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. 65 · Friday, the Eleventh of September, Two Thousand and Twenty-Six

Reporting 5 contests from the day prior.

The Game of the Day

ONE DAY BACK FROM EXILE, VOLPE STRIKES A GRAND SLAM, DRIVES IN FIVE, AND TAKES A CURTAIN CALL — THE CLUB THAT WAITED A SEASON FOR A SLAM HAS NOW STRUCK TWO IN AS MANY NIGHTS: YANKEES 10, COLORADANS 3

The shortstop of yesteryear returns as a second baseman and collects three hits, García Jr. reaches thirty homers with number one-and-ninety driven besides, and a six-run seventh buries Colorado — all while Fried's evening ends after but ten outs and the relief corps quietly banks the victory

When August was young, New York sent Anthony Volpe away to the minors, and no man could say with certainty when — or whether — he would return. The wires tell it plainly: nothing was promised him. He went down, learned a new post at second base across nineteen minor-league starts, hit until one clubhouse wit swore he "became Barry Bonds all of a sudden," and waited. On Wednesday, as this paper reported in yesterday's ward, Jazz Chisholm Jr.'s sprained thumb opened the door. On Thursday evening Volpe walked through it swinging.

The accounting: three hits in four visits, five runs driven, and — with the bases loaded in a six-run seventh — a grand slam off the reliever Herget, driven to right field, his third such blow as a professional and his first since the World Series of 2024. The Stadium, which had waited the entire season for a grand slam until young Lombard supplied one Wednesday night, has now witnessed two in as many evenings — and last night the author of the first stood at shortstop while the author of the second manned second base beside him, the first appearance of Volpe's major-league life at that station. The crowd of forty thousand called him back out of the dugout for a bow. "There was nothing guaranteed," the returned man said afterward. "I wanted to be ready and prepared." His manager Boone put it simpler: "He had a massive impact tonight, and it's really good to see him."

The rest of the evening's freight: Luis García Jr. opened the scoring with a two-run blast in the first — his thirtieth of the year, his ninetieth and one-and-ninetieth runs driven — and Bellinger added two doubles and a sacrifice fly. The asterisk on the box belongs to Max Fried, whose evening ended after but ten outs; seven strikeouts in three and a third, yet the fastness left him, and Schreiber's inning and a third of relief took the decision. Colorado's answers — Karros's eleventh homer, McCarthy's triple — were footnotes by the seventh. New York has won three running, stands a season's-best two-and-twenty games above the waterline at four-and-eighty wins, and — with Tampa Bay beaten in Atlanta, as the card below relates — draws within three of the East's chair. The Bronx hosts the Mets this evening on a night of solemn remembrance, of which the columns below have much to say.

News Around the League

A QUARTER-CENTURY SINCE THE TOWERS FELL: THE GAME PAUSES THIS DAY TO REMEMBER, WITH THE SUBWAY MEETING IN THE BRONX AT THE CENTER OF THE OBSERVANCE

The Herald sets aside its usual ornament for this item, for the date at the top of this page is the eleventh of September, and five-and-twenty years have now passed since the morning of 2001. The league marks the anniversary across every park tonight: a moment of silence before each contest, dedicated lineup cards and base jewels, "God Bless America" at the seventh-inning stretch, and upon every head — player, manager, coach, and umpire alike — a cap bearing the patch We Shall Never Forget. In Toronto the Blue Jays' caps will carry the Canadian and American flags together.

The center of the observance sits, as it must, in New York, where Mets and Yankees meet this evening at the Stadium wearing caps honoring the first responders — the firemen, police, and rescue workers of that morning. Across town at Citi Field, the league and the Mets convene a meal-packing effort for families in need, led by men who wore the orange and blue in that wounded autumn: Mike Piazza, whose September homer lifted a grieving city, with David Wright and Al Leiter beside him. The league's network has besides premiered a two-hour chronicle, When America Took the Field, on baseball's small part in the healing. This paper, which trades daily in mock heroics, knows the genuine article when it sees it, and lowers its voice accordingly.

