As the playoffs approach, get used to seeing what the Yankees did in Sunday’s 2-0 win: an inning each from Brent Headrick, Paul Blackburn and David Bednar.

Actually, if you’ve been paying attention, you’ve seen that trio plenty already this season, and it’s served the Yankees well.

But the Yankees will also have to decide whether it’s sustainable to keep up this pace, since Headrick has pitched the most games in the majors and entered Sunday ninth in the majors among relievers with 73 ¹/₃ innings pitched.

Blackburn is fifth on the list at 76 ²/₃ innings pitched, and among closers, only Cleveland’s Cade Smith has outpaced Bednar’s 64 ¹/₃ innings following Sunday’s victory.

Prior to the game, Aaron Boone said he’d “prefer a little lighter load along the way” with some of the high-leverage relievers, but he noted over the past few weeks, they’ve looked to reduce their workload in order to provide “a bit of a reset.”

But Boone also said as they continue to chase the Rays in the AL East and look to hold off the Red Sox for the top AL wild-card spot, that they’ve “still got to be disciplined not overusing them, even when it’s the most critical game. They’re all ready to roll. Any time we have a chance to win a game, I’m gonna go to them.”

It worked again Sunday, as the three relievers combined to toss three shutout innings in relief of the brilliant Cam Schlittler.

Blackburn, in his first full season as a reliever, said it’s been an adjustment getting used to the workload of a reliever, but he feels prepared to pitch frequently both down the stretch and into the playoffs.

“Mentally, that’s where we are and what we believe in,’’ he said. “We’ll probably pitch every day in the playoffs. We’re ready for that, and that’s a good thing for us. It’s not gonna surprise us. We know how to go out there with whatever we’ve got that day.”

Headrick, who has emerged as the pen’s top lefty this season, credits the work he did in the offseason, both in getting stronger and refining his secondary off-speed pitches to allow for better outings.

“To be able to contribute all season long is something we’re proud of as a group,’’ Headrick said. “We know all these games are a mini-test for the postseason, but we don’t look ahead to the end of the year. We just want to keep going.”

As pitching coach Matt Blake has noted, the Yankees have emphasized giving pitchers complete days off from throwing in an effort to keep them fresh for when it matters most.

He’s aware the plan might not work and they’ll only know at the end of the year.

But Sunday was another outing in which they got just what they wanted.

Being able to leave Kansas City with a big series win but unfortunately missing out on an opportunity to get the Diamondbacks first sweep since July 10-12 against the Dodgers, the Dbacks came back to Phoenix to start their final homestand of 2026 against another team who is also still in the fight for a chance to play October in the Texas Rangers.

Only 0.5 games back of the Padres with 15 games left to play, the time to start sweeping teams instead of just winning the series is now, as the Snakes have to stop relying on other teams to help them out in the race and start to focus on taking care of their own business when it really matters.

Fixin’ To Score Some Runs

After seeing the offense go through the last week or so with an offense that has been borderline non-existent, Saturdays 9 run outburst was a nice change of pace as the Dbacks would actually come through in clutch situations, going 4 for 6 with runners in scoring position and keeping their foot on the gas pedal and not letting up with just a 4-1 lead after 5 innings. 

Brandon and I discussed that it was indeed nice to see them breakout like this, we also questioned why they still seem to go nearly half of every game with a seemingly lifeless approach at the dish before they do all their scoring in one inning and then disappear from then on. We asked ourselves if this is something that is more so on the players, as they are the ones that have to actually perform when it matters, or if hitting coach Joe Mather and the assistant hitting coaches are the ones to look at for the gameplan they are giving these hitters night in and night out.

What the Heel Do You Mean He Was Safe?

After getting an early 1-0 lead in the second innings thanks to a Tim Tawa triple followed by a Pavin Smith RBI single (He’s still not good, I don’t care if he finally came through this one time with a runner in scoring position) the Dbacks looked to be in the driver seat as Big Game Brandon Pfaadt was cruising through 4 innings, looking like he could go well into the late innings of Saturday night’s ball game. Sadly a big 6 run 5th inning from the Rangers would take that hope and spit on it right in front of us as that was all the Rangers would need to score for the rest of the night to hang onto the win.

