The Morning Horsehide Herald — the One-and-Twentieth of September, Two Thousand and Twenty-Six

Is it spring training yet? No — but the championship season is upon us, a finer thing still.

The Game of the Day

THE CAST-OFF OF APRIL STARTS THE CLINCHER OF SEPTEMBER — A SEVENTH EAST FLAG IN NINE YEARS IS SEWN ON AT HOUSTON: BRAVES 4, ASTROS 2

Pérez, judged surplus in the spring, keeps the ledger close; Yastrzemski's three-run thunder in the sixth — his third blow of the road trip — overturns Altuve's early lead; Mederos takes the decision, Dodd the save, and the sweep is complete; Houston, beaten a third straight time, sits a game off the West's throne with the wild-card ground shrinking beneath it

On the twelfth of April the Atlanta club looked upon Martín Pérez — a non-roster man of the spring — and designated him for assignment, which is the game's politest way of saying not wanted. On Sunday afternoon at Houston the same Pérez took the ball in the game that decided the National League's East, and kept it close enough for the deciding to be done. The manager Weiss has reminded his men all summer that the prognosticators wanted no part of them in March; it was fitting, then, that the flag was clinched behind a pitcher the ledger itself had once declined.

The afternoon's accounting was patient. Altuve's sixteenth home run had Houston ahead in the fourth, and ahead the Texans remained until the sixth, when Atlanta put four across in a single frame — the heart of them a three-run blast from Mike Yastrzemski, his twelfth of the year and his third of a road trip that went 4-and-2, with Albies driving home the fourth. A man bearing that name has hit October thunder before; the family trade continues. Mederos, in relief, took the decision at 5-and-1, Smith-Shawver and Kerr passed the late innings hand to hand, and Dodd sealed his second save, Diaz's eighth-inning blow the whole of Houston's answer. Four runs on six hits, not an error in the field — economy itself.

So the clinch this paper forecast Sunday morning arrived by Sunday evening, and by Atlanta's own hand: a 4-2 victory, a sweep of the Astros in their own park, and a seventh division title in the past nine years. "We've been fighting all year to get to this moment," said Pérez, and appended the sentence Atlanta will carry into October: "And we're not done yet." As the seedings stand this morning the Braves are the National's third seed, their Wild Card opponent to be drawn from among the Padres, Cubs, and Phillies — the arithmetic of that row is sorted at the October desk below. Houston's troubles, meanwhile, compound: a third straight defeat drops the Texans a game behind Texas in the West — the throne that has changed hands thrice in three mornings stays with Arlington a second day, both claimants having lost — and their grip on the wild-card row is now three games short of Chicago's chair with six to play.

News Around the League

THE OCTOBER DESK: BOSTON CLINCHES BY LOSING, TAMPA BAY MAKES A FORTRESS OF ITS DOME — AND THE CROWN MAY PASS THROUGH THE BRONX AS SOON AS TOMORROW

The strangest celebration of the year unfolded in the visitors' clubhouse at St. Petersburg, where the Red Sox — beaten 5-1 by the Rays an hour earlier — learned that Houston's defeat at Atlanta had punched their postseason ticket regardless, and set the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" playing on what witnesses describe as an endless loop. A club that spent its first three months among the American's also-rans is October-bound; the berth is the reward of the long climb back, and no man in the room apologized for the scoreboard's assistance.

Their hosts, meanwhile, closed the home ledger in state. Tampa Bay's 5-1 decision was its five-and-fiftieth victory of the year in the rebuilt dome — a single-season record for the house — capping an 8-and-1 homestand that included three walk-off victories. The East's lead stands at six with seven to play, and the arithmetic now runs through the Bronx: the Rays need but one victory in the four-game set at Yankee Stadium that opens with Tuesday's doubleheader to wear the division's crown and the league's first seed. In the National, the row beneath the champions re-sorts nightly: the Cubs and Padres sit level at seven-and-eighty wins, Chicago holding the row's head by its season series against both San Diego and Philadelphia; the Padres — winners of thirteen of fourteen, the hottest club in the land — carry a magic number of two toward a third consecutive postseason, a thing never once managed in the franchise's eight-and-fifty seasons; and Milwaukee, its franchise record already banked as the card below relates, needs but one more victory — or one more Atlanta defeat — to claim the National's first-round bye. Both clubs stand idle this day, so that question keeps until Tuesday.