THE MILESTONE DESK: SEVEN-AND-FORTY HOME RUNS FOR THE MINOR-LEAGUER FISCHER — NO MAN HAS HIT SO MANY IN A BUSH-LEAGUE SUMMER THIS CENTURY

The minors have produced their thunderclap of the season. Andrew Fischer, two-and-twenty years of age, a first-round selection of Milwaukee only last summer and now the fifth-ranked prospect in that organization's books, struck his seven-and-fortieth home run of the campaign — the most any minor-leaguer has amassed in a single season this century. The wires place the figure fifth in the modern ledger kept since 1963, trailing only Bill McNulty's five-and-fifty, Gorman Thomas's one-and-fifty, Ron Kittle's fifty, and Tony Solaita's nine-and-forty — company of the rarest sort.

The arithmetic of the young New Jerseyan's summer beggars belief: twenty homers in four-and-fifty games at High-A Wisconsin, a promotion at June's end, and seven-and-twenty more in nine-and-sixty games at Double-A Biloxi, with a .272 average, a .411 on-base figure, a .656 slugging mark, and one hundred thirteen runs driven across the whole. The Herald notes that the parent club in Milwaukee already owns the National's best record and its likeliest Cy Young laureate, of whom the pitching desk below has more; the barons of the Cream City appear to be stockpiling thunder against winters yet to come.

THE INFIRMARY WARD: PITTSBURGH'S ALL-STAR ASHCRAFT GOES TO THE INVALID LIST AT THE WORST POSSIBLE HOUR, AND THE WARD'S SMALLER LEDGER BESIDES

The ward's gravest new admission wears Pittsburgh gray. Braxton Ashcraft, an All-Star this summer and the owner of a 3.65 figure across one hundred sixty-five and a third innings with one hundred seventy-three strikeouts, has been placed upon the fifteen-day invalid list with discomfort in the right arm, the sentence written backward to the seventh of September. The first testing, his manager Don Kelly reports, "does not appear to be anything structural" — the ward exhales — but the calendar is unkind: the earliest lawful return falls on the two-and-twentieth, the season's final week, and the wires call even that unlikely. The right-hander Antwone Kelly is summoned from Indianapolis to fill the post, and the timing sharpens the value of what Jones supplied last evening, as the card below sings.

The smaller ledger: Washington's Nasim Nuñez, whose six-and-forty stolen bases lead the National, has gone to the bereavement list, and the Herald extends the Capital nine's speedster its unfeigned sympathies. Minnesota welcomes Austin Martin back from the ten-day list. And the mending wing reports steady traffic — Shea Langeliers taking rehabilitation at Las Vegas for the Athletics, Kansas City's Maikel Garcia and Connor Seabold at Omaha, Colorado's Sean Sullivan at Albuquerque, and Houston's Brice Matthews at Sugar Land. Swift returns to all; the candle stays lit.

THE PITCHING DESK: CAN ANY MAN CATCH THE MIZ? — MILWAUKEE'S FLAMETHROWER LEADS THE NATIONAL IN NEARLY EVERYTHING AS THE CY YOUNG QUESTION ENTERS ITS FINAL WEEKS

The wires put the question squarely this morning, and the Herald takes it up: is the National League's Cy Young argument already finished? Jacob Misiorowski of Milwaukee — four-and-twenty years old, called "The Miz" by men who have run out of superlatives — leads the league in the earned-run figure at 1.95, in strikeouts at two hundred six-and-thirty, and in the walks-and-hits reckoning at 0.80, with fourteen victories entered besides. The testimony of the measuring machines borders on the fantastic: one thousand and ten pitches thrown at one hundred miles to the hour or better this season, where no other starting pitcher of the tracking era had ever thrown more than three hundred seven-and-thirty in a summer. His June engagement against Philadelphia — fifteen strikeouts, one hit — reads like something from the age this paper affects to inhabit.

Yet the pursuit is genuine. Atlanta's ancient marvel Sale carries a 2.10 figure with fourteen victories of his own; Philadelphia offers a brace of contenders in Sánchez, whose seventeen victories lead the league, and Luzardo, second in strikeouts at two hundred one-and-twenty; and Arizona's Rodriguez has fifteen victories against a 2.55 figure. The wires' judgment, which this desk endorses: the prize is The Miz's to lose, but a stumble in the final fortnight would hand the electors an agonizing choice. He takes the ball again with the arithmetic watching — as does every man named above, for their clubs' October fortunes ride the same arms.

