The Morning Horsehide Herald — the Sixth of October, 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

ELEVEN STRIKEOUTS BUY CLEVELAND FIVE INNINGS AND NOT AN OUT MORE — VOGT LIFTS WILLIAMS AT HIS EIGHT-AND-NINETIETH PITCH, THE SIXTH COMES APART IN RELIEF, AND MONTGOMERY'S TWO-RUN DOUBLE SENDS CHICAGO HOME NEEDING ONE: WHITE SOX 4, GUARDIANS 3

The hardest arm on the lakefront fans eleven with 18 pitches at 100 miles the hour or better, hands a one-run lead to his bullpen after a leadoff single in the sixth, and watches it burn — Sabrowski walking the pinch-hitter Grichuk on four pitches, uncorking a wild pitch, and standing one short fly from escape when Braden Montgomery lines a two-run double the opposite way; Sean Burke retires 13 in a row in bulk relief, Grant Taylor survives Adell's first-pitch triple to close the 4-3 verdict, and the Pale Hose — who trailed for the first time all postseason after an unearned two-run first — fly home with four October victories, all of them taken on the road, one win from a first Championship Series since 2005 and a first home playoff clincher since the World Series of 1906

For five innings and one batter Monday evening, the argument belonged to the heaviest artillery this paper promised. Gavin Williams was everything Cleveland's predicament required: eleven strikeouts, five of them in unbroken succession from the end of the first inning to the top of the third — no Cleveland pitcher had ever done that in October — and 18 pitches at 100 miles the hour or better, tying Emmanuel Clase's franchise mark of the whole tracking era. He became but the third Cleveland man to reach double figures in strikeouts in a postseason game, one shy of Charles Nagy's record twelve of 1996, and he carried a 2-1 lead into the sixth.⁵ The lead itself had been staked in the first, and not honestly earned: Kwan's leadoff single off the opener Kay, a pass to Ramírez, an intentional walk around Adell — and then Lowe's comebacker to the second relayman Newcomb, whose throw sailed past Murakami at first while two runs crossed. Thus did the White Sox trail in a 2026 postseason game for the first time, their streak expiring at 27 innings, 24 of them led, as this paper's columns had counted them.³

Then came the hinge on which Cleveland's whole October may yet swing. Miguel Vargas — the one Chicago batsman giving Williams honest trouble, with two walks already to his evening — led off the sixth with a single to left, and the manager Vogt, his starter at 98 pitches, went to the bullpen. "If he has to face two more hitters, now you're running him up to 110, 115," Vogt reasoned afterward. "It was the right time to get him out of there. He pitched his backside off. Just unfortunate we were not able to get the result." The left-hander Sabrowski, nearly untouchable since August, chose this night to have nothing: Murakami's groundout moved the runner, Grichuk walked on four pitches, a wild pitch advanced the pair, and after Pham's short fly to left brought escape within a single out, Braden Montgomery — a rookie who has labored all season from the right side — lined a two-run double down the right-field line. Gaddis relieved and was greeted by Meidroth's run-scoring single, and a 2-1 Cleveland lead had become a 4-2 Chicago one, five batters wide. "Just lack of control," said Sabrowski. "It's unfortunate. It was a pretty big part of the game, and I let a lot of guys down."⁵

The relay that followed was the one this paper sketched in Monday's columns, run precisely to the drawing. Sean Burke, the staff's ace recast as a man of bulk, gave five innings and a third on one hit and one run, striking out six and at one stretch retiring 13 in succession — tied for the second-longest such run by a reliever in any postseason game, behind only Bumgarner's 14 in the seventh game of the 2014 World Series.⁴ "Tip your cap to Burke, what an unbelievable performance," ruled Vogt. "He was mixing and matching, criss-crossing away, criss-crossing in." Kwan testified that the fastball "just had a little extra life on it." Murakami's fourth-inning single had meanwhile cashed Teel for Chicago's first run, and when Burke yielded a two-out single to DeLauter in the eighth, the closer Taylor — twelve outs of save on Saturday, seven pitches wanted Monday — was greeted rudely: Adell's first-pitch triple to the left-center gap, a foot or two of wall shy of a tying home run, scored DeLauter to make it 4-3. Lowe then lined to left, where Antonacci ran the ball down at full stretch, and Taylor's ninth went three up, three down for the save.³

