The Morning Horsehide Herald — the Two-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 LOUDSPEAKERS ASK IF HE REMEMBERS THE ONE-AND-TWENTIETH NIGHT OF SEPTEMBER — ALONSO ANSWERS WITH A FORTIETH HOME RUN ON THE DATE ITSELF: ORIOLES 4, BLUE JAYS 3

Earth, Wind & Fire serenade every Alonso turn at the bat and the Polar Bear obliges twice, the second blow a two-run eighth-inning stroke off the submariner Rogers — only the second homer Rogers has allowed all year; Henderson stitches three hits between the thunderclaps; Yesavage, seven weeks mended of a carpentered knee, strikes out three in his return; and Toronto's October candle burns to the wick

The music department at Camden Yards spent Monday evening asking a question. Each time Pete Alonso walked to the plate, the loudspeakers gave out the old Earth, Wind & Fire number — do you remember, the twenty-first night of September? — it being, by the calendar, exactly that. Toronto had opened the proceedings rudely, three runs off Baz before the first inning was half spent — Lukes and Springer lining singles, Keys lifting a sacrifice fly — but Alonso began his reply at once, driving a solo blow to the opposite field in the home half, his nine-and-thirtieth of the year.

That Trey Yesavage threw the pitch at all was its own small dispatch: activated from the shelf that very morning, the right-hander was making his first appearance since the fourth of August, a surgeon having in the interval tidied the torn meniscus of his left knee, and he gave two innings on forty pitches with three strikeouts, Alonso's blow the only hit against him. Baz meanwhile settled into a long, patient turn — six and two-thirds innings, nothing beyond the first-frame three — while Henderson pulled the ledger closer with three hits, a triple among them and his four-and-twentieth home run in the sixth. So it stood 3-2 into the eighth, when a walk to the pinch man Franklin brought up Alonso against the submarining Tyler Rogers, a pitcher who surrendered one home run in all of last season and had allowed but one this year. Alonso turned upon the offering and sent it to left, the measuring machines calling it four hundred feet: the fortieth, two runs, the lead, the game. Cano took the decision, Garcia sealed his tenth save, and a crowd of 12,067 that had waited out a three-quarter-hour delay went home paid in full.

The figure deserves its frame. No man in the history of the Major Leagues had ever hit forty home runs in his first season in each league until Monday: Alonso struck three-and-fifty as a National League freshman in Flushing in 2019, and now forty in his first American League campaign, his hundred-and-eight runs driven in leading the league by nine besides. "He's just one of the most consistent players I've ever seen," testified Baz, the man he beat, and the manager Albernaz pronounced forty home runs in this league "really impressive," which is managerial for awe. For Toronto the arithmetic reads like a will: seven-and-seventy wins against eighty defeats, three games and a half from Chicago's last wild-card chair with five to play and no tiebreaker in hand — the formal elimination may arrive as soon as this evening — and the misfortunes compounded, Bateman leaving the game hurt after a sliding catch while the graver bulletins are entered at the ward below. "Tyler is our guy," said the manager Schneider of his submariner. "You trust him to make pitches like he has all year." The trust was honestly earned; September simply keeps its own accounts.

News Around the League

THE OCTOBER DESK: SIX ARE SEATED AND SIX CHAIRS REMAIN — THE EAST'S CROWN RIDES INTO THE BRONX ON A TWIN BILL, MILWAUKEE'S BYE HANGS ON A SINGLE RESULT, AND THE NATIONAL'S THREE-WAY KNOT NOW HAS A WRITTEN VERDICT

The final week opens in earnest tonight. Six clubs hold October tickets — Tampa Bay, New York, and Boston in the American; Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Los Angeles in the National — six more will be seated by Sunday, and only three divisions are decided entering the day. The heaviest freight rides into the Bronx, where the Rays, six clear with seven to play, carry a magic number of one into a separate-admission doubleheader: a single victory in the four-game set wears the East's crown and the league's first seed, precisely as this paper reckoned Monday. Martinez opposes Rodón in the 1:05 opener and Rasmussen — unbeaten in his starts since early July — opposes Fried in the 7:05 nightcap; New York's only remaining road to the division is a sweep of all four. "A tall order," the manager Boone allowed, though his men are resolved that no champagne be uncorked on their lawn. The visitors, for the occasion, unpack new road grays this evening — a fresh cut of an old look, the first the club has worn in years.

