Thursday morning, an Adam Hayes-penned an article appeared here at The Hardball Times regarding relievers and the shortcomings of the mainstream stats used to evaluate them. Thursday evening, the Pirates lost their game against the Brewers to fall below .500 on the year as Pittsburgh continues to do a nifty imitation of last year’s collapse. […]

Nationals 4, Dodgers 1: Congrats to the Nats for clinching the first postseason berth for a D.C. team since 1933. Pour one out for Joe Cronin, Moe Berg, Lefty Stewart and Heinie Manush. Reds 5, Cubs 3: And congratulations to the Reds too, who clinched their spot hours before the Nats did.  The Reds are […]

120 years ago, one of baseball’s most prestigious clubs gained a new member. On Sept. 21, 1892, John Clarkson won his 300th game. He was just the fifth member of the club. In fact, the club itself was still in the process of being established. The first man to join was Pud Galvin, and he’d […]

In a word, no. September games, on average, are less important than games in May, June and July. Here’s a table of the relative importance of games by month, from 2008: Month Game LI Apr 0.47 May 0.63 Jun 0.70 Jul 0.64 Aug 0.46 Sep 0.43 As you can see, games (on average) were less […]

Braves 3, Marlins 0:  Kris Medlen continues his astounding second half, shutting out the Marlins for eight innings. The Braves have won his last 21 starts, which is the most any team has won any one pitcher’s starts since the Yankees and Whitey Ford from 1950-53. Is there any doubt who will be starting the […]

Tigers 12, Athletics 2: Lose your starter after two innings? No problem. Because the Tigers have a Hulk. Miguel Cabrera hit two homers and drove in six, starting the A’s road trip off in poor fashion. Reds 3, Cubs 1: Homer Bailey took a two-hit shutout into the eighth over what was likely some very […]

It’s a case of popular culture meeting the pastime. An unusual photograph of Johnny Bench has been making the rounds on the Internet in recent weeks. It’s actually a black-and-white still of Bench making a cameo appearance on an episode of the old TV show, Mission Impossible. The episode, which first aired on Feb. 6, […]

Ten years ago today we witnessed one of the most infamous displays of fan misbehavior in baseball history. Calling it misbehavior is far too kind. It was hooliganism, rowdyism—just plain senseless violence. On Sept. 19, 2002, in the middle of a White Sox-Royals game at U.S. Cellular Field, two idiots jumped on the field and […]

White Sox 5, Tigers 4: For want of some leather, the empire was lost. Or something like that.  The Tigers now find themselves three back of the White Sox with no more head-to-head games. This is pretty dire for the Tigers. Braves 7, Marlins 5: Dan Uggla continues to kill his old team. He hit […]

Orioles 9, Athletics 5: Baltimore salvages one. Which is important for two reasons. Reason 1:  It’s their 82nd win of the year, which means they will finish above .500 for the first time in forever.  More importantly: they really just need to avoid the disaster west coast trip here. If they take care of business […]