THE MORNING HORSEHIDE HERALD

THE CLINCHING DESK: TWO MORE TICKETS PUNCHED IN A SINGLE EVENING — THE CHAMPIONS' FOURTEENTH OCTOBER RUNNING TIES THE OLDEST STREAK IN THE BOOKS, AND THE YANKEES' BERTH ARRIVES BY WIRE FROM TORONTO

The postseason's ledger of the admitted doubled itself last night. In Cincinnati the champions dispatched the Reds four-to-one — the particulars stand in the card below — and thereby entered their fourteenth consecutive postseason, drawing level with Atlanta's 1991-to-2005 run for the longest such streak the game has ever kept. The celebration was a handshake line, nothing more; champagne is not uncorked in that clubhouse for formalities. "We don't take it for granted," said Max Muncy, the longest-tenured of them, "but it is the expectation here." The expectations beyond: a thirteenth West flag in fourteen years, held by nine games over San Diego with the tiebreaker banked; a first-round bye, three and a half clear of Atlanta for the second seed; and the game's first three-peat since the Yankees of 1998 to 2000.

Which brings the desk to those Yankees' heirs, whose own ticket arrived by the strangest of couriers. New York beat Minnesota eight-to-three, as the card tells, but the berth itself was sealed in Toronto, where the Blue Jays' ninth-inning stumble against Detroit did the arithmetic for them — a third consecutive October for the Bronx, and the eighth in the manager Boone's nine years. "We've been through a lot this year with injuries, with adversity," Boone allowed amid the clubhouse noise. "Through all the ups and downs, they've been a together group." The pitcher Warren put the house's ambition more plainly: "This is the baseline. This is what we're expected to do." Four clubs now hold October's paper — Tampa Bay, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, New York — and the reader will note the season's first two admissions came by walk-off thunderbolt and twenty-run carnival, the latest two by handshake and by telegram. September distributes its drama unevenly.

THE LAUREL DESK: THE FINAL CY YOUNG CANVASS IS UNANIMOUS TWICE OVER — SCHLITTLER AND MISIOROWSKI, EACH AT 1.95, SLAM THE DOOR ON BOTH LEAGUES AT ONCE

Only yesterday these columns recorded the Bronx chatter drifting from Cy Young toward Most Valuable; this morning the wires certify that the first conversation, at least, is over. MLB.com's final poll of the season — two-and-thirty voters, ranking five deep — returned Cam Schlittler of the Yankees and Jacob Misiorowski of the Brewers as unanimous first choices in their leagues, every first-place vote to both men. The symmetry is the connoisseur's delight: each leads his league with an earned-run figure of precisely 1.95, tied for the lowest among all qualified pitchers in the game. Schlittler has allowed one run or fewer in each of his last seven starts; Misiorowski's two hundred six-and-thirty strikeouts are tied for the major-league lead — with Toronto's Cease, the American's runner-up, whose own two hundred six-and-thirty are a personal high and whose .177 average against is the league's stingiest. The rest of the American's ballot ran Messick, Rasmussen, Gray; the Herald notes with approval that an award poll and a pennant race have rarely shared so many principals. Misiorowski, as it happens, takes the hill this very evening at Pittsburgh — on Roberto Clemente Day, in the great man's own park, as the almanac below explains. The voters may be finished; the season is not.

THE MILESTONE DESK: FLUSHING CHEERS ITS POLAR BEAR IN VISITING ORANGE — ALONSO'S HOMECOMING FINDS HIM ONE BLOW SHY OF THREE HUNDRED

