "This weekend, it's like playoff games."

THE OWNERSHIP DESK, CONTINUED: THE PRICE OF THE ANGELS SURFACES AT FOUR THOUSAND MILLIONS, AND THE PAPERWORK BEGINS ITS SLOW MARCH

The sale this paper recorded yesterday morning acquires its figures. The gentlemen of ESPN, consulting their sources, report that Stan Kroenke's agreement to purchase the Angels from Arte Moreno runs to some four billion dollars — a sum the Herald sets beside every owner's cry of hardship at the bargaining table, and files for future reference. The wire desks supply besides the machinery of the thing: the agreement goes first to the league's executive ownership committee for review of the financials, then to a vote of the owners requiring three-quarters' assent — three-and-twenty of the nine-and-twenty — with the closing expected in the first quarter of 2027. The Herald also commends to the reader one detail of the purchaser's pedigree: the man's full name is Enos Stanley Kroenke, his parents having named him for two Cardinals, Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial. Whether a christening constitutes a baseball philosophy, Anaheim will discover.

Within the club, the wires report business proceeding as usual — the team president Molly Jolly and the interim general manager John Mozeliak both professing surprise at the timing and no contact yet with the Kroenke concern. Mozeliak's own engagement expires in December, and the search for a permanent general manager now waits upon the new proprietor's wishes; the veteran executive allows only that he has not decided his future. The club marked the second day of its new era by losing in ten innings, as the card below relates.

THE LABOR QUESTION: THE LEAGUE SKETCHES A CLOCK FOR THE HOT STOVE, WHILE THE PLAYERS SPEAK NAMELESSLY OF THE CAP AND THE SEASON AFTER NEXT

Two dispatches on matters of the purse crossed the wire this week, and the Herald reads them together. The first, from the league's friendly chroniclers: a proposal circulating to compress the winter's free-agent trade into two appointed windows — the first opening with the Winter Meetings in early December and closing at five o'clock on the one-and-twentieth, the second resuming the first Monday of February — with a freeze on signings between. The argument runs that the Hot Stove moves at a glacier's pace and that concentration would restore the Winter Meetings to a carnival, as the pitch clock restored briskness to the game itself. The second dispatch: ESPN has printed a canvass of players, speaking without their names attached, upon the salary-cap question, the bargaining to come, and whether there will be a 2027 season at all.

The Herald's sympathies in these columns are long declared and rest where they always have, with the men who play the games. It notes only this: the calendar proposal issues from the league office, and any scheme that tells a workingman when he may sell his labor deserves reading twice — once for the showmanship, once for the fine print. That the players must canvass anonymously on the question of whether next year's season will be played at all tells the reader more about the weather ahead than any proposal's prospectus. The desk will report the facts of both as they harden; its lean, as ever, it does not disguise.

THE INFIRMARY WARD: BOSTON'S CATCHING CORPS THINS BY TWO, AND IN LOS ANGELES THE GREAT OHTANI IS VISIBLY MORTAL

The ward's ledger runs coast to coast this morning. In Boston, Adley Rutschman sat out a third consecutive day with the hyperextended right elbow that the club now concedes will require management for the remainder of the season, and his fellow catcher Willson Contreras rests on the ten-day invalid list with the left hamstring he strained in the last days of August — the Crimson Hose, four and a half games secure in the wild-card row but twice beaten running, proceeding with the position patched.

In Los Angeles the concern wears the game's most famous face. Shohei Ohtani went hitless Wednesday, struck out four times, and was seen to shake out his right arm and wince — prompting his manager Roberts to a candor managers rarely volunteer: "I think that tonight was kind of the tip of the iceberg. But I've seen it over the last couple weeks, where he hasn't been who he is." A day's rest, or several, is on the table when player, manager, and trainers confer; the invalid list, Roberts believes, is not. The same club dispatched the pitcher Eric Lauer to the list with inflammation of the left elbow, and so the champions limp toward October counting the days until whole. The ward extends its customary wish: swift knitting to every name above.