The Rest of the Card

PÉREZ AND MARTINEZ TRADE ZEROES DEEP INTO THE AFTERNOON, ALBIES RISES FROM A BENCH HE NEVER WANTED, AND THE CLINCHING TICKET GOES UNPUNCHED: TOMAHAWK NINE 3, TAMPA MEN 1

The Thursday finale this paper flagged for the noon lamp delivered a pitchers' argument of the old school. Martín Pérez — who strolled into the Atlanta clubhouse in hat and sunglasses and changed the music to salsa, a man at his ease — gave seven scoreless innings on four hits; Tampa Bay's Nick Martinez answered with six and a third scoreless of his own on a mere eight-and-sixty pitches, two singles the whole damage against him, and was nonetheless lifted — "we have a lot of confidence in our bullpen," he shrugged afterward, and the confidence proved misplaced. In the eighth, Ozzie Albies — informed by text the night before that he would rest, and having lobbied against the day off in vain — rose from the bench and dented the right-center wall with a pinch-hit triple off Kelly. Riley singled him home through a drawn-in infield, Yastrzemski doubled, and Ha-Seong Kim's two-run single made it three across — equal to what Atlanta had scored in its previous four-and-thirty innings combined. Mesa Jr.'s ninth-inning homer off Iglesias, his twelfth, was Tampa Bay's lone reply against the two-and-thirtieth save.

The consequences run in two directions. Atlanta halts a three-game slide, avoids the sweep, and fattens its East lead to four over Philadelphia — whom the Tomahawk nine host beginning this very evening, a set that may settle the division. Tampa Bay's clinching scenarios, laid out in yesterday's columns, went unconsummated — but Texas's defeat in Seattle trimmed the arithmetic regardless, and the wires certify the Tampa men stand a single victory from October: the berth can be sealed tonight at home against Houston. Their East lead over surging New York, meanwhile, thins to three.

THE GHOST OF NOVEMBER 2022 WALKS AT THE BANK — JAVIER CARRIES A NO-HITTER INTO THE FIFTH ON THE FIELD OF HIS MASTERPIECE, AND THE ROOKIE SMITH SETTLES IT IN THE NINTH: ASTROS 2, PHILS 1

Cristian Javier had not pitched at Citizens Bank Park since the fourth game of the 2022 World Series, when he threw six hitless innings at this same lineup's ancestors; his catcher Vázquez reminded him of it on the Tuesday bus ride, and his manager Espada joked — half joked — about a repetition. The man nearly obliged: a walk to Schwarber to open the first, then the minimum through four, no hit until the fifth, six innings of one-run ball in all. Zack Wheeler matched him grimly — seven innings, nine strikeouts, a single run — and the affair reached the ninth level at one, Trammell's early double and Stott's fielder's-choice answer the only entries. Whereupon the rookie Cam Smith turned on the All-Star closer Duran and drove the ball to center for his twentieth homer and the lead. "It felt like the playoffs," said Smith, and the crowd of seven-and-thirty thousand would not dispute him. Abreu struck out the side in the eighth for the victory; Hader sealed his five-and-twentieth save.

The standings take note twice over. Houston banks the series and keeps the American West's chair by three over Texas, whose Seattle misfortune is next door. Philadelphia, its bats gone quiet at the worst hour, has lost an untimely series at home, falls four behind Atlanta, and travels tonight to the very yard of its tormentors for three games that may decide the East — Nola against Sale, a bill worth any reader's evening.

THE HATTERS OF STETSON HOLD THEIR SEMINAR — TWELVE STRIKEOUTS FOR DEGROM, ELEVEN FOR GILBERT, AND ONE SWING FROM RODRÍGUEZ UNDOES AN EVENING OF NEAR-PERFECTION: PUGET SOUND MEN 4, ARLINGTON MEN 3

The pearl this paper flagged in yesterday's bill proved genuine. Jacob deGrom and Logan Gilbert, Florida-born alumni both of little Stetson University, met for the fourth time this season and staged the finest pitching seminar of the year: deGrom perfect through five innings, ten strikeouts before a single man reached, the first hit a comebacker off his own glove, six scoreless in all with twelve strikeouts — the most of his Texas tenure; Gilbert answering with seven innings and a season's-best eleven. Three-and-twenty strikeouts between the two starters, the most in any game since Sale and Snell in the August of 2024 — and, by the Elias bureau's certification, the first time in the game's recorded history that two starters from the same college struck out ten men apiece in the same contest. Pederson's two-run homer and Lopez's bunt single had built Texas a 3-0 lead upon deGrom's work.

