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

Is it spring training yet? No — the pennants are being decided, and spring must wait its turn.

The Game of the Day

SIX MONTHS OF FRUSTRATION, DISCHARGED IN ONE SWING — RILEY TURNS A NINE-AND-NINETY-MILE BULLET FROM PHILADELPHIA'S CLOSER INTO THREE EIGHTH-INNING RUNS, AND THE OLD OCTOBER ORDER IS OVERTURNED: BRAVES 5, QUAKERS 3

The opener at Truist Park is a seesaw of triples and nerve — Sale rises from his bed at dawn and strikes out nine, Luzardo makes a mockery of the word 'opener' with five sparkling innings, Realmuto's two-run three-bagger has Philadelphia ahead in the seventh — until Riley, with two out and two aboard in the eighth, meets Duran's 99.9-mile fastball and deposits it in the right-center seats, whereupon a club beaten by these same Quakers in three straight Octobers finds itself one victory from the Division Series

The first October afternoon at Truist Park was an argument that changed hands four times, and it ended on the fastest pitch Jhoan Duran could summon. Austin Riley — whose summer, by his own club's accounting, was six months of frustration in search of an afternoon like this one — came to the plate in the eighth with two out, two aboard, and Atlanta trailing 3-2. Duran reached back for 99.9 miles the hour. Riley met it flush and sent it to the right-center seats, and the yard shook, and the verdict was written: 5-3, Atlanta, and the first blood of the Wild Card round.

It was a proper duel long before it was a thunderclap. Chris Sale, making his first postseason start in five years, confessed he had been awake since first light — "I could have pitched this game at 8:15 this morning," said the ancient left-hander, and he pitched it at two o'clock like a man renewed: six and one-third innings, four hits, nine strikeouts, Harper fanned along the way with heat that touched three figures. Opposite him, Jesús Luzardo made comedy of the caution in his manager's vocabulary. Mattingly had called him an opener; the left-hander, whose whole September amounted to one four-pitch inning, gave five innings of three-hit, one-run pitching with six strikeouts, and handed the game over with Philadelphia ahead 1-0 on Bohm's first-inning double.

The middle chapters belonged to the three-baggers. Yastrzemski's single squared it in the second; Albies tripled home Harris in the sixth for 2-1; and in the seventh Realmuto answered with a two-run triple of his own — De La Cruz and Stott scampering home, 3-2 Philadelphia, and the visitors nine outs from the precise script of their last three October meetings with this club, every one of which the Quakers had won. Then came the eighth: Harris, three hits on the day, singled once more; Albies followed him aboard; and Riley closed the ledger. Lee took the win in relief, Iglesias closed the ninth, and Duran — an All-Star all summer — wore the loss and the blown save together.

The arithmetic of the best-of-three is now brutally simple. Atlanta, which took nine of thirteen from Philadelphia this season and had never beaten them in October, leads one game to none and can end the affair this very afternoon: Game Two goes at two o'clock at Truist Park, Sánchez (18-7, a 2.91 figure) — fully rested, as this paper noted in yesterday's armory — against Mahle (7-10, 3.99). The survivor of the series calls upon the hundred-win Dodgers when the Division Series opens Saturday, the third of October; the Quakers, for their part, must now win twice in two days or watch a fifth consecutive October end at its first station.

The Postseason Card

THE STUMBLE AT THE DUGOUT STEP IS THE ONLY ONE ALL EVENING — ANTONACCI TRIPS AT THE INTRODUCTIONS, THEN TREADS ON HOUSTON FOR NINE INNINGS: WHITE STOCKINGS 6, HOUSTONS 3

The 84-win guests arrive at the 81-win champions' yard and play the part of the better club from the first frame — three runs before the second inning is done, Colson Montgomery's thunderclap in the fourth, and a bullpen relay that ends with young Taylor emptying the tank across a career-long two and one-third — while in the eighth the hosts' last uprising dies at the feet of Yainer Diaz, and word arrives that the Vatican itself had written the South Side ahead of the series