The big controversy from this game however came during that 6 run inning, where the Diamondbacks were denied a potential inning ending double play as Corey Seager was called safe at 1st base due to Pfaadt’s foot coming off the bag. Torey Lovullo decided to challenge that call and the replays that were shown to the fans made it appear that Pfaadt’s heel was on the bag, but the replay officials in New York decided there wasn’t sufficient evidence to overrule the original call and Seager remained safe at 1st. That turned what could have been a 2-1 deficit going into the bottom of the 5th into the Rangers rallying with 2 outs and putting up 4 more runs.

Brandon and I were both in agreement that this was indeed a big momentum swing, it wouldn’t have been as big of a deal if the inning ended with a 3-1 Rangers lead or even a 4-1 lead, but with the way the offense has been swinging it as of late it felt like that sucked all the life and momentum out of the offense and they couldn’t seem to recover and make a comeback.

Death By Errors (And Corey Seager)

In need of a big series win in Sunday’s rubber match the Snakes would have their ace of the 2026 season on the bump as they would need AceRod to do his AceRod things but Corey Seager would decide tro turn back the clock to the 2023 Fall Classic and get the Rangers an early 2-0 lead. Rodriguez would bounce back and settle in a bit with a Gabriel Moreno solo shot cutting the Rangers lead in half going into the 5th.

Looking for a big shutdown inning and getting the offense back in the dugout and ready to get to work again, the Diamondbacks defense picked the worst time to commit 2 very costly errors when they can’t afford any kind of sloppiness down the stretch, with Nolan Arenado botching a grounder that he makes probably 99% of the time and Lars Nootbar getting caught in between wanting to layout for a line drive and letting it one hop to him, thus leading to 2 runners coming around to score.

Brandon and I talked about how those 2 big errors that lead to 3 unearned runs on Eduardo’s statline in the 5th ended up being the deciding factor in Sunday’s crushing defeat as the Dbacks would drop this one by just 1 run. Yes it is a shoulda/coulda/woulda situation, but in a must win game like this one those errors are just something that cannot happen if this team wants to actually catch and overtake the Padres for the final wild card spot.

Time To Reel In A Sweep

Dropping this series while the Padres actually took care of their own business and swept the Giants have the Diamondbacks 2.5 games back and going into a 3 game series against the Marlins, who just took 2 of 3 from the Dodgers and who also swept the Snakes in their earlier series in Miami this year. With the Diamondbacks being more than a month removed from their last series sweep, we both agreed that they are due and due in a big way for another sweep. A 2.5 game deficit isn’t that big of a gap to make up but with how the Padres have been playing as of late (winners of 7 straight) it feels like every game going forwards is a must win if the snakes want to have any hopes in making it into the dance in October and a anything less than either a series win or even a sweep of the Marlins could be the final nail in the coffin for the Diamondbacks playoff hopes in 2026.

Before Sunday’s game, Astros manager Joe Espada gave an update on the status of 3B Carlos Correa:

It has not been determined how many games Correa will require on a rehab assignment, although the Sugar Land Space Cowboys season ends September 20. Whether they will require Correa to play the full week for Sugar Land or just have him get his feet wet to get his timing and get him back to the big league roster to help a floundering offense is unknown.

The Astros offense, usually heavily reliant on it’s big 3 of Jeremy Pena, Yordan Alvarez and Isaac Paredes, has been scuffling with Pena mired in a massive slump and Yordan dealing with a power outage. Only Paredes has continued to produce. Getting Correa back and performing would be a big shot in the arm for the offense.

It is also unknown where Correa will play, with a recent report from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic indicating the team is considering Correa at 2B, which would move Alvarez to LF and Altuve to DH.

The Colorado Rockies were eliminated from the playoffs a week ago, but there are still plenty of other teams who will be playing. So far, the Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers are the only two teams who have officially clinched postseason berths. The White Sox have a half-game lead over the Cleveland Guardians for the AL Central title; the Houston Astros have a 1.5-game lead over the Texas Rangers in the AL West; the Atlanta Braves have a five-game lead over the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East; and the Los Angeles Dodgers have a 9.5-game lead over the San Diego Padres.

However, the Wild Card games are where things get a little interesting.

In the American League, the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Guardians own the Wild Cards. However, the Toronto Blue Jays are just one game back and the Texas Rangers are 2.5 games back.

In the National League, the Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres are currently in. But the Arizona Diamondbacks are just 1.5 games behind the Padres, and the rest of the NL teams are six games back or more.