THE MILESTONE DESK: TWENTY-AND-TWENTY, TWICE OVER — CHOURIO WRITES A LINE NO MAN HIS AGE EVER WROTE, AND CRUZ JOINS BONDS AND McCUTCHEN IN THE PITTSBURGH BOOK

History was made at Camden Yards by way of a walk and a dash. When Jackson Chourio stole second in the sixth inning Sunday — safe upon appeal to the moving pictures, the first call having gone against him — the theft was his twentieth of the season, set beside four-and-twenty home runs, and made him the first player in Major League history to complete three 20-20 campaigns before his twenty-third birthday. Only Julio Rodríguez of Seattle and Bobby Witt Jr. of Kansas City have so much as opened their careers with three straight such seasons, and neither did it so young. "That's just Chourio," shrugged his old bush-league mate Misiorowski. "He's an animal out there." The Wonder Kid stole another base later in the evening for good measure.

And at Pittsburgh, Oneil Cruz heard the two names he had just joined and paused a full ten seconds before speaking. His fourth-inning blast off Wacha — a 75-mile-an-hour curveball dispatched 420 feet to dead center — was his twentieth home run, making him merely the third Pirate ever to pair twenty homers with twenty steals in three consecutive seasons. The others are Barry Bonds and Andrew McCutchen. That Cruz has done it in three-and-ninety games, two months of his summer lost to a fractured hand, only sharpens the figure; since his August return he bats .318 and slugs .533, and his club — 52-and-41 with him, 27-and-36 without — has won four straight, as the card relates.

THE INFIRMARY WARD: A FOUL BALL FINDS THE MAN WAITING HIS TURN — BREGMAN CARTED TO THE HOSPITAL FROM THE ON-DECK CIRCLE, AND TORONTO'S SICK LIST LENGTHENS BY TWO

The ugliest moment of the Sunday card involved no pitch thrown in anger. In the fourth inning at Cincinnati, Alex Bregman stood in the on-deck circle when his teammate Busch half-swung at an offering from Mey and fouled it squarely into Bregman's left cheekbone. The third baseman walked to the dugout under his own power, was lifted for a pinch-hitter, and was sent to the hospital for X-rays and further examination; the club had no verdict by night's end. "Any time the ball hits the head area, it's scary," said Busch, who bore the guiltless guilt of the man at the plate. "You focus on the game, but it's tough." The Cubs won the game 9-1, and would trade the margin entire for a clean bill.

Toronto's troubles wear no bandage so visible but run deeper into the pitching ledger. Dylan Cease, the staff's ace, has been sent back to Toronto for an examination of his throwing shoulder and is scratched from his Wednesday turn, the club awaiting the pictures before speaking of a return; and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. left Sunday's victory at Arlington in the fourth inning with tightness of the lower back — "we just wanted to be careful," said the manager Schneider, "and hopefully he's good for tomorrow." For a club three games shy of the wild-card row's last chair, every man on the table is a game off the ledger.

THE CONVALESCENT DESK: WEDNESDAY IS NAMED FOR THE GREAT RETURN — OHTANI'S SHELF-LEAVE EXPIRES MIDWEEK, WHILE SKUBAL STEPS AWAY ON A FAMILY MATTER AND THE CHAMPIONS SHUFFLE THEIR DECK

The vigil this paper has kept over Shohei Ohtani's recovery may close midweek. The manager Roberts, having promised Saturday that the returning series was at hand, has now named the day: there is "a good chance" the great man is activated Wednesday, when his fifteen-day shelf-leave — dated back to the eighth of September — expires, in the second game of San Diego's visit to Chavez Ravine. He returns strictly as a batsman, the mound closed for his year, and the swings taken against the pitching-machine that throws like a big-leaguer have all come away satisfactory.