The evening's augury came at the pregame introductions, when Sam Antonacci tripped running out of the dugout at Daikin Park — and it proved a false omen entirely, for that misstep was very nearly Chicago's last. The White Stockings, whose 84 victories exceed their hosts' 81 — the curiosity this paper has twice remarked now made flesh — struck the champions of the West early and never surrendered the lead: Murakami's sacrifice fly cashed Antonacci in the first, and in the second Antonacci himself lined a single that brought home Braden Montgomery and Meidroth both, 3-0, before Houston's relay of arms had found its footing. The opener Blubaugh, undone by three walks in two-thirds of an inning, wore the loss; his successor King was raked for four hits in a third.

Colson Montgomery's solo thunderbolt in the fourth made it 4-0, Meidroth singled home a fifth in the fifth, and when Velázquez answered with a two-run blast for Houston, Murakami came home on a wild pitch to restore the four-run distance. The arithmetic thereafter belonged to Chicago's bullpen — Smith opening with three spotless innings, Hicks taking the win — and above all to Grant Taylor, summoned with two out in the seventh, who in the eighth met the evening's one true crisis — runners at first and second, two out, a three-run lead, and the dangerous Diaz at the plate — and put out the fire and finished the game besides: two and one-third innings, five strikeouts, the longest outing of his young life. Houston's final tally required an error to score. And for benediction, the club revealed that Pope Leo XIV — a White Sox man of long standing, who sat in the Rate Field seats for the 2005 World Series against these very Astros — had sent a letter to the chairman Reinsdorf ahead of the series, commending the club's fostering of friendship and solidarity through sport. The South Side, it appears, holds accounts in every ledger.

So a club that had not played an October game since 2021 leads its series one game to none, and the champions of the West — who took five of seven from Chicago this summer, and whose season was saved from a 20-31 May by main strength — stand in a must-win posture at their own yard. Game Two goes at five o'clock this evening at Daikin Park: Burke (11-7, 3.34) for the visitors against Brown (6-4, 3.19), the erstwhile invalid, for the hosts. The survivor of the series travels to Cleveland, where the Division Series opens Saturday, the third of October.

TWO SONS OF MASSACHUSETTS BREAK NEW ENGLAND'S HEART IN THE BRONX — SCHLITTLER STRIKES OUT TEN, RICE STRIKES A GRAND SLAM, AND THE OLDEST QUARREL OPENS AT NINE TO NOTHING: BRONX BOMBERS 9, CRIMSON HOSE 0

The seventh October chapter of the game's oldest feud begins as a taut 2-0 affair and ends an avalanche — Schlittler, who closed Boston's season a year ago, gives six and one-third two-hit innings; Rice, faithful to his scrambled eggs and avocado toast, collects four hits, two home runs, and six runs driven in; young Lombard makes a three-hit postseason debut; and Boston's miseries multiply when Anthony departs the sixth with the old right hand barking anew

New York's Game One plan was executed by two men raised in the shadow of the enemy's cathedral. Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice, Massachusetts boys the both, grew up surrounded by everything Red Sox — and in the seventh postseason meeting of the game's oldest quarrel they dismantled the club of their boyhood with a thoroughness that will be remembered on both sides of the line. Schlittler, owner of the American's best earned-run figure at 1.95 and the man who ended Boston's season in last October's Game Three, gave six and one-third innings of two-hit, scoreless pitching with ten strikeouts; Rice, a man of iron routine — the same cage work daily, the same breakfast of scrambled eggs and avocado toast — went four for five with a double, a fifth-inning home run, and, for punctuation, an eighth-inning grand slam: six runs driven in on the night.

For six innings it was nonetheless a duel worthy of the rivalry. Payton Tolle — at three-and-twenty the third-youngest man ever to start a Boston postseason opener, as this paper recorded yesterday, behind only Wood of 1912 and Ruth of 1918 — acquitted himself with honor: four and two-thirds innings, one run, the game still within a swing's reach at 2-0 when he departed. Then the Boston bullpen came apart at the seams — two in the seventh, five in the eighth, the last four aboard Rice's slam — while Wells drove home two and George Lombard Jr., the boy wonder whose first big-league hit, this very summer, was a home run, rapped three hits in his first taste of October. "Locked in," his teammates called him; the box score concurs.