In the National, Milwaukee's number for the first-round bye is likewise one: any Brewer victory at Philadelphia tonight, or any Atlanta defeat by Cincinnati's visiting hand, settles it, and two more wins would give the Central its first hundred-win season since the 2016 Cubs. Beneath the crowned, the wild-card row holds its Monday shape — Cubs and Padres level at seven-and-eighty wins, Philadelphia one astern — but the league office has now published the knot's answer: should all three finish level, Chicago, holder of both season series at five games of six against San Diego and six of seven against Philadelphia, would seat itself fourth and host the Phillies in the Wild Card round, while San Diego, seeded sixth, would travel to Atlanta. The Friars' own berth number stands at two, their five-game winning streak the hottest iron in the league.

THE INFIRMARY WARD: THE CHEEKBONE'S VERDICT IS FRACTURES, BUT NO SURGEON'S KNIFE — BREGMAN MAY YET MAKE OCTOBER; CEASE'S PICTURES SHOW INFLAMMATION AND LIKELY CLOSE HIS YEAR; GUERRERO SITS A DAY

The foul ball that found Alex Bregman in the on-deck circle Sunday — entered in yesterday's ward with the verdict pending — has its verdict now, though by an odd courier: a report from ESPN's Jeff Passan, relayed Monday and not yet confirmed by the Cubs themselves, holds that the third baseman sustained multiple fractures of the face, that no surgery will be required, and that a return for the postseason remains possible. The manager Counsell's own accounting was plainer: "He had a cut under his eye. He was bleeding from his nose a little bit. It's pretty swollen." The patient, writing from his convalescence by way of the electric bulletin boards, kept it to two sentences: "Thanks for all the messages yall. I'll be back."

At Toronto, the pictures this paper awaited on Dylan Cease came back mercifully clean and cruelly timed at once: inflammation of the right shoulder, nothing structural, no knife — but the ace misses his turn this week and may not throw again in 2026, a heavy line for the first year of his seven-year, $210-million engagement, though the club expects no carryover to 2027. Should the season indeed be closed, it closes at a 2.40 earned-run figure with 239 strikeouts, a count only three Toronto seasons have ever bettered. "It's definitely a bit heavy and achy, just not normal," the man himself allowed. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., meanwhile, sat out Monday's defeat at Baltimore with the lower back that pinched him Sunday — "he's really just day to day," said the manager Schneider — and Detroit, even in a nine-run evening, lengthened its own sick list, shelving the infielder Colt Keith for ten days and the pitcher Troy Melton for fifteen.

THE CONVALESCENT DESK: THE CHAMPIONS RESTOCK THE ARSENAL — SASAKI AND PAGES STEP OFF THE SHELF, THE MORROW STILL BELONGS TO OHTANI, AND SHEEHAN LEARNS WHAT THE LEDGER PAYS FOR NINE STRIKEOUTS

Monday's transaction wire read like a quartermaster's manifest at Chavez Ravine. The champions activated Roki Sasaki from the fifteen-day list and the outfielder Andy Pages from the ten-day, and to make the room they optioned the catcher Alfonzo and Emmet Sheehan to Oklahoma City — the same Sheehan whose nine strikeouts in long relief this paper sang only yesterday. Two days from a hero's line to a bus ticket; the roster ledger pays no sentiment.

And the vigil's last station holds its schedule. The manager Roberts' stated plan, as recorded in Monday's dispatch, still names Wednesday — the middle game of San Diego's visit, which opens tonight at ten past the hour — for the activation of Shohei Ohtani, strictly as a batsman, his fifteen-day shelf-leave expiring with the date. The Padres arrive carrying five straight victories and their berth arithmetic; the champions carry four straight of their own and the deepest bench October money can mend. The collision seats itself tonight, and this paper will keep the account.