The same champions spent Sunday shuffling the deck around him. Tarik Skubal went to the bereavement list on a family matter — "he's fine," Roberts assured, and the leave may cost him no turn at all, his next start projected for Friday at San Francisco — while Sheehan and Hurt came up from Oklahoma City, and Sheehan promptly struck out nine Giants across a long scoreless relief, as the card below admires. Tucker, nursing a leg bruised by his own foul ball Saturday, sat the start and then pinch-hit anyway. The champions won their fourth straight all the same; whole in October is the only wholeness they are counting.

THE BROADCAST BOOTH: KUIPER TAKES THE HARD NEWS STANDING — A SECOND BOUT WITH CANCER ANNOUNCED, AND A VOW TO CALL HIS OLD FRIEND'S FAREWELL

Sad tidings from the Bay, borne with the steadiness of a man who has sat before a microphone for decades. Duane Kuiper, six-and-seventy years old and the voice of the Giants for a generation, announced Sunday that he has been diagnosed with throat cancer — an illness unrelated, his physicians say, to the cancer he fought and beat in 2021 — and that treatment at Stanford began last week. "I'm optimistic that it will be successfully treated," he said, and the paper takes him at his word.

The timing is its own small heartbreak: the booth beside him belongs to Mike Krukow, his friend of forty years, who retires when this season ends after six-and-thirty years behind the microphone. Kuiper had hoped to call the weekend's games at Los Angeles and could not travel; he plans instead to return to the booth Tuesday, and to call the season's closing series against the Dodgers at Oracle Park — the sendoff, he means to say, will not go unvoiced. The Herald, which trades daily in the sound of the game, tips its hat to a man who has supplied so much of it, and wishes him the swift and total recovery the record says he knows how to make.

The Rest of the Card

SÁNCHEZ BANKS AN EIGHTEENTH AND SCHWARBER WALKS FOUR TIMES WITHOUT SWINGING AT ANYTHING USEFUL — THE QUAKERS TAKE THE FLUSHING FINALE: QUAKERS 7, METS 2

Cristopher Sánchez worked deep into the evening for his eighteenth victory against six defeats, while Philadelphia's patience did the scoring — nine walks drawn in all, four of them by Schwarber alone — and Crawford tripled and drove home three. Bichette's seventeenth home run supplied the whole of the Flushing answer; the Quakers hold the National's third wild-card chair, one game astern of the row's co-leaders, with the champions of Milwaukee arriving Tuesday.

CRUZ'S TWENTIETH IN THE FOURTH, FLORES JR.'S ANSWER IN THE EIGHTH — THE BUCS SWEEP KANSAS CITY AND MAKE IT FOUR STRAIGHT: BUCS 4, ROYALS 3

Pasquantino's two-run blow in the seventh had put Kansas City ahead 3-2, whereupon the rookie Rafael Flores Jr. struck a two-run homer in the eighth — his tenth — to take it back for good. Cruz's milestone thunder, enshrined at the desk above, had kept the ledger close; Mlodzinski took the decision and Montgomery sealed his sixteenth save, and Pittsburgh, at nine-and-seventy wins with six to play, is assembling a September nobody asked its permission for.

NINE STRIKEOUTS, THREE HITS, AND THE STRIKEOUT CROWN RECLAIMED — WILLIAMS SENDS THE CLEVELAND NINE HOME IN FRONT: CLEVELAND NINE 1, ATHLETICS 0

Gavin Williams gave seven innings of three hits and a lone walk, struck out nine to retake the American's strikeout lead, and left the rest to Adell — whose fourth-inning knock drove home run number three-and-ninety of his season, the game's only tally — and to Smith, whose nine-and-thirtieth save closed the sweep. "You can kind of see the panic in a lot of the hitters," observed Kwan. Five straight victories send Cleveland on the road holding the Central by one over Chicago; the Athletics, whitewashed, have dropped six straight.