Boston's deeper wound may be the one in the sixth inning's margin: Roman Anthony, checked swings having set the old right hand to barking, left the game and was hit for by Monasterio — the same hand whose partially torn ring-finger tendon cost him a stretch of the summer. "Hard to say right now," said the manager Tracy of his availability for Game Two, and the club must weigh the crueler arithmetic of an injury replacement, which would bar him until the Championship Series. There was one entry on the credit side of Boston's ward ledger: the ace Crochet, unseen since April, was formally activated from the sixty-day rolls on the eve of the series, the crate at last unsealed. He may be needed at once — Game Two goes at eight o'clock this evening in the Bronx, the wins leader Gray (18-5, 2.72) against Fried (5-5, 2.80), with the survivor of the series bound for Tampa Bay and Saturday's Division Series, and Boston bound for winter if it cannot solve the Bombers twice running.

SEVEN INNINGS WITHOUT A HIT UNTIL A DRIBBLER SPOILS THE SCROLL — KING FLIRTS WITH OCTOBER IMMORTALITY, THREE THUNDERCLAPS DO THE REST, AND MUSGROVE WALKS OUT OF TWO LOST YEARS INTO A ROARING PETCO NIGHT: GASLAMP NINE 8, CUBS 0

Last October's tormentors are made to pay for it with interest — Tatis and Machado strike home runs before the first inning is out, Bogaerts adds a third, and King carries a no-hitter to one out in the seventh, the longest such October errand since 2019, before Hoerner's forty-foot roller writes the only line in Chicago's hit column against him; then, with the verdict long settled, the hometown right-hander Musgrove takes a big-league mound for the first time since 2024 and the Gaslamp Quarter forgets the score entirely

San Diego opened its October by settling last year's account with compound interest. The Cubs, who ejected the Friars from the Wild Card round a year ago and had taken five of six from them in the season just closed, were handed the most comprehensive defeat of the young postseason: 8-0, thirteen hits against three, and for seven innings the genuine prospect of an ignominy without precedent in their October annals. Michael King, handed a 2-0 lead before the first inning was done, carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning — the longest postseason no-hit bid since Aníbal Sánchez's seven and two-thirds in the 2019 Championship Series — until, with one out, Hoerner topped a forty-foot dribbler down the third-base line that no arm in the yard could have converted. "When you're going out in the seventh with a no-hitter — you definitely are thinking about it," King allowed afterward. His final line wanted nothing for the loss of the scroll: seven innings, the one hit, eight strikeouts, and heat that touched 97.6 — his liveliest in three years.

The thunder had come early and kept its own counsel. Tatis opened the home first with a home run and Machado followed him two batters later with another — 2-0 before the Gaslamp crowd had settled — and the pair kept at it: Machado's double cashed Tatis in the third, Bogaerts struck the third homer in the fourth, and a five-spot's worth of industry in the middle innings (Merrill's two-run single and a passed ball among the freight) ran it to seven. Boyd, Chicago's Game One starter, was charged with three home runs inside four innings and the loss. The Cubs' three hits were their fewest consolation; their ace question now presses, for the sore-shouldered Gausman — whose non-throwing shoulder this paper reported under the trainers' watch — takes the ball tonight after all.

The ninth inning belonged to sentiment. Joe Musgrove, the San Diegan who had not stood on a big-league mound since 2024 — activated from the sixty-day rolls only this week after the long road back — walked out of two lost years and into a roaring Petco night, and worked a scoreless ninth around two hits and a walk, striking out a pair, while the score ceased to matter to anyone in the yard. The series stands one game to none for the Gaslamp nine; Game Two goes at ten o'clock this evening at Petco Park, Gausman (9-12, 4.51) against Pivetta (3-2, 2.86), whose own summer was five months lost to a flexor strain. The survivor travels to Milwaukee and its hundred-three-win hosts for Saturday's Division Series; the Cubs must now take two straight from a club they could not touch for seven innings.