Pete Alonso walked to the visitors' end of a long and familiar hallway at Citi Field last night, dressed for the first time in his life to play against the Mets — and the house that watched him hit two hundred four-and-sixty home runs in its colors, more than any Met who ever lived, declined to treat him as a visitor. They chanted his name at batting practice, chanted it again after the anthem, and rose for a tribute reel before the first pitch; the man tipped his cap to the thunder. "Honestly, it's a little weird," he confessed. "I lived a lot of life here... It's much appreciated." The evening's line was a quiet nought-for-three with a walk, but the ledger around it is anything but quiet: those two hundred four-and-sixty homers as a Met plus the five-and-thirty of this Baltimore summer leave him at two hundred nine-and-ninety for his life — one swing from the three-hundred club — with his hundred runs driven leading all the American besides. The wires note his favorite memory of the old place remains the winning blow he struck against Milwaukee in the Wild Card round of 2024. The new place got the winning blow last night from another hand entirely, as the card below sings, and the Herald suspects Flushing will cheer rather less if number three hundred arrives before the set concludes.

THE INFIRMARY WARD: MIAMI FOLDS MEYER'S TENT FOR THE YEAR, ATLANTA'S LÓPEZ JOINS THE SHELF WITH ELEVEN TO PLAY, AND CLEVELAND HOLDS ITS BREATH OVER A FLANK

The gravest entry is Miami's. Max Meyer, an All-Star in the season's first half — the Marlins' first starter so honored since Alcantara in 2022 — has thrown his last pitch of 2026: the club halted his throwing program and shut him down, the neck strain that has shelved him since July refusing to yield. "He just wasn't able to get past the hump," said the manager McCullough, who chose a sound offseason over a longshot September. The man leaves behind one hundred eleven innings, far his most, and a sweeper the measuring machines rank among the game's best; the ward wishes the arm a quiet winter.

Atlanta's file thickens at the worst hour. Reynaldo López, chased in the third inning at Wrigley as the card below records, goes to the fifteen-day invalid list with discomfort of the right shoulder — "we've got to change course here," said the manager Weiss — and the East leaders, four and a half up with eleven to play, are down to Sale, Mahle, Holmes, and Pérez among starters who figure in October. The rookie Ritchie comes up from Gwinnett for tomorrow's turn, and Smith-Shawver's five innings of relief last night read like an audition for the playoff bullpen. In Cleveland, meanwhile, the young outfielder Angel Martínez winced through a seventh-inning swing and left the summit's opener with inflammation of the right flank — "we pulled Angel out of precaution," said Vogt; "we'll know more tomorrow" — words no club cares to speak with the division on the table. The lesser entries: Toronto's Rudy Martin Jr. to the ten-day list with a hamstring, and the champions' reliever Henriquez shelved with a barking lower back, the once-heralded Bobby Miller recalled to fill the room. The candle burns for all.

THE ALMANAC DESK: THE ONE-AND-TWENTY FLIES ON EVERY BREAST TODAY — ROBERTO CLEMENTE DAY ARRIVES, AS THESE COLUMNS HAVE TWICE PROMISED

Twice this week the almanac has pointed the reader to the fifteenth of September; it is here. Across all thirty parks today the game honors Roberto Clemente — fifteen times an All-Star, three thousand hits exactly, and a man who died on New Year's Eve of 1972 flying relief to earthquake-stricken Nicaragua — with a No. 21 patch on every jersey in the major leagues. At Pittsburgh, where he played the whole of his eighteen years, every Pirate, coach, and manager wears the number entire for tonight's set with Milwaukee; nominees for the Clemente Award, past winners, and players of Puerto Rican blood may do likewise wherever they stand. The year's nominees, one to a club, make a roll the Herald is pleased to print in part: Arizona's Carroll, who as the card below attests spent last midnight authoring a walk-off; Detroit's ancient Verlander, whose homecoming these pages have kept in pencil; Kansas City's Witt; the Mets' Lindor; and Baltimore's Alonso, nominated in his first autumn away from Flushing. The day opens Hispanic Heritage Month across the game. The award itself — for character, for the community, for the game carried beyond the foul lines — is the only laurel in the sport named for what a man does when no box score is kept, and the Herald holds it the equal of any column it prints.