All that’s to say, which team(s) will you be rooting for in the postseason? Which storylines are you watching for the rest of the season? Who are you rooting for to get the final postseason spots?

Let us know in the comments!

Please keep in mind our Purple Row Community Guidelines when you’re commenting. Thanks!

We need to see Payton Tolle on the Fenway mound this October. We NEED to see it.

Tolle is forging a real connection with the fans the stands at Fenway. It’s not just the hugs. It’s not just the strikeouts. It’s everything. It’s the way he bounces onto the mound to start each inning. It’s primal scream he unleashes after a big strikeout to end a threat. It’s the fact that he’s a man who finds himself exactly where he belongs, every night at 7:10 PM (or in the case of this oddly timed rain delayed game, 4:55 PM).

Tolle threw 9 straight fastballs for strikes to start tonight’s game against the Royals. An immaculate inning. And it looked so easy that a part of me thought he was just going to keep doing it, just keep throwing heater after heater, strike after strike. (Ultimately, he threw a ball on his second pitch of the second, but he still ended up getting the strikeout of Unc King Salvador Perez.)

From there the Royals didn’t even look interested in trying to hit him. They would not remotely threaten until the sixth, when they put the first two men on only for Tolle to strand them both, finishing his outing with an emphatic swinging K of Matthew Lugo.

Tolle’s fellow phenom, Roman Anthony, has had a more difficult time connecting with the crowd. Dogged by injuries and whispers that he’s perhaps too regular of a presence around Seaport on the weekends, Anthony has far more doubters than a player of his prodigious talent should. He needs more nights like tonight, when he effortlessly laced a gamebreaking single to the opposite field in the seventh.

The Red Sox quietly needed this win, I think. It’s been a sleepy week of baseball around these parts. And with an off-day tomorrow and then a tough final road trip of the season looming, it was important for the Sox to leave Fenway on a high note. Tolle and Anthony — who may be the two most important figures connected with the Sox over the next decade — delivered.

Three Studs

Payton Tolle: All I wanted was for him to escape this game without spraining an ankle trying to field a bunt on wet grass. He delivered far more than that, striking out 7 over 6 and letting the Royals know they had no shot right form the first pitch.

Caleb Durbin: For a while it looked like Durbin’s second inning homer just barely over the monster might be the only run of the game. As it was, though, he would subsequently score the go-ahead run on Roman’s seventh inning knock.

Willson Contreras: Two hits and three times on base is certainly not a bad way to return to the lineup.

Two Duds

Erik Miller: Yikes. He came on for Tolle to start the 7th and just absolutely could not throw a strike, showing terrible control for his first time with the Sox. Unfortunately, this is who has been for most of his career, and we’re going to have to hope this is just a momentary return to old (bad) form.

Aroldis Chapman: This is a harsh dudship. Chapman struck out the side in the 9th and got the save. But, like Miller before him, he also struggled with his control, walking 2 and needing 25 pitches to get through the inning. He’s an old dude who has gone through extended rough patches vis a vis his control before; this is something to keep an eye on.

Play of the Game

I guess it’s not actually one play, but, come on, it’s the entire first inning.

Christian Scott’s best start in six weeks was one of his strongest this season, but it wasn’t enough to get the Mets a Subway Series win.

Two pitches derailed the right-hander Sunday: A splitter that Ben Rice hit into the right field seats leading off the game for the Yankees and the four-seamer Austin Wells crushed for a homer in the third. Those blasts accounted for two of the three hits and the only runs against Scott in the 2-0 loss at Yankee Stadium.

Scott’s start was only the second best in this series rubber game; Cam Schlittler allowed one hit over six shutout innings with eight strikeouts. Scott went six innings and struck out seven.

Scott’s takeaway from his solid performance on such a big stage?

“That I can compete anywhere against anybody,” Scott said. “Cam threw a great game today. When you give up solo home runs and he gives up no runs through six, it’s tough to beat him. But I feel that I can go out and compete against anybody and put my stuff against anybody’s.”

In the larger picture, the Mets received quality starts on consecutive days from two of the young building blocks in their rotation. A day earlier, rookie Zac Thornton allowed two earned runs over seven innings in the Mets’ lone victory in the series.

“It’s good to see them do it here,” interim manager Andy Green said. “I don’t think there is a one of us that knows those two guys that would have doubted they would do it here. Pitchers have bad games. But this park was not going to rattle either of those guys. I don’t see playoff atmospheres rattling those guys. I don’t see anything really getting in their way from being what they can be.”