News Around the League

THE CAPTAIN'S CASE, DECIDED: JUDGE IS LEFT OFF THE WILD CARD ROLLS — ALL HIS CONVINCING COULD NOT OUTRUN A CALF THAT WANTS THREE WEEKS, THOUGH STANTON AND GRISHAM RETURN TO THE COLORS

The verdict this paper promised its readers arrived before the Bronx first pitch, and it went against the plaintiff: Aaron Judge was not added to New York's Wild Card roster. The captain had spent the idle Monday pleading his case in live batting practice — "I've been doing a lot of convincing," he said — but the medical men were not converted. "I don't think he's all the way back," ruled the manager Boone, while calling the progress encouraging; the moderate strain of the right calf's soleus muscle, treated by injection a week ago, ordinarily asks three weeks that the calendar refused to give. The captain's hopes now ride on his teammates: should they pass Boston, the Division Series opens Saturday, and his rehabilitation continues with that date circled — he intends, he has said, to return a full right fielder, not a borrowed bat.

The same roster that closed its door on the captain opened it to two other invalids: Giancarlo Stanton was activated from the sixty-day rolls, and Trent Grisham from the ten-day, the latter patrolling center field before the Game One evening was out. The Herald observes that a 9-0 verdict, entered elsewhere in this number, was obtained without any of the three.

THE HERALD DIPS ITS CAP: HENDRIKS, THE AUSTRALIAN WHO BEAT CANCER BETWEEN SAVES, CALLS IT A CAREER — 'MY ARM HAS TOLD ME IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS THAT IT HAS EXACTLY ZERO FASTBALLS LEFT IN IT'

Liam Hendriks, seven-and-thirty years of age and fourteen seasons a big-leaguer, announced his retirement Tuesday, and the game is poorer for the quiet. The Australian right-hander leaves a ledger of 490 games and some six hundred sixty-three innings at a 3.88 figure — a 3.16 in relief, where his fame was made: Reliever of the Year in the American League in both 2020 and 2021, thrice an All-Star, and the only man from his continent ever selected more than once. The sternest save of his life was recorded off the field: diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in January of 2023, he took three months of chemotherapy and stood cancer-free by May, Comeback Player of the Year before the season was out, and seven times a nominee for the Clemente award besides. His farewell was in character — no ceremony, only candor: "My arm has told me in no uncertain terms that it has exactly zero fastballs left in it." The Herald submits that the arm gave fair value, and dips its cap to a workingman of the bullpen who never once shorted the till.

THE PURSE DESK: THE NEW MAN POHLAD VOWS THE TWINS WILL 'MEANINGFULLY INVEST' AND CONTEND IN 2027 — THE HERALD ENTERS THE PLEDGE IN PENCIL, THE PAYROLL LEDGER BEING WRITTEN IN INK

In Minnesota, where the faithful have watched an Opening Day payroll of some $153.7 million in 2023 whittled to roughly $109.5 million — two-and-twentieth among the thirty clubs — the franchise's newly designated control man, Tom Pohlad, met the press and made promises. "I understand the patience in this market has run out, and I assure you we have a sense of urgency," said he, vowing the ownership will "meaningfully invest" in the payroll and contend in 2027, though declining to attach a figure to the meaning. The Herald, whose sympathies on matters of the purse are a matter of record, notes that the pledge follows a 77-85 season, a 2025 deadline selloff of uncommon aggression, and three years of the ledger running steadily the other way — and that the ballplayer, unlike the promise, must be paid in currency. The pledge is entered in pencil accordingly; the winter's signings will show whether it deserves ink.