So Chicago, which has not played a home game this October, carries two victories to Rate Field, where Wednesday's third game goes at 4 o'clock Eastern before a sellout that will wear the Blackout in broad daylight. The arithmetic is stern for the hosts-to-be-visitors: clubs ahead two games to none in a best-of-five have gone through 83 times in 93, and clubs that took the first two on the road under the present format 17 times in 19; the last side to climb from such a hole was the 2017 Yankees — at Cleveland's own expense, the Guardians will not need reminding, though they may prefer the omen that they played better on the road (44-37) than at home this summer.³⁶ Cleveland had named no starter by press time — Bibee, Griffin, and Cantillo, whose September behind the opener Espino ran 15 scoreless innings with 17 strikeouts, are the candidates, and Williams himself volunteers for the bullpen on one day's rest — while Chicago's likeliest man is the rookie Smith, author of 5 2/3 scoreless innings this postseason.⁶ The stakes on the South Side want no embroidery: one victory sends the White Sox to a first Championship Series since the 11-and-1 champions of 2005, and would seal the club's first home playoff clincher since the 14th of October, 1906, when they beat the Cubs at South Side Park for the title — 120 years gone. "It's going to be unbelievable. Those fans deserve it," said Taylor. "They have been with us for three years of 100 losses." Cleveland's answer came from Kwan, and it was steady as ever: "There's no panic button. We're not trying to do too much."³

The Postseason Card

THE GLOVES OF GOTHAM GIVE FOUR TIMES AND THE FIFTH INNING COLLECTS IN FULL — RICE'S PAIR OF CIRCUIT CLOUTS STANDS ALONE AGAINST A RALLY OF SINGLES AND SHOE LEATHER: GULF COAST CLUB 5, PINSTRIPES 2

The league's most un-strikeout-able order plays its signature hand — Aranda's single and Caminero's 112.4-mile double opening a four-run fifth finished by Simpson's legs, a stolen base, another New York misplay, and Palacios' two-run single on the eighth pitch of his turn — while Schlittler, the presumptive Cy Young choice of the scribes, is wrung for the fewest strikeouts of his career, two; Ben Rice homers twice on changeups and becomes the first Yankee ever to post two multi-homer games in a single postseason, Jones' fly ball strikes the B-ring catwalk and is patiently caught, and the top seed flies north two games to none — Game 3 Wednesday at eight in the Bronx, Fried against Martinez, with New York's season on the board

The Rays were asked before the game for their plan against Cam Schlittler, the young road warrior whose new curveball this paper admired only yesterday, and the shortstop Walls gave the answer of a man with nothing to hide: "Just kind of do what we've been doing all year." What they have done all year is strike out less than any club in the majors and put the ball upon the ground until something gives, and Monday night at Tropicana Field, before a sold-out house of 40,226, what gave was the New York infield. The first inning yielded a run without an earned deed in it — McMahon fumbling Díaz's grounder, Aranda singling, and Chisholm throwing away the force at second as Díaz crossed — one of three New York errors in that frame alone and four on the night, charged to four different gloves. Schlittler, for only the third time in his young career, finished his first two innings without a strikeout.⁷

Ben Rice answered alone. In the fourth he turned on a Peralta changeup — a pitch that had yielded no extra-base hit since the right-hander crossed to Tampa Bay — and found the right-field seats to square the account; in the eighth he did it again, off a Seymour changeup, and the scribes' ledger opened wide. Rice is the first man in the franchise's 61 postseason appearances to post two multi-homer games in a single October, and the first player in all postseason history to do it within his club's first four games; his five home runs in his first ten postseason games trail only Bernie Williams' six among Yankees, and his four this October tie Gehrig's 1928 for the second-most in the club's first four games of an autumn, behind Stanton's five of 2020. He is also, the instruments attest, the first man since the tracking began to hit two changeups out in a single postseason game.⁸ Between his salvos the game was settled: Booser wriggled New York's bases-loaded fifth shut, and in the home half Aranda singled, Caminero doubled at 112.4 miles the hour, Hicks grounded a run home, Simpson beat a ball that the shortstop Lombard could not corral, stole second, and watched DeLuca reach on Lombard's error before Palacios — second on the club this season with 31 two-out runs batted in — lined a two-run single up the middle on the eighth pitch of the turn. Four runs, one inning, scarcely a ball struck hard but one. "Constant pressure, constant long at-bats," said the manager Cash. "It's our M.O. all season long."⁷