THE VESTIBULE DESK, CONCLUDED: SALAS DONS THE TOOLS AT LAST — THE YOUNGEST MAN TO CATCH A MAJOR-LEAGUE GAME SINCE PUDGE RODRÍGUEZ

The door this paper has held open all week finally swung. Ethan Salas, whose airport odyssey and dugout apprenticeship the vestibule desk chronicled these last two mornings, caught Wednesday's contest in Cincinnati start to finish — and at twenty years of age stands as the youngest man to catch a major-league game since Iván Rodríguez in 1991, precisely as this paper foretold he would be. The bat offered nothing on the day — hitless in four turns, twice struck out — but no debut catcher was ever measured by his first afternoon's hitting, and the assignment itself, a September game bearing on his club's wild-card life, says what San Diego thinks of the young man's glove. That the Friars lost the game, and with it the set, is the card's business below; the vestibule desk closes its file content, and hands Master Salas over to the regular columns.

The Rest of the Card

MURPHY AND ACUÑA SUPPLY THE THUNDER, THE BULLPEN A TWO-HIT SILENCE, AND THE CAPITAL NINE ARE BLANKED: BRAVES 9, CAPITAL NINE 0

Atlanta avenged its two earlier stumblings in Washington with a shutout of clinical completeness: two hits allowed all evening, the reliever Elieser Hernández — a man summoned from the minors only that morning — carrying three spotless frames for the victory. The scoring waited upon the sixth, when Sean Murphy struck a three-run homer, and gathered weight from there: Acuña's milestone three-run blow in the seventh, which the desk above sings at proper length, Austin Riley's two-run single in the eighth, and Murphy again cashing a fourth run home in the ninth — four driven in for the catcher on the night. At three-and-eighty wins the Braves lead the East by four over Philadelphia, whose Friday appointment with them now carries the week's heaviest freight.

FIVE BALLS LEAVE ARLINGTON BEARING ATHLETIC INSIGNIA, TWO OF THEM BOLTE'S: A'S 9, ARLINGTON MEN 2

The other cellar club of the American's West chose the same evening as Colorado to play spoiler. Texas banked early homers from Ezequiel Duran and Justin Foscue and then watched the visitors strike five: Henry Bolte twice — four driven in on the night — with Zack Gelof, Jonah Heim, and Alika Williams filing in behind — nine unanswered runs in an evening that also found room for an hour-and-twenty-six-minute rain delay. Lopez took the victory, Bradford the loss, and the damage to the home nine is counted in the standings: at nine-and-sixty wins against one-and-seventy defeats the Arlington men fall level with Toronto and Baltimore in the scrum a game and a half behind Cleveland — three pursuers, one chair, and four-and-twenty days to settle it.

PAINTER THROWS SEVEN SPOTLESS AND LOSES; McCANN'S ONE SWING TAKES THE LAST CHAIR: DESERT NINE 1, QUAKERS 0

The afternoon in the desert produced the day's leanest arithmetic: three hits for each side, one run between them, and that run struck in the eighth by James McCann, a fly ball to left off the reliever Bowlan. It wasted a performance of genuine cruelty to waste — the young Andrew Painter carrying seven scoreless innings of two hits and six strikeouts for Philadelphia, whose six-game winning streak dies at the door of a bullpen day: seven Arizona pitchers passed the baton through a three-hit shutout, Loáisiga taking the decision and Morillo the save. The consequences ran both directions. The Quakers surrender a game of their wild-card cushion, now five and a half; the Desert nine, at four-and-seventy wins, seize sole title to the National's last chair, half a game ahead of the Friars — the very chair this paper watched them slip from only yesterday.