THE RESTING CHAMPIONS: OHTANI PRONOUNCES HIMSELF 'FEELING GREAT' AND WILL SWING STRAIGHT THROUGH THE BYE — FREEMAN SPENDS THE IDLE WEEK IN SEARCH OF THE SWING SEPTEMBER TOOK FROM HIM

From the camp of the hundred-win Dodgers, idle until Saturday's Division Series against the survivor of the Atlanta-Philadelphia quarrel, two bulletins on the state of the machinery. Shohei Ohtani reports himself "feeling great physically" and will continue to hit through the bye week rather than rest the bat — the club expecting him restored to full menace atop the order when the games resume. Freddie Freeman, meanwhile, puts the idle days to humbler use: the eight-time All-Star, whose September was a rough one by his own accounting, is at work rediscovering the swing, professing as ever the power of mind over matter. The Herald notes that clubs which earn the bye are entitled to spend it as they please, and that there are worse omens for the rest of the field than the champions treating a week of rest as a week of work.

The Wednesday tables, then — four contests entered at October's fuller measure, as this paper promised when it retired the summer economy, and the opening night's ledger reads: three hosts held serve, and one guest, the 84-win White Stockings, stole a march in Texas. Tonight the four quarrels resume at the same hours — Philadelphia at Atlanta at two o'clock, the White Stockings at Houston at five, Boston in the Bronx at eight, the Cubs at San Diego at ten — and every one of the four leaders can close its series where it stands, while every trailer plays for the right to see Thursday, when the deciding games would go in the same yards. The trailing clubs may take what comfort history offers, which is little: in four-and-twenty prior series of this best-of-three fashion, but three clubs have lost the opener and lived to advance, and two of those in the spectatorless autumn of 2020. Until the morrow's dispatch, keep your scorecards near and your enthusiasms nearer.

~ THE HERALD ~

The Herald Acknowledges Its Debts

MLB Box Scores — Wednesday, September 30, 2026 — Boxscore
Baseball-Reference.com — Upcoming Schedule and Upcoming Dates — Baseball-Reference
Mark Bowman, Riley flips Game 1 with 8th-inning blast on 99.9 mph pitch from Phillies' closer — MLB.com
Mark Bowman, Sale shakes off postseason woes, fans Harper with triple-digit heat — MLB.com
Todd Zolecki, Luzardo blows past opener label in first start since injury — MLB.com
Bryan Hoch, Yanks ride Massachusetts natives Schlittler, Rice to Game 1 win over Sox — MLB.com
Bryan Hoch, Avocado toast in the morning, grand slams at night: Routine key for Rice — MLB.com
Matthew Ritchie, 'Locked-in' Lombard makes more history with 3-hit postseason debut — MLB.com
Ian Browne, Anthony's status uncertain with right hand/wrist discomfort — MLB.com
Mark Polishuk, Roman Anthony Leaves ALWCS Game 1 Due To Hand Soreness — MLB Trade Rumors
Bryan Hoch, Injured Judge not added to Wild Card Series roster — MLB.com
Scott Merkin, White Sox only stumble in Game 1? It might have been staged — MLB.com
Scott Merkin, Emptying the tank: Taylor puts out fire with career-long outing in Game 1 — MLB.com
Scott Merkin, Holy Sox! Pope Leo XIV sends message ahead of Wild Card opener — MLB.com
Brian McTaggart, Bullpen game struggles put Astros in must-win position for ALWC G2 — MLB.com
AJ Cassavell, King sets tone with no-hit bid in Padres' 'beautiful night of baseball' — MLB.com
Cole Bradley, Musgrove's first appearance since '24 adds to righty's San Diego legacy — MLB.com
Anthony Castrovince, Ranking comeback chances of the four teams that lost Game 1 — MLB.com
Mark Polishuk, Liam Hendriks Announces Retirement — MLB Trade Rumors
Mark Polishuk, Tom Pohlad: Twins Will "Meaningfully Invest" In Payroll, Plan To Contend In 2027 — MLB Trade Rumors
Sonja Chen, Ohtani 'feeling great physically,' will continue to hit during bye week ahead of NLDS — MLB.com
Courtney Hollmon, Freeman looks to rediscover swing during bye week after rough September — MLB.com