FOUR IN THE FIRST AND THE DOME'S LEDGER CLOSES AT FIVE-AND-FIFTY — THE SUNSHINE NINE BID THEIR HOUSE FAREWELL IN STATE: SUNSHINE NINE 5, CRIMSON HOSE 1

Tampa Bay fell upon Sandoval for four runs before the first inning was out — DeLuca and Simpson driving home two apiece, Mesa Jr. adding his fourteenth homer later — and Jax with five relief hands behind him kept Boston to a single ninth-inning run on Story's fifth. The victory was the record fifty-fifth in the dome this season and the defeated clinched anyway, as the October desk relates — a game whose loser left in champagne, which even this correspondent's archives cannot precedent. Simpson's stolen base was his six-and-fortieth.

A TRIPLE SHY OF THE CYCLE AND TWO SHY OF FORTY-AND-FORTY — CROW-ARMSTRONG'S FIVE-AND-FORTIETH POWERS THE ROUT AT CINCINNATI: CUBS 9, REDLEGS 1

Pete Crow-Armstrong, hitless the two days prior, answered with three hits — single, double, and his five-and-fortieth home run, the triple alone withheld — stole his eight-and-thirtieth base to stand two thefts from the first 40-40 season in the franchise book, and drove in two of Chicago's nine. Suzuki's five-and-twentieth and Conforto's fifteenth joined the barrage; Peterson took his ninth win; Bregman's run-scoring single preceded the misfortune the infirmary ward records, and the Cubs' clinch-watch continues, Arizona's victory having kept the champagne corked a day.

THE RAIN DELAY OUTLASTED THE BASEBALL, AND THE BASEBALL WAS ALL CHICAGO'S — MEIDROTH'S THUNDER KEEPS THE LAST CHAIR WARM: WHITE STOCKINGS 8, BENGALS 1

The crowd waited out three hours and fifty minutes of weather to see two hours and fifty of baseball, and the White Stockings made the arithmetic worth it: Meidroth homered and drove in two, Antonacci matched him with two of his own and a stolen base besides, and Murakami and Grichuk added knocks in a ten-hit evening while Detroit managed a single late run. Brazobán took the decision in relief. Chicago thus holds the American's final wild-card chair by three over Toronto and Houston, one game off Cleveland's Central lead — every road still open.

HERRERA STRIKES TWICE AND THE BOY BERNAL BREAKS IT LATE — A THREE-RUN EIGHTH SENDS THE CAPITAL NINE HOME EMPTY: REDBIRDS 5, CAPITAL NINE 3

Iván Herrera homered twice — his seventeenth and eighteenth — yet Washington stood a run ahead entering the eighth, whereupon St. Louis put three across, Bernal's fourth home run the loudest of the blows. Gastelum took the decision and O'Brien sealed his eight-and-thirtieth save, most in the National; Abrams answered for Washington with his one-and-thirtieth homer and three-and-thirtieth steal in a losing cause.

FOUR IN THE SEVENTH UNDO deGROM AND THE SWEEP IS AVOIDED — TORONTO'S CANDLE GUTTERS BUT DOES NOT GO OUT: BLUE JAYS 7, RANGERS 2

Toronto nicked single runs through the early innings, absorbed Burger's two-run seventh-and-twentieth homer, and then broke the thing open with four in the seventh — McAdoo and Lukes driving home two apiece on the night, Clement's two-and-thirtieth double among eleven Toronto hits. Arrighetti took the decision in relief; deGrom was charged with his tenth defeat against eleven victories. The Jays, three back of the last chair, stay mathematically breathing — though Guerrero's fourth-inning exit, recorded at the infirmary ward, shadowed the win. Texas, beaten, keeps the West's throne by a game only because Houston fell the same afternoon.