TWO FOUR-RUN INNINGS UNDER THE CLOSED ROOF, AND THE SET GOES TO THE SOUND: PUGET SOUND MEN 8, CRIMSON HOSE 3

Seattle settled the rubber match in two instalments — four runs in the third on singles thick as herring, Josh Naylor's two-run knock the heaviest, and four more in the sixth, Dominic Canzone's double closing the account after Pereda and Arozarena had cashed three. Criswell took the win; twelve hits backed him. Boston's answer was the rookie Roman Anthony's second career homer and run-scoring doubles from Story and White, thin fare for a club that has now dropped two straight with its catching corps in the ward's columns above. The Puget Sound men take the series and sail for home to receive the Athletics this very evening; the Crimson Hose proceed to Baltimore, where the wounded Birds await at 7:15.

MORABITO WAITS A CAREER FOR ONE HIT AND MAKES IT A THREE-RUN DOUBLE: METROPOLITANS 10, RAYS 4

The last-place Metropolitans spent an evening battering the American's best record, and the sweetest swing belonged to a man who had never hit safely in the majors: Nick Morabito, whose seventh-inning double cleared three runners home for his first big-league hit — and who added a diving catch besides, the wires attesting to the leather as warmly as the lumber. Juan Soto struck his three-and-twentieth homer in the eighth, Brett Baty drove in three, and fourteen hits in all carried New York past a Tampa nine whose starter Jax, returned that very day from the elbow discomfort the ward had logged, was beaten in his return and charged with the loss. The Rays remain three and a half clear atop the East for all that; the Mets, at three-and-sixty wins, remain what they are — but Wednesday they were the better club by six runs, and no asterisk attaches.

TUESDAY'S FARCE IS ANSWERED WITH WEDNESDAY'S REVENGE, TWO RUNS IN THE TENTH DOING THE OFFICE: GIANTS 5, BUCS 4, IN TEN INNINGS

One evening after Pittsburgh's 13-12 carnival filled this paper's lead column, the Orange and Black returned the indignity in extra innings. Rafael Devers opened the contest with his two-and-thirtieth homer, the clubs traded the lead by increments, and in the tenth Bryce Eldridge's double and Turner Hill's sacrifice fly built the two-run margin that Nick Gonzales's answering single could only halve — the loss falling to Doval, the win to Foley, the save to Smith. The Bucs' three-game winning streak thus dies at three, and the wild-card arithmetic that had begun to whisper to them recedes to five and a half games; the set concludes at 12:35 this very afternoon, Tidwell opposing Bachar.

CEASE TAKES CLEAR TITLE TO THE STRIKEOUT CROWN, AND VLADIMIR THE YOUNGER DRIVES IN FIVE: JAYS 11, GUARDIANS 0

The corridor meeting this paper appointed came off entirely to Toronto's liking. One night after Cleveland's Williams struck out thirteen to draw level, Dylan Cease answered with six scoreless innings for his tenth victory, his four strikeouts carrying him to 221 and sole possession of the American's lead, four clear of his rival. The hitting was Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s personal property: a two-run double in the first, a three-run homer in the second, a run-scoring single in the sixth — five driven in, and the wire desks asking aloud whether the vintage article has returned. Josh Smith homered besides, and the eleven-run whitewashing carried a standings cruelty noted in the lead column: the Guardians, humiliated at home, lost not an inch of their chair, while the Jays climb into the three-way scrum at nine-and-sixty wins a game and a half behind them. The same clubs conclude the set at 1:10 this afternoon, Soriano opposing Bibee.

FIVE RUNS IN THE TWELFTH SETTLE A GAME THAT REFUSED SETTLING: TIGERS 11, NORTH STARS 6, IN TWELVE INNINGS

Detroit led by four in the middle innings, watched Minnesota claw level with three in the eighth — Royce Lewis's two-run single the equalizer — and then traded single runs in the eleventh, Max Clark doubling home the visitors' man and Keaschall answering. The twelfth broke the stalemate wholesale: Spencer Torkelson's two-run homer, his one-and-twentieth, followed by Javier Báez's three-run double, five runs in all. And the desk savors the decision's ironist: the victory went to Finnegan, the same reliever who surrendered the deluge in Tuesday's ten-run inning that these pages recorded — redemption arriving on a forty-eight-hour schedule. The Tigers thus snap a three-game slide; the North Stars, whose September ambitions this paper had begun to humor, see their own three-game streak snapped in the bargain.