THE LAURELS DESK: THE WEEK'S GARLANDS GO TO TWO MEN THE PENNANT RACES LEAN UPON — VARGAS AND CRONENWORTH ARE NAMED PLAYERS OF THE WEEK

The league hung its weekly laurels Monday on a pair of pennant-race shoulders. Miguel Vargas of the White Sox — whose unprecedented season line this paper entered on Sunday — batted .348 for the week with three home runs, nine driven in, and two stolen bases, and takes the second Player of the Week honor of his life; his three-and-thirty homers beside twenty steals make him merely the third White Sox player ever to pair thirty with twenty, joining Magglio Ordóñez and Luis Robert Jr. in the South Side book.

And Jake Cronenworth of the Padres, who entered the week dragging a .581 on-base-plus-slugging figure, chose the hour of his club's need to bat 13-for-28 — a .464 clip — with two homers, eight driven in, and eight runs scored, the whole of it crowned by Sunday's two-homer, five-run afternoon against Miami that this paper recorded in Monday's card. It is his second such garland and his first since June of 2021, which is a long winter between wreaths; the streaking Friars will take the omen.

THE STRAW-POLL DESK: EIGHT-AND-THIRTY WRITERS, ONE NAME ON EVERY NATIONAL BALLOT — CROW-ARMSTRONG SWEEPS MLB.COM'S FINAL POLL OF THE YEAR, AND ALVAREZ HOLDS THE AMERICAN'S

MLB.com posted the final edition of its season-long Most Valuable poll — eight-and-thirty of its writers, five names apiece — and in the National the verdict wanted no arithmetic: Pete Crow-Armstrong took every one of the thirty-eight first-place votes, ahead of Ohtani, with Misiorowski and De La Cruz tied further back. The case is the season itself: the Cub leads the game in runs at 118 and extra-base hits at 83, shares the home-run lead at five-and-forty with Schwarber, and stands two thefts from the first 40-40 season in his franchise's history, as this paper counted only yesterday. In the American, Yordan Alvarez of Houston holds the poll's head with nine-and-twenty first-place votes to Caminero's seven, Witt, Schlittler, and Rice trailing.

The Herald appends its standing reminder: the poll is the writers' parlor game, and a fine one. The award belongs to the ballot — voted by the Base Ball Writers when the season ends, announced in November — and unanimity attaches to the poll, never yet to the trophy.

The Rest of the Card

ON THE DAY THE PARK TAKES A BANK'S NAME, THE MAN WEARING 53 TAKES THE EVENING — MALGERI'S THUNDER AND LEATHER CARRY THE DETROITS: DETROITS 9, NATS 2

Hours after the club announced that its home of six-and-twenty years — Comerica Park since the century opened — will be called Fifth Third Park from next season, the outfielder Ben Malgeri, who has worn No. 53 since his June summons, supplied the christening: a diving catch on a 108-mile-an-hour liner in the first, a double, and a three-run homer in the five-run fifth that broke the thing open. Báez and Torkelson added thunderclaps of their own among twelve Detroit hits, Lee's ground-rule double had opened the scoring, and Montero threw four one-hit innings of relief for his tenth victory. Washington's whole answer was Yohandy Morales' pinch-hit two-run homer in the eighth; the loss went to Herz, activated from the sixty-day shelf that very afternoon for his first turn of the year — a hard homecoming.