SEVEN SCORELESS IN THE MOUNTAIN AIR FROM A MAN A MONTH IN THE LEAGUE — ANDERSON MAKES COORS FIELD SIT QUIETLY: SEATTLE NINE 2, ROCKIES 1

Kade Anderson, called up only in late August, gave the start of his young life where pitching goes to die: seven innings at Denver, three hits, no walks, seven strikeouts, not a run, and all of it on four-and-eighty pitches. Canzone drove home both Seattle runs; Goodman's nine-and-thirtieth homer in the ninth spoiled the whitewash before Bazardo banked his first save. The Rockies' ninety-ninth defeat leaves them a game from the century; Seattle plays out the string with its eyes openly on 2027 — "and beyond," as the wires put it.

TWO HITS ARE ALL ANAHEIM CAN SHOW FOR NINE INNINGS — KREMER AND OBER PASS THE WHITEWASH BETWEEN THEM, AND RODEN DRIVES HOME FOUR: TWIN CITIES NINE 8, SERAPHS 0

Kremer carried the shutout deep and Ober carried it home, two Anaheim hits the entire evening's yield, while Minnesota's thirteen hits included the young Roden's first home run of the campaign in a four-run night's work, Bell driving home two more and the rookie Ross logging his first steal and first run driven in of the season besides. The Twin Cities men square their account at the season's margin; the Seraphs absorb defeat six-and-ninety, whitewashed a second time in three nights.

CRONENWORTH TWICE, TATIS ONCE, AND THE DRUM ROLLS ON — THIRTEEN WINS IN FOURTEEN, AND THE MAGIC NUMBER READS TWO: PADRES 7, MARLINS 3

Jake Cronenworth homered twice and drove in five — a season's work in an evening — and Tatis added his five-and-twentieth as San Diego banked a fifth consecutive victory, Buehler taking the decision. Sanoja's three-run seventh-inning homer was the whole of Miami's reply. The Friars' arithmetic is entered at the October desk: no club in the land is hotter, and no Padres club in eight-and-fifty years has reached October three years running — a drought two victories from its end.

FOUL BY FEET, THEN FAIR BY PLENTY — ARENADO'S SECOND-CHANCE SLAM OVERTURNS THE AFTERNOON, AND THE DESERT NINE REFUSE THE UNDERTAKER A DAY LONGER: DESERT NINE 8, YANKEES 4

New York's third inning produced three home runs nose to tail — Ramos, the boy Lombard Jr., and Jones — and a 4-1 lead that lasted precisely until Nolan Arenado came up with the bases full in the fifth. His first blast hooked foul at the pole; the next pitch he hammered fair into the left-field seats — a grand slam, his ninth of a career and third of the season, tying the franchise's single-season record — crowning a five-run frame in the club's forty-seventh comeback victory of the year, most in the Majors. Perdomo tripled and drove home two more. The Desert nine remain four back of the last chair with six to play — alive, which was Sunday's entire object; the Yankees, still without their captain, dropped a second straight.

NINE STRIKEOUTS FROM THE MAN RECALLED AT NOON — SHEEHAN'S LONG RELIEF CARRIES THE ANGELENOS PAST THE BAY NINE: ANGELENOS 3, BAY NINE 1

Recalled from Oklahoma City in the morning's shuffle, Emmet Sheehan was in a big-league game by afternoon and struck out nine San Francisco batsmen across a long scoreless relief, the visitors' first-inning run standing alone all day. Los Angeles chipped a run apiece from the sixth, seventh, and eighth — Edman's seventh homer among them — with Bubic taking the decision and Scott his three-and-twentieth save. A fourth straight victory for the crowned champions of the West, who now await Wednesday's reinforcement as the convalescent desk relates; the Bay nine have lost two-and-ninety.