The evening's curiosity arrived in the second, when Jones' towering fly struck the B-ring catwalk beneath the dome's roof and hung an age before Mesa settled under it for the out — a lawful catch under the house rules, the higher two rings being in play, and the second piece of October architecture to side with the home nine in three days, the roof cable of Milwaukee having lately confiscated France's home run in these columns. Boone came out to inquire and was shown the statute.⁹ The fuller indictment of his club wants no catwalk: shut out on one hit in the opener, undone by its own gloves in the second game, New York has scored two runs in 18 innings of this series while the Tampa Bay relief corps proper has been needed for but seven of 54 outs. "We've got to get ourselves up off the mat," said Boone.¹⁰

The remedy must be found at home, where the arithmetic grants little: clubs up two games to none in a best-of-five have advanced 83 times in 93, and home winners of the first two under the present format 33 times in 36. Game 3 goes Wednesday at eight o'clock at Yankee Stadium, and the pitching is the hosts' best case: Fried, 5-1 at a 1.81 figure in seven career starts against Tampa Bay and sharp against Boston in the Wild Card round, against the veteran Martinez, a first-time All-Star whose club won 22 of his 31 starts and who held New York to three runs across 12 innings in the Bronx this summer. New York took four of six from the Rays at home this season — but the guests have already corked champagne in that building once this autumn, having clinched the East there on the 22nd of September, and the captain Judge, whose exclusion from these rolls this paper recorded Saturday, remains a spectator still.¹⁰

News Around the League

THE ARMS DESK: THE DUEL OF AUGUST IS GRANTED A SECOND SITTING — SALE AGAINST YAMAMOTO AT SIX O'CLOCK IN GEORGIA, THE SERIES SQUARE AND THE THIRD GAME, BY THE LONG LEDGER, THE HINGE OF THE WHOLE QUARREL

The engagement this paper's Monday number announced — the aces unsheathed at last — holds for this evening at Truist Park, and it arrives with a rehearsal already in the books. On the 27th of August these same two men met in this same yard and played a 1-0 masterpiece: Chris Sale a five-hit shutout of the Dodgers, Yoshinobu Yamamoto one run across 6 1/3 innings and the loss for his trouble. Sale, 37 years old, finished the summer with the game's third-best figure at 2.16 — a 1.96 mark over his final 24 starts — and opened this October by holding Philadelphia to three runs over 6 1/3 in the Wild Card round; he was held back from the second game because he had recorded the final four outs of the Wild Card clincher. Yamamoto, the reigning hero of the World Series, makes his first appearance of this postseason carrying a 0.87 WHIP, second among all qualified starters.¹¹

The counting-men assign tonight its full weight: in best-of-five series standing one game apiece, the winner of the third has claimed the series 48 times in 67. The bullpens behind the aces are unevenly provisioned — Atlanta has Iglesias, Suarez, and Lee rested but must do without Fuentes and Kerr, both past 40 pitches Sunday, while Los Angeles returns nearly whole, the rookie Sasaki's 36 pitches the lone question. As for the bats: Harris, 8 for 20 this October, carries Atlanta's order; Acuña (3 for 18 without an extra-base hit) and Olson (3 for 19, seven strikeouts) have yet to join him; Freeman, 3 for 7 with a home run in the series, looks repaired; and Baldwin's leadoff blast accounted for the only run Yamamoto allowed in the August meeting. First pitch at six o'clock.¹¹

THE BRINK DESK: MILWAUKEE CARRIES TWO GAMES AND A PLAIN-SPOKEN STARTER TO THE MISSION SHORE — MAY, THE DEADLINE PRIZE WHO CALLS HIS OWN AUTUMN FRANKLY, AGAINST PIVETTA, FIVE MONTHS MENDED, AT HALF PAST NINE

The National's other quarrel resumes at Petco Park with San Diego's season reduced to a single sentence, supplied by the second baseman Cronenworth: "Win-or-go-home games from here on out, so yeah, we have no choice." Milwaukee hands the ball to Dustin May, its highest-priced freight of the Trade Deadline, whose candor has outrun his results — three earned runs over his first 13 Milwaukee innings, then a 1-2, 7.61 slide across his final eight turns, of which the man himself testified: "It sucks to be sucking right now." The club's wager rests on the fuller ledger: a 3.14 figure in 16 career games against the Friars, and a 1.23 mark in his three starts against them this season. San Diego answers with Nick Pivetta, who lost nearly five months to a flexor strain and has been excellent since his September return — a 1.64 figure across five starts — and whose ugly career number against Milwaukee, 8.76, traces nearly whole to one rookie afternoon of 2017.¹²