Scott’s start was his 31st straight in which he allowed four earned runs or fewer, extending his franchise record for a pitcher beginning his major league career. He’s pitched to a 3.76 ERA in 22 starts this season.

“I’m grateful to be here,” said Scott, who missed last season rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. “But at the same time, I feel I can help this team win a lot of games.”

Scott said he’s most pleased that he’s transitioned from thrower to pitcher.

“I feel I have been able to locate my off-speed pitches a lot,” Scott said. “I have the cutter, and I am able to throw the changeup more, just rounding out my repertoire and the weapons that I have, but overall I just feel like I have been attacking the strike zone a little bit better than earlier in the year. Just keep that pace up and take it into next year.”

The A’s beat the Mariners 8-7 on Sunday afternoon in Sacramento. Looks like Seattle will be joining us on the couch this October. We love a walk off!

More to come…

Today’s game featured a compelling symmetry. Each team got two early. Each team had a string of disasters in one of the middle innings. Each team took a late lead off a player’s second home run of the day. But the real, awful symmetry is simply this: The Mariners looked evenly matched with the A’s.

The A’s early runs came on back-to-back dingers in the first inning. Zack Gelof has quietly been one of the better hitters in MLB this season, so it was really just a tip-your-cap situation when he gave a 405-foot ride to a 96-mph heater that was up above the zone. That’s what we want Bryce Miller to do, and if someone can get to it in a 2-2 count, fine. But Miller followed that up with a first-pitch cutter to Lawrence Butler that landed so middle-middle that Miller’s currently fielding calls to throw in the Home Run Derby next year.

The 2-0 deficit didn’t last long. Not with Randy Arozarena still on this team. Jhonny Pereda led off the third with a well-struck double off a decent pitch. So he was on second base when Arozarena got a little underneath a top-rail pitch, but hit it so hard that it didn’t matter how high up it went, by the time it came down, it was on the other side of the fence. It was Randy’s 24th bomb of the year, and even though it tied the game, he’s going yard so often that he frankly looked a little bored with his trident celebration.

That 2-2 tie shouldn’t have stressed out the A’s, but in the fourth inning, the wheels came off. One of Michael Arroyo’s three walks on the day got sandwiched between a Josh Naylor single and a Weston Wilson water balloon into no man’s land to load the bases. Pereda’s sac fly was into shallow left field, but Naylor took off from third anyway. It shouldn’t have worked with Naylor’s foot speed, but the A’s moved just a little too slowly. So the M’s took a 3-2 lead. The damage should have ended there, when J.P. Crawford followed it up with a soft line drive. But the ball hit the pitcher on the tush, and died in the middle of the infield, so another run scored. Even worse for the A’s, it brought up Randy again, who hit the ball up the middle with some authority to bring home a third run of the inning.

With the Mariners tacking on another run in the fifth, Bryce Miller had a four-run cushion in his first attempt to go five full innings in a month. He very nearly didn’t, and the bottom of the fifth was almost the A’s big inning. As soon as he faced a batter for the third time, Miller walked him. That was his fourth of the day, and given Miller’s trouble the third time through, it was probably time to pull him. But Dan stuck with Miller. A perfect pickoff move and a groundout brought Miller up to 4.2 innings. After he then allowed his fifth walk of the day, it was truly time to pull him. But Dan stuck with Miller. Miller rewarded the faith by ending his day on his best pitch of the game, a nasty splitter that finished his fifth strikeout. Not his best outing with the five walks, but with five strikeouts and five innings pitched, at least there was some pleasing symmetry to his final line.

So the 6-2 lead should’ve buoyed the Mariners, but in the seventh inning, the wheels came off. Carlos Vargas had pitched a clean sixth, but came back out and quickly gave up a ground-rule double and hit a batter. Gabe Speier came in to face some lefties, and got the double-play ball he was looking for, but Brock Rodden hesitated. When he ultimately committed to first base, he was too late. With the bags now packed and no outs, Speier got Gelof into an 0-2 count but couldn’t finish him off, ultimately walking in a run. A 10-pitch at-bat to Butler ended with a groundball hit so slowly that the only play was to first and another run scored. With a righty stack up, Dan pulled Speier for Seranthony Domínguez, who also got the double-play ball he was looking for, but it ticked off his glove and thus got through the infield, giving the A’s their third and fourth runs of the inning to tie the game at 6-6. Too many walks and a comebacker bouncing off the pitcher—no wonder the score was tied.