THREE INNINGS BY DESIGN FOR THE ACE, A RECORD BY RIGHT FOR THE CLUB — VICTORY EIGHT-AND-NINETY STANDS ALONE IN THE CREAM CITY BOOK: CREAM CITY NINE 3, ORIOLES 0

Misiorowski threw three sharp innings and departed exactly on schedule — nothing wrong, the club hastened to say, but a bringing-in of the great arm for its safe October landing — and six relief hands finished the whitewash, Hall taking the decision and Megill his nine-and-twentieth save. Contreras homered, the rookie shortstop Pratt singled home two, and Chourio ran into history as the milestone desk sings. Victory eight-and-ninety breaks the franchise record Milwaukee had only just tied, with six games yet to play and the first-round bye a single result away — the October desk holds that arithmetic.

The Monday tables, then — with two flags decided and a third near. In the American: Tampa Bay, its home ledger closed at a record five-and-fifty wins in the dome, leads clinched New York by six and may take the East with a single victory in the Bronx, where a doubleheader opens the four-game set Tuesday; the Central is Cleveland's by one over Chicago; the West is Texas's by one over Houston, both having lost Sunday, the Silver Boot tiebreaker still in Houston's keeping; and the wild-card row reads New York and Boston seated — Boston's ticket punched Sunday by Houston's defeat — with Chicago's last chair three clear of Toronto and Houston alike. In the National: Atlanta's East is sewn on, as the day's chief dispatch relates; Milwaukee, its franchise record standing at eight-and-ninety victories, needs one more win or one Atlanta defeat for the bye, and two more wins for the Central's first hundred-win season since the 2016 Cubs; the champions of the West have won four straight; and the wild-card row reads Cubs and Padres level at seven-and-eighty — Chicago's head chair held by the season series — with Philadelphia one back in the third and Arizona four adrift with six to play. Today's bill is a thin Monday card of three, verified against the schedule: Toronto at Baltimore at 6:35, Yesavage opposing Baz; Washington at Detroit at 6:40; and Minnesota at San Francisco at 9:45. Tomorrow the full board returns — the Bronx twin bill from 1:05, Milwaukee at Philadelphia with the bye perhaps in the balance, Cincinnati at Atlanta, and San Diego at Los Angeles with the Friars' magic number at two. Six mornings remain to the season's last page on the seven-and-twentieth; 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

MLB Box Scores — Monday, September 21, 2026 — Boxscore
Baseball-Reference.com — Today's Games, Upcoming Schedule and Upcoming Dates — Baseball-Reference
Mark Bowman, Braves sweep Astros to clinch NL East title: 'And we're not done yet' — MLB.com
Ian Browne, 'Stayin' Alive!' Red Sox clinch postseason spot that once seemed improbable — MLB.com
Adam Berry, Rays on precipice of AL East title after setting single-season record for wins at Trop — MLB.com
Adam McCalvy, Miz sharp in shortened outing as Brewers set franchise win record — MLB.com
Adam McCalvy, The Wonder Kid does it again! Chourio makes 20-20 history — MLB.com
Aiden Stepansky, Cruz's latest mammoth blast puts him in elite Pirates company — MLB.com
Bill Ladson, Bregman awaiting test results after being hit in face by foul ball while in on-deck circle — MLB.com
John Henry, Blue Jays' four-run 7th gets much-needed win over Rangers — MLB.com
Sonja Chen, 'Good chance' Ohtani will be activated Wed. after minimum IL stint — MLB.com
Sonja Chen, Skubal to bereavement list, Sheehan recalled among LA moves — MLB.com
Maria Guardado, Kuiper shares throat cancer diagnosis; will return to booth for Krukow's sendoff — MLB.com
Tim Stebbins, Williams reclaims AL strikeout lead as Guards take final postseason push 'one day at a time' — MLB.com
Daniel Kramer, Anderson goes 7 scoreless innings at Coors in best start of career — MLB.com
Bill Ladson, PCA's latest offensive outburst puts Cubs on verge of playoff clinch — MLB.com
Jesse Borek, Arenado's 2nd-chance slam breathes life into D-backs' postseason hopes — MLB.com
AJ Cassavell, Padres storming toward franchise first: a third straight playoff berth — MLB.com
Bracket, tiebreakers and more: Here is the current playoff picture — MLB.com