The arithmetic of relief favors the visitors besides: Milwaukee's bullpen has thrown nine scoreless innings in this series, with Megill, Uribe, and Ashby rested by the travel day and the fresh starters Gasser, Drohan, and Harrison standing behind May should the leash run short. San Diego's one reinforcement is a familiar name — Buehler, restored Monday from the paternity rolls whose visit from the stork this paper entered Sunday, and available in relief. Among the bats, Chourio's 15 career postseason runs batted in stand one shy of Braun's franchise mark, while France has opened this October 7 for 15 — with a fair claim, these columns have conceded, to eight and a home run besides, the roof at American Family Field having ruled otherwise. Milwaukee, it bears noting, won 42 games in come-from-behind fashion this summer, tied for fifth most in the league — and has now added two more in October. First pitch at half past nine.¹²

THE INQUEST DESK: WAS THE CLOSER SHOWING HIS CARDS? MILLER PLEADS COMMAND, NOT TELLS — AND SAN DIEGO'S MEN OF FILM, ASKED TWICE, DECLINE TWICE TO SAY

No topic buzzed louder at San Diego's off-day workout than whether Mason Miller, in the ninth inning this paper chronicled Monday, was tipping his pitches. The internet's magistrates have produced their exhibits: still images suggesting the closer's hand sat more visible out of the glove on his fastballs, and film of Frelick, leading off second, touching his neck before the 1-2 slider that Chourio declined with the season's composure. "That just seemed like a really confident take," Miller allowed of the pitch, though he holds the larger charge unproven and beside the point: "I just don't think it had anything to do with the walks. I also have a hard time believing I just magically started doing it... If you execute pitches, you're still going to get guys out." The batsman Sánchez, for his part, swore ignorance — "I don't know if he was tipping or not. Seriously, I don't" — while the Milwaukee manager Murphy delivered a connoisseur's lecture on the art itself: "Where they stand, if their mouth is open or closed, eyes are down, head is up... Big breath. Small breath. There's so many ways to give away a pitch." Asked plainly whether his club had something, Murphy observed only that the practice "is happening" in today's game — and no club mid-series ever says more.¹³

The San Diego manager Stammen, twice invited to deny a tell, twice declined, pleading instead a crew "dedicated to that every single day" — and offered the more prosaic diagnosis: Miller's trouble arrives chiefly in his second inning of work, and the six-out ask may be retired for the balance of the round. Miller himself sees no cause to renovate: "It kind of seems like a bad time to try to change everything, too." The Herald notes merely that he may be handed the ball tonight with the season in his palm, and that October is a poor month for unanswered questions.¹³

THE AWARDS DESK: TWENTY NAMES POSTED FOR THE AARON PRIZE — A PANEL OF LEGENDS AND THE PUBLIC'S FRANCHISE OPEN THROUGH THE TWELFTH, WITH THE VERDICTS SEALED UNTIL NOVEMBER

The league Monday posted its finalists for the Hank Aaron Award, the honor for each league's finest regular-season batsman, and the Herald reports the ballot as a ballot: winners will be named the 11th of November at the MLB Awards in Las Vegas, and until then no man has won anything. The American's ten: Alonso of Baltimore, Alvarez of Houston, Arozarena of Seattle, Caminero and Díaz of Tampa Bay, Contreras of Boston, Greene of Detroit, Rice of New York, Vargas of Chicago, and Witt of Kansas City. The National's: Abrams of Washington, Bauers of Milwaukee, Crow-Armstrong of Chicago, De La Cruz and Stewart of Cincinnati, Ohtani of Los Angeles — thrice the holder, 2023 through 2025 — Olson of Atlanta, Schwarber of Philadelphia, Tatis of San Diego, and Walker of St. Louis. The electors are a bench of legends — Jeter, Ortiz, Pujols, Griffey, Chipper Jones, Pedro Martínez, Smoltz, Bench, Biggio, and Murray — and the public may cast its own votes through noon of the 12th.¹⁴