DOWN FIVE RUNS BEFORE THE FIRST INNING CLOSED, THE FISH SWIM ALL THE WAY BACK: MARLINS 9, MISSOURIANS 6

Kansas City spent the game's first quarter-hour scoring five — Carter Jensen and Salvador Perez homering in a first-inning fusillade — and the next four hours surrendering the lead by degrees. Miami answered through Kyle Stowers's homer, a tying sixth built on singles and a sacrifice fly, and Heriberto Hernández's go-ahead double in the same frame; in the ninth Javier Sanoja and Jakob Marsee added solo blasts for punctuation, and the affair closed at four hours and nine minutes, Gibson winning in relief and Faucher sealing it. Jensen homered twice in the losing cause. The Fish, at one-and-seventy wins, sit two and a half games from the National's last chair with the season's arithmetic still speaking to them; the Missourians have dropped three running.

THE STREAK DIES AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY, AND THE BATS PAY THE PITCHER'S DEBTS: CREAM CITY NINE 9, NORTH SIDERS 5

For five-and-twenty consecutive starts Jacob Misiorowski had permitted three earned runs or fewer — a run of parsimony the wires certify — and on a humid Wrigley evening the ledger finally blotted: five runs in four innings, four walks, Alex Bregman's two-run homer the heaviest entry against him. Whereupon his mates paid the account in full: Jackson Chourio's one-and-twentieth homer in the second, then a three-run fourth — Turang's squeeze bunt and run-scoring singles from Vaughn and Contreras — turning a five-three deficit into the lead, with Pratt adding one in the seventh and Joey Ortiz's two-run knock in the ninth closing the books at nine runs and fourteen hits, the pitcher's blemish forgiven. Bregman drove in four of Chicago's five. At seven-and-eighty wins the Cream City nine hold the game's best record and a nine-game lead over the North Siders, whom they oblige again at 7:15 this evening, Henderson opposing Gausman — and the deposed streak-keeper retains, for consolation, the National's crowns in earned runs and strikeouts alike.

WESNESKI CARRIES ONE HIT THROUGH SEVEN, VELÁZQUEZ CASHES THE ONLY COIN: SPACE CITY MEN 2, WHITE STOCKINGS 0

The set's finale, upon which two divisions leaned as this paper observed, went to Houston on the arm of Hayden Wesneski — seven innings, one hit, five strikeouts — and a single eighth-inning stroke: Nelson Velázquez's two-run single off the reliever Newcomb, the game's entire scoring. Josh Hader sealed his two-and-twentieth save. Chicago, which had taken the set's first two games as this paper recorded, managed three hits in the finale, though the White Stockings' hold on the Central survives at three games over beaten Cleveland; the Space City men, for their part, stretch the West's margin to two full games over Texas, whose own evening the card above laments. The clubs meet again at 2:10 this afternoon, Castillo opposing Brown.

SCHLITTLER AND DETMERS DUEL THROUGH SEVEN, AND THE TENTH INNING BREAKS FOR NEW YORK AT LAST: YANKEES 6, ANAHEIM NINE 3, IN TEN INNINGS

The rubber match this paper commended to the night owls delivered its promised duel: Cam Schlittler eight innings of two hits, nine strikeouts, and not a walk — the American's earned-run leader at 2.04 confirming the title — opposite Reid Detmers's seven innings of one run, the game standing one apiece into extra innings on Vaughn Grissom's seventh-inning equalizer. The tenth resolved it wholesale: five New York runs on a procession of singles — Austin Wells cashing two, Bellinger, Grisham, and Rice one apiece — against which Moisés Ballesteros's two-run answer was ornament. Bednar took the win with three strikeouts in relief. The Yankees, at eighty wins, hold second in the East three and a half behind Tampa Bay and sail for San Diego, where Friday's opener brings the piggyback arrangement of Fried and Warren these pages have advertised.