Then came the seventh and the reliever Junis, who retired not a single man: a run home on Canzone's single, and then Julio Rodríguez met a line drive to left-center with two aboard — his one-and-twentieth homer, four runs across in the blink of an inning. Muñoz worked the ninth for his seven-and-twentieth save, and six innings of one-hit perfection from the game's most decorated arm dissolved into a bullpen defeat. The cost is counted in Arlington: the Arlington men fall three behind Houston in the West and two from the wild-card row's last chair, their September chase leaking games it cannot spare. The clubs go again tonight in the desert — no, the reader's pardon: Texas travels to Arizona while Seattle calls upon the Athletics, both engagements on the late bill.

FROM THE SURGEON'S COUCH TO THE SEVENTH INNING WITHOUT A HIT — JONES BLANKS THE WHITE SOX ON ONE SAFETY, AND THE SWEEP BELONGS TO PITTSBURGH: BUCCANEERS 2, WHITE SOX 0

The bill this paper set for Thursday night — Jones against Chicago's astonishing opener Smith — kept every promise. Smith supplied his two scoreless innings and departed with his figure at a scarcely credible 0.50; it was what followed that made the evening. Jared Jones, who submitted to the elbow surgeons in the May of 2025 and passed, by his own accounting, "a lot of hours on the couch watching the guys play," carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning with two out, when Colson Montgomery doubled off the right-field wall. Jones retired the next man and handed over a line of seven innings, one hit, eight strikeouts. Oneil Cruz supplied the offense entire — his eighteenth homer in the fourth, a run-scoring single in the eighth — and Pittsburgh's own Montgomery closed the ninth for his twelfth save — the Chicago Montgomery, Colson, having authored the only hit against Pittsburgh all night. Fedde absorbed the defeat.

The ledgers on both sides are eloquent. Pittsburgh has won four running and eight of its last ten, completes its first road sweep since the July of 2025, and stands above the waterline for the first time since late July — with Ashcraft's absence, mourned in the ward above, making Jones's economy of arms doubly dear. The Buccaneers proceed directly to Wrigley Field for this afternoon's engagement with the Cubs. Chicago's south-side club, meanwhile, was held to two hits, struck out eleven times, has dropped three running — and yet retains the Central's chair by a game and a half over idle Cleveland, the divisional number holding at fourteen. The Guardians open in Minnesota tonight; the arithmetic of that race now runs through both cities at once.

The Friday tables stand thus. In the American: Tampa Bay holds the East by three over New York, Boston seven and a half astern, and can seal its October berth this very night; the White Sox keep the Central by a game and a half over Cleveland; Houston keeps the West by three over Texas. The wild-card row: New York and Boston in comfort, the last chair Cleveland's by one over Toronto, Texas two back, Baltimore three. In the National: Atlanta by four over Philadelphia, with the principals meeting head-on in Atlanta beginning tonight; Milwaukee by ten over Chicago; Los Angeles by eleven over San Diego. The wild-card ledger: Philadelphia's chair three and a half clear, the Cubs two and a half, and the last seat San Diego's by half a game over Arizona, Pittsburgh four and a half back. Tonight the full board of fifteen returns, and the bill is heavy with consequence: at 2:20 the Buccaneers carry their four-game parade into Wrigley, Dotel opposing Imanaga; at 7:05 the Subway meeting of Mets and Yankees at the Stadium, McLean against Rodón, played beneath the remembrance the columns above describe; at 7:10 Tampa Bay's clinching chance against Houston, Ullola opposing Rasmussen, while in Boston the seventeen-game winner Gray seeks his eighteenth against Kansas City, and in Miami the champions arrive with the prodigy De Paula's début expected, as this paper reported yesterday; at 7:15 the summit of the National East opens in Atlanta, Nola against Sale; at 8:10 Cleveland begins its pursuit in Minnesota, Messick opposing Bradley, with Chicago at St. Louis three-quarters of an hour later. The almanac notes Roberto Clemente Day upon the fifteenth; sixteen mornings remain to the season's final page on the seven-and-twentieth, and the Wild Card rounds open on the nine-and-twentieth. Until the morrow's dispatch, keep your scorecards near and your enthusiasms nearer.

~ THE HERALD ~

The Herald Acknowledges Its Debts