GILBERT'S BLOW MOVES KRUKOW TO BORROW HIS AILING PARTNER'S FAMOUS CRY — "AND IIIIT'S OUTTA HERE!" RINGS AT ORACLE PARK: FRISCO NINE 5, MINNESOTANS 2

Drew Gilbert collected three hits and drove in three — a two-run single in the second and, on the first pitch he saw from Matthews in the fifth, his eleventh home run — and up in the booth Mike Krukow, caught mid-handoff, blurted the signature call of the man whose chair sat empty: "And iiiiit's outta here!" Asked where it came from, the retiring broadcaster answered, "That's the only thing I could think of! I just stole it from my partner" — Duane Kuiper having stepped away for the cancer treatment this paper recorded yesterday, with every intention of rejoining the booth before his old friend's farewell weekend. On the field, Matthews struck out nine Frisco batsmen in five innings and lost anyway; Brooks Lee's four-and-twentieth homer survived a review and Rodriguez added a late one in the Minnesotans' four-hit evening; the newcomer Davidson, his contract purchased that morning, singled and stole the first base of his big-league life; and Beck took the decision with T. Harris sealing the save.

The Tuesday tables, then — the schedule having caught its breath on a three-game Monday, the full board of sixteen returns tonight. In the American: Tampa Bay holds the East by six over New York with seven to play apiece, and the crown may be worn by nightfall, the arithmetic standing at a single Rays victory in the Bronx; the Central is Cleveland's by one over Chicago, the Guardians riding five straight with the tiebreaker still in Chicago's keeping; the West is Texas's by one over Houston, the Rangers at an even .500 and the Silver Boot tiebreaker still Houston's; and the wild-card row reads New York and Boston seated, Chicago's last chair three clear of Houston, three and a half of Toronto, and four and a half of Baltimore. In the National: Atlanta's East is sewn on; Milwaukee, at eight-and-ninety victories, carries a bye number of one into Philadelphia; 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, six to play. Tonight's bill, verified against the schedule: the Bronx twin bill at 1:05 and 7:05, Martinez and Rasmussen carrying the Rays against Rodón and Fried; Toronto at Baltimore at 6:35, the venerable Scherzer taking the ball with elimination in the air; Milwaukee at Philadelphia at 6:40, May opposing Wheeler with the bye in the balance, alongside St. Louis at Pittsburgh and Washington at Detroit; Cleveland at Boston at 6:45, Messick against Tolle; Cincinnati at Atlanta at 7:15; Miami at Wrigley and the White Sox at Kansas City at 7:40; the Mets at Texas at 8:05; Arizona at Denver at 8:40; Houston at Seattle and the Angels against the Athletics at 9:40; Minnesota at San Francisco at 9:45; and San Diego at Los Angeles at 10:10, King taking the ball for the streaking Friars. Five 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 — Tuesday, September 22, 2026 — Boxscore
Baseball-Reference.com — Today's Games, Upcoming Schedule and Upcoming Dates — Baseball-Reference
Jake Rill, Alonso's 40th HR creates 21st night of September to remember for O's — MLB.com
Keegan Matheson, Rogers bit with rare HR as Blue Jays' Wild Card chances dwindle — MLB.com
Bill Ladson, Bregman has facial fractures, but postseason return possible (report) — MLB.com
Keegan Matheson, Cease uncertain for remainder of '26 after MRI reveals shoulder inflammation — MLB.com
Keegan Matheson, Vladdy kept out of lineup vs. Baltimore with lower back tightness — MLB.com
Jason Beck, Fifth Third's first star? Naturally, it's No. 53 — MLB.com
Jason Beck, Tigers' home ballpark renamed to Fifth Third Park — MLB.com
Manny Randhawa, 'Iiiit's outta here!' Mike Krukow channels partner Duane Kuiper on HR call — MLB.com
Ed Eagle, Vargas, Cronenworth come up big to win Player of the Week honors — MLB.com
Brian Murphy, Our final MVP poll has clear frontrunners, but can this week change anything? — MLB.com
Bryan Hoch and Adam Berry, With AL East title on line, Yanks determined to keep Rays from celebrating in Bronx — MLB.com
Adam Berry, Rays' new road uniforms have fresh take on a familiar look — MLB.com
Andrew Simon, A 3-way tie for NL Wild Card is in play. Here's how it would shake out — MLB.com
Max Ralph, These 9 series starting tonight will help determine postseason picture — MLB.com