Rangers 11, White Sox 2

• That was a long game.
• And a lot happened in it.
• And the Rangers won.
• Not only did the Rangers win, but they got back to .500.
• And not only did the Rangers get back to .500, they took sole possession of first place in the American League West, moving a half-game up on the Astros, who did not play.
• Kumar Rocker had a kinda fascinating game. He didn’t seem to have it going on early, allowing a hit in the first and what would have been a home run, had Brandon Nimmo not made a great leaping catch to bring the ball back, and a single, a homer, and another single in the second. In the third, he allowed an infield single to start things on a hard hit ball that Jake Burger couldn’t handle, along with a pair of walks sandwiching a groundout.
• The Rangers were up 5-2 at that point, but with the bases loaded, one out, and Rocker looking shaky, that lead seemed tenuous. Rocker seemed destined to get the hook before too long.
• Two strikeouts by Rocker got him out of the jam, the start of ten straight batters he retired before walking Chase Meidroth with two outs in the sixth, the last batter he faced.
• Robby Ahlstrom and Jordan Montgomery took it from there, retiring all ten batters they faced.
• So in all, the Rangers pitchers didn’t allow a hit over the final 21 outs they recorded, and allowed just one baserunner over the final 20 outs.
• The bats, meanwhile, put up a season-high 11 runs in the game.
• Rangers got on via the hit (14 of them). They got on via the walk (8 of those). They got on via the hit by pitch (two of them).
• One of the HBPs was Elias Diaz, who was hit by Jose Urquidy on a 3-2 pitch in the third, and there was some talking that then went on, including, apparently, yelling from the Rangers bench.
• Joc Pederson, who had tried to challenge a called third strike the previous inning, was told he had done so too late, got ejected a few batters later, supposedly for banging bats.
• I remember Pederson, last year, discussing the addition of new hitting coach Bret Boone, said that he liked to talk sticks. Apparently he likes to make them talk, too.
• The Rangers scored in every inning except the fourth and seventh, though they didn’t put up more than two runs in any inning, which seems kinda odd.
• Corey Seager was 3 for 4 with a pair of doubles and an intentional walk before being lifted late for Nicky Lopez.
• Since coming off the injured list the first time, back in early June, Seager has slashed .308/.393/.533.
• Wyatt Langford drew a walk and had a pair of hits, including a homer with two outs in the ninth that led White Sox manager Will Venable to bring in old friend Luisangel to get the final out.
• Jake Burger had a pair of hits, including a homer! And walked twice!
• Cody Freeman had a pair of hits!
• Ezequiel Duran had a pair of hits and walked!
• In fact, every Ranger starter had a hit except for Joc, who only had two plate appearances due to being thrown out of the game. Pederson did draw a walk to start the game, though, and scored the Rangers’ first run.
• It was a fulfilling game, the time that makes you feel all warm inside.
• And it was a good way to start a road trip.
• Kumar Rocker hit 95.7 mph with his fastball, averaging 94.3 mph, and 96.3 mph on his sinker, averaging 93.9 mph. Robby Ahlstrom touched 96.4 mph with his fastball. Jordan Montgomery’s sinker reached 92.6 mph.
• Jake Burger had a 108.3 mph double and a 108.2 mph home run. Brandon Nimmo had a 107.8 mph groundout. Corey Seager had a 106.9 mph double. Justin Foscue had a 105.0 mph double. Ezequiel Duran had a 104.2 mph double. Wyatt Langford had a 103.0 mph home run.
• Onward, hopefully in a way that retains first place.

I usually like to wait a day to digest bigger news stories. It pays to take a little bit of extra time to make sure all of the emotional baggage has cleared. Dana Brown officially failed as a general manager. However, professional sports is a failure business. Most general managers and managers are hired to eventually be fired. We can use the officially approved phrase “mutually agreed to a parting of ways,” but we know that it is a firing.

I like to break up a general manager’s job into three equal parts. The first part is the easiest one to track: what moves did the general manager actually make? Were they good moves? Obviously, those are loaded questions. As we have stated before, there is a difference between whether a move made sense at the time and whether it ended up working out. The second category is whether certain objectives were met. In other words, what moves did the general manager fail to make? Finally, you have scouting and player development. Let’s start with the first one.

What moves did he make?

Recency bias is a thing. When you look at the bulk of moves in 2026, they haven’t worked out. Obviously, the span of time may make us look at these moves differently. There were five major moves this season and none of them have worked out to date. The trade for Mike Burrows and the signing of Tatsuya Imai have both flopped so far. We might look at those differently next year and beyond, but he simply didn’t have the time for those moves to work out.

The Mauricio Dubon and Jesus Sanchez deals also did not work out. Joey Loperfido has not been a positive influence for the most part because he is languishing in Sugar Land. Should he be there? That’s a different question entirely. Nick Allen has been okay in comparison to his career norms, but he has not been Dubon. Obviously, both deals freed up some money, but that ends up spilling us into the second category. Finally, we have the Daulton Varsho trade. We are nearly a month in and the results aren’t pretty.

In spite of these problems, I would simply point out that most of these acquisitions made more sense at the time then what they ended up being. Maybe that is bad luck. Maybe it is something else. The Kyle Tucker trade was a positive mark on his record. Trading for Justin Verlander and Yusei Kikuchi were also generally positive. Christian Walker might be a wash depending on your perspective, but we can debate that one on a different day.

The most significant negative is probably the extension given to Cristian Javier. I for one will not blame him for that one as that is something most of us likely would have done at the time. So, for the most part I tend to give him a passing grade in this area. Every general manager will have misses. The question is whether you have more hits than misses and he seems to be batting about .500 there.

What did he fail to do?

When Brown was signed on we were told he was good at two things. He would be good at scouting and development and he would ink up our controllable players to team friendly deals. Four years later we have one extension and it was a bad one. Would have signing Jeremy Pena, Hunter Brown, Cam Smith, Yainer Diaz, or Bryan Abreu been good moves? Obviously, we would need to see the deals and evaluate those on a case by case basis. The fact that he accomplished virtually none of that is damning.

Two trade deadlines in a row this team came in with acute hitting and pitching needs and two years they really didn’t address the pitching and the hitting adds were questionable. We can hear the excuses now because they sound eerily familiar. This is where only Jim Crane and company can answer the nagging question. How much authority did Brown have to make deals? Of course, it will be a nagging question moving forward.

Two years in a row this team had one of the worst outfields in baseball. Three years in a row he has been hunting a lefty bat like Captain Ahab has been hunting his white whale. Granted, those don’t grow on trees, but it falls under the column of things he failed to do. The last two points here involve Framber Valdez and the previously mentioned Dubon and Sanchez deals. Why wasn’t Valdez dealt at the same time as Tucker? Imagine what two or three additional players could have done for the present situation.

Finally, you get the inane utterances of “we’re not done” following the Dubon and Sanchez deals. Yes you were. You did nothing of significance with the financial savings. The trade of a franchise icon netted you Varsho. Call me underwhelmed. Again, we don’t know how much autonomy Brown had to make deals, but he clearly isn’t a good chess player. A good chess player would have deals in mind before dealing Dubon and Sanchez. You wouldn’t make the move simply hoping something would come available. In this regard, Brown was playing checkers while everyone else was playing chess.

Scouting and player development

Even this is more complicated than it sounds. You can split into two halves. Scouting is the acquisition of players while player development covers what you do once you get them. None of these factors are cut and dried and a lot of this is conjecture/projection. What could have Cam Smith done with a year in the minors? If this were his rookie season would he be better? Worse? The same? it is impossible to answer because life is not a choose your own adventure book, but most people believe he would have been better off with another season in the minors.

The same could be true of guys like Zach Cole, Brice Mathews, and others that have been promoted fairly quickly. Are the quick promotions in their best interest? This is where both questions intersect into one. The Brown years were characterized with a lot of toolsy players that also have a ton of swing and miss in their game. Can proper development coach that out of a player or is that who they are?

It is one thing to announce or pronounce failure. It is another to start probing why the failure is occurring. This is where Crane and the other decision makers have to look more closely at what is being done. Is it a player selection problem or a coaching/development problem? Simply based on success at the big league level and prospect rankings, this has to be marked down as failure.

Final thoughts

Brown was frustrating at times, but that was more based on his public comments that sounded like the utterings of a used car salesman. He did not do much to actively torpedo the franchise. He was not a buffoon on the level of Spec Richardson or with the inane reasoning of an Ed Wade. He was a middling executive that simply didn’t do enough to thread the needle that Crane and company asked him to. There is the kind of sports hate where you hate someone with the heat of 10,000 suns. Then, there is sport irritation. That is the category Brown lives in. Most of us wish him success somewhere, but that will not be here.

As for Crane, he needs to do some soul-searching. Simply handing over the keys to a Jeff Luhnow type is probably a no go. However, a puppet general manager is probably a no go as well. That means he must thread the needle to find a guy that views the baseball business the same way that he does but is also willing to incorporate a little more science into the operation. It’s a tough ask, but every problem also presents an opportunity.

Good morning.

Evan Grant writes that Monday’s blowout victory for the Texas Rangers signified that perhaps Corey Seager is back.

Kennedi Landry writes that the win in Chicago could have turned out differently if Brandon Nimmo hadn’t committed home run larceny.

Grant writes that the Rangers didn’t make much use of an easy portion of their schedule, which turns more difficult in the season’s final month.

Landry writes about Joc Pederson getting the boot from last night’s game because terrible home plate ump Chris Guccione thought the Texas DH was joking when calling for an ABS challenge on a strike three call that the ump got wrong.

Grant writes that Pederson is in the midst of his longest slump of the season, potentially because the Rangers have seen more left-handers of late and unfortunately will continue to do so.

MLB’s Ben Weinrib notes that Frisco’s Rafe Perich made the MLB