After trading early dingers and middle-inning disasters, the Mariners could have beat the A’s late. They certainly had the right guys coming up. Jhonny Pereda singled and got to second base on a soft groundball out from J.P. Crawford. But upon getting to second, Pereda made the turn for third and was TOOTBLANed. (In a different season, that might be the team’s most memorable unforced error.) So unlike in the third, Jhonny Pereda was not at second base when Randy came up to bat and hit a monster home run. Still, one run was enough to take the lead at 7-6, and a late-inning, go-ahead home run was too significant not to get Randy hyped. He unquestionably enjoyed this trident celebration.

This will probably be his final Sun Hat Award. I am with the consensus that Randy will not return to the Mariners when he reaches free agency at the end of the season. But I will treasure his time here. One of the most charismatic, electric players in the game, he was easily one of my favorite non-Mariners and I couldn’t believe my luck when he was brought to Seattle at the 2024 deadline. I’m sure I was not alone in that.

Alas, the symmetry had to continue. Andrés Muñoz was asked to get a five-out save and got the first two easy peasy, cleaning up a mess in the eighth. But he couldn’t get any of the three ninth-inning outs. Just like in the first inning, Zack Gelof took a heater on the top rail and smashed it to left. This one stayed in the yard, but it meant Gelof was on first when Butler got a pitch right in the middle of the plate, and tanked it for his second dinger of the day.

In the early innings, Pereda and Randy teamed up for a pair of Mariner runs, and Gelof and Butler combined for a pair of A’s runs. In the late innings, the A’s completed their symmetry. But Pereda was not on base for Randy’s second home run. He could’ve been. He should’ve been. But that’s how this season has gone.

From Sacramento, John reports that after Butler’s walk-off home run, Randy stood with his hands on his knees just staring at home plate for about 30 seconds while everyone else trudged in.

Five back with 12 to go. Let it end.

Aaron Boone helped thrust Cam Schlittler into the American League MVP discussion after another dominant outing in a 2-0 win over the Mets, saying the right-hander “might be the MVP, too.” 

“This is the kind of season where pitchers get in that mix, too,’’ the manager said of Schlittler, already the front-runner for the AL Cy Young Award. 

But the Yankees’ resident expert on the MVP award — three-time winner Aaron Judge — disagreed with Boone. 

“He’s definitely pitching like an MVP,’’ Judge said. “They’ve got a Cy Young Award for a reason: for the best pitcher in the game. He’s got my vote for Cy Young.” 

Schlittler likely remains a long shot for the award, as no full-time pitcher has won MVP since the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw got it in 2014 and no one has won it in the AL since Justin Verlander with Detroit did it in 2011. 

This season, Houston’s Yordan Alvarez is considered the favorite, followed by Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero. 

But following his six-shutout-inning performance against the Mets, Schlittler has the best ERA in the AL (1.95) and has pitched an AL-best 184 ²/₃ innings. 

Judge got the award in each of the previous three seasons in which he stayed healthy: 2022, ’24 and ’25. 

A torn ligament in his toe ended his chances in 2023, and this season, Judge isn’t in the conversation because he missed over three months with a stress fracture in his right rib. 

Since returning to open this homestand, Judge is 3-for-17, with no extra-base hits, a walk and nine strikeouts — and he went hitless with three strikeouts Sunday. 

Of his own performance, Judge said he’s “feeling really good. We keep winning games. That’s the most important thing.” 

And Boone added he believes Judge “feels close at the plate. I’ve been pleased with what I’ve seen. Watching from the side, he looks like Aaron to me.” 

He opened the Subway Series with a walk and a single against Nolan McLean, but ended it by going 0-for-8 with five strikeouts. 

Judge, as he did in 2023, didn’t go on a minor league rehab assignment before returning from a long injury, confident he was in good enough form to help the Yankees now, rather than taking at-bats in the minors. 

The Yankees agreed and Judge has hit three balls over 100 mph since his return and the Yankees have gone 4-1 with him back in the lineup as he tries to regain his timing and rhythm at the plate. 

“We’re winning games,’’ Judge said. “That’s the most important thing.”