The reader with one eye on the bracket will note the resonance: eight of the twenty finalists are still at their labors in the Division Series — Caminero, Díaz, Rice, and Vargas in the American's two quarrels, Bauers, Ohtani, Olson, and Tatis in the National's — and three of them, Rice, Vargas, and Caminero, spent Monday evening adding to the testimony, as the columns above attest.¹⁴

THE JURISPRUDENCE DESK: ROBERTS REVOKES A BATSMAN'S RIGHT OF APPEAL — PAGES, AMONG THE LEAGUE'S LEAST SUCCESSFUL PETITIONERS, IS TOLD TO TAP HIS HELMET NO MORE

The machine's new jurisprudence, whose first-season audit these columns entered Saturday, has produced its first October disbarment. Andy Pages, the Los Angeles center fielder, spent a challenge in the second inning of the series opener on a 2-2 pitch that the instruments placed 2.6 inches above the bottom of the zone — comfortably a strike — and the manager Roberts has now withdrawn the privilege entirely. "We talked about obviously a lot this year with Andy's success rate or lack thereof," said Roberts. "I did have a conversation today. So, yeah, we've managed that one going forward." The figures argue the manager's side: among 182 batsmen with ten or more challenges this season, Pages ranked 142nd in overturns against expectation while spending the 33rd-most challenges, and after a clubhouse address on the subject during an August losing streak he did not challenge again all summer. Roberts was at pains to call the policy a tailored one — "it's not a one-size-fits-all situation," says he, professing full faith in Betts's eye for the outside corner — and the club at large rated a respectable challenger, its 51 percent success standing tied for eighth. But October, as Philadelphia's game-ending helmet tap lately demonstrated and as this paper then observed, is no month for a losing petition.¹⁵

Two contests on the Tuesday tables, and the American League wrote the same sentence twice: the visitor won, the favorite's yard fell silent, and both series now stand two games to none — Chicago over Cleveland, Tampa Bay over New York, each leader needing one. Tonight the National answers with its third chapters, Los Angeles at Atlanta at six o'clock with Sale opposite Yamamoto, and Milwaukee at San Diego at half past nine with a sweep in prospect and a season in the balance. The morrow returns the American to the stage — Cleveland at Chicago at four o'clock, Tampa Bay at New York at eight — with the National's fourth games to follow in the same evening as needed; and beyond stand the pennant rounds, the National's Championship Series opening the eleventh of the month and the American's the twelfth, by the league's forward ledger.² Until the morrow's dispatch, keep your scorecards near and your enthusiasms nearer.

~ THE HERALD ~

The Herald Acknowledges Its Debts

MLB Box Scores — Tuesday, October 6, 2026 — Boxscore
Baseball-Reference.com — Upcoming Schedule and Upcoming Dates — Baseball-Reference
Scott Merkin, First home playoff clincher in 120 years? White Sox on cusp of making it happen — MLB.com
Rhett Bollinger, Lights out: Burke sets down 13 straight to aid Game 2 comeback — MLB.com
Tim Stebbins and Martín Gallegos, Why Vogt pulled a dominant Williams -- and why the decision will be debated — MLB.com
Scott Merkin and Tim Stebbins, Guardians-White Sox ALDS Game 3 FAQ (Wed., 4 ET, TBS/HBO Max) — MLB.com
Adam Berry, Relentless Rays give Schlittler fits in 4-run 5th, move 1 win from ALCS — MLB.com
Sarah Langs, Rice makes history with second two-homer game of postseason — MLB.com
Matthew Leach, Another playoff roof ball?! Rays record out after Jones' fly dings Trop catwalk — MLB.com
Adam Berry and Bryan Hoch, Rays-Yankees ALDS Game 3 FAQ (Wed., 8 p.m. ET, TBS/HBO Max) — MLB.com
Paul Casella, Sonja Chen and Mark Bowman, Dodgers-Braves NLDS Game 3 FAQ (Tues., 6 p.m. ET, FS1/FOX One) — MLB.com
Adam McCalvy, Mark Sheldon and AJ Cassavell, Brewers-Padres NLDS Game 3 FAQ (Tues., 9:30 p.m. ET, FS1 /FOX One) — MLB.com
AJ Cassavell and Adam McCalvy, Was Miller tipping pitches? Closer -- and Brewers' skipper -- both say no — MLB.com
VOTE NOW: MLB announces finalists for Hank Aaron Award — MLB.com
Max Ralph, Roberts pulls Pages' ABS challenge privileges after Game 1 miss — MLB.com