SAGGESE AGAIN, AND AGAIN — THE TENTH INNING RESTORES THE REDBIRDS TO .500: REDBIRDS 8, ANGELENOS 6, IN TEN INNINGS

Two evenings after his two-homer night filled these columns, Thomas Saggese supplied both the sixth-inning homer that began the comeback and the tenth-inning single that won it, Joshua Báez's two-run double stretching the margin behind him. The road back was long: Freddie Freeman's three-run first off the young Mautz, Mookie Betts answering Saggese's first blow in kind, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto dominant into the seventh — whereupon the rookie Leo Bernal, whose Tuesday debut this paper toasted, struck his first major-league homer, and Alec Burleson's eighth-inning sacrifice fly, his hundred-and-first run driven in, leveled the account. O'Brien's five-and-thirtieth save closed it. St. Louis thus stands restored to level at seventy wins and seventy defeats; the Angelenos have dropped two straight with the great Ohtani's condition the graver concern, as the ward relates, and the clubs finish at 10:10 this evening, Mathews opposing Skubal.

BRITO'S FIRST HOMER CLEARS THREE RUNS, AND THE RUBBER MATCH GOES TO THE QUEEN CITY: REDS 7, FRIARS 3

The 12:40 rubber match this paper flagged went to the home nine in one violent second inning: Juan Brito, batting with two aboard, struck the first home run of his major-league life, and Héctor Rodríguez followed in the same frame with another — four runs where San Diego had led by three, the advantage never returned. JJ Bleday's two-run drive in the seventh, his two-and-twentieth, closed the account; Williamson beat Mize precisely as the probables promised. Ty France's early two-run homer and Fernando Tatis Jr.'s two hits were the visitors' portion, caught by the debutant Salas whose historic afternoon the vestibule desk records above. The defeat is costly: a second straight for the Friars, who surrender the National's last chair to Arizona by half a game — the season's cruelest denomination of coin.

The tables on the third morning of September, taken in one turning. In the American: Tampa Bay holds the East by three and a half over New York, with Boston eight and a half astern; the White Stockings keep the Central by three over Cleveland; Houston's crown in the West is two games over Texas. The wild-card row reads New York and Boston comfortable, and then the morning's best theatre: Cleveland's last chair defended by a game and a half over Texas, Toronto, and Baltimore — three clubs at identical figures of nine-and-sixty and one-and-seventy, pressed against one door with four-and-twenty days remaining, the season's final regular card falling on the seven-and-twentieth and the wild-card series opening two days after. In the National: Atlanta by four over Philadelphia; Milwaukee, owner of the game's best ledger, by nine over Chicago; Los Angeles by nine over Arizona — and the last chair now Arizona's by half a game over San Diego, with Miami two and a half back, St. Louis three and a half, and Pittsburgh's whisper fading. Tonight's card runs to nine engagements, all verified against the schedule, and the desk directs the eye to four: at 1:10 in Cleveland the wounded Guardians must answer an eleven-run insult, Soriano opposing Bibee; at 7:15 the Crimson Hose visit the wounded Birds, Bennett against Young, two limping contenders propping one another up; at 7:15 likewise the Cream City nine offer the North Siders their remedy, Henderson opposing Gausman; and at 8:05 the American's best visit Texas, McClanahan against Quantrill. The night owls are commended to Chavez Ravine at 10:10, where the Redbirds, restored to level, try the Angelenos once more. Until the next dispatch, keep your scorecards near and your enthusiasms nearer.

~ THE HERALD ~

The Herald Acknowledges Its Debts