The Scottsdale Scorpions of the 2026 Arizona Fall League just got a big upgrade. It was announced on Sunday that 21-year-old outfielder Zyhir Hope, one of two big pieces in the Detroit Tigers trade of Tarik Skubal to the Los Angeles Dodgers, will play in the Fall League this season. This will be his second run in the Fall League after playing in 2024 as well. Rafael Neda, the Milwaukee Brewers’ Complex League manager and minor league field coordinator, will manage the Scorpions this fall.

Hope finished the regular season with the Double-A Erie SeaWolves after the trade, and played at that level in both organizations. He hit 29 home runs and stole 26 bases, posting a combined 128 wRC+ with a 25 percent strikeout rate and an 11.1 percent walk rate. There were some struggles making the transition after the trade, but Hope is finishing the season at a torrid clip with three home runs and an OPS of 1.094 in 10 games in September.

Currently, MLB Pipeline has Hope as the Tigers top ranked prospect, while others prefer Bryce Rainer. Either way, that duo is 1-2 in the system, apart from a few sites that still have 28-year-old River Ryan listed as a prospect or haven’t updated as Max Clark cleared the 130 at-bats threshold to graduate from prospect status.

There is a lot to like in Hope’s game. He gets the barrel to the ball to all fields, and is just a hair shy of 70 grade raw power at this point. Combined with above average speed, a quality arm from right field, and a pretty disciplined approach at the plate, and you have a future power hitting outfielder who provides value defensively and on the basepaths as well.

The big question in his case is whether he can trim a little more swing and miss from his game. At just 21 years old and having been bounced around from the Cubs to the Dodgers to the Tigers over the past two seasons, he has had a lot to deal with, and yet he continues to do a lot of damage and take his walks. The strikeout rate is still a little higher than we’d prefer, but for a player his age already at the Double-A level, he’s doing just fine. The raw power and natural loft in his left-handed swing, and his ability to hit the ball hard in all parts of the zone bode well for him being a pretty productive big leaguer either way, but until he trims a bit more swing and miss from his game there’s still a fair amount of risk in the profile.

In that sense, he and Rainer are similiar prospects. Both provide value with their glove and on the bases, and both possess huge power for their age. But in both cases they need to address a few elements of their approach to strike out less as they advance. Hope is certainly further along than Rainer in that regard, but he’s also more experienced. Neither is the type of can’t miss, pure hitter that McGonigle and Clark were as they came through the ranks in recent years. However, they aren’t one dimensional sluggers either and could do major damage in the middle of the Tigers’ order in the years to come.

Last season, the Tigers sent Kevin McGonigle to the Fall League to work on his defense with Alan Trammell. Max Anderson and infielder Jack Penney also went to the Fall League for similar reasons, as both McGonigle and Anderson were too advanced as hitters for the caliber of pitching you tend to see in the desert. The Fall League is used largely to give extra reps to players who missed time during the season, and there are often a lot of pitchers just building up reps and not really very dialed in as the five week season gets underway in early October.

The Tigers haven’t made any other announcements about their Fall League roster. They do have several pitchers who missed a lot of time, but returned to throw well in July and August. Whether former top draft picks like Owen Hall, Paul Wilson, or Michael Massey will attend to try and build on their late season progress remains to be seen. Lefty Jake Miller, already on the 40-man roster, has missed nearly the whole season, but whether he’ll be available in October is pretty unclear. Maybe the best option is right-hander Kelvis Salcedo. The 20-year-old has outstanding stuff, among the best in the whole of the Tigers’ system, but he battled some minor injuries throughout the year and only managed 36.2 innings. He finished the season healthy and throwing well, so it would be great to see him get the call.

One other interesting possibility is catcher-first baseman Josue Briceño. After wrist surgery that cost him the first half of the season, Briceño got right back to destroying Double-A pitching. A 15 game promotion to Triple-A Toledo got off to a shaky start, and then he sprained an ankle on a slide on August 30 and hasn’t played since. Depending on the severity of the injury, he may not be available when the Fall League starts, but if he is, getting him some more reps to close out the season, especially at first base where he’s likely bound but hasn’t played a whole lot yet, might be a wise idea. On the other hand Briceño absolutely destroyed Fall League pitching in 2024 as a 19-year-old, winning league MVP as well as pulling off the Triple Crown, so it may not be worth much other than to get him some added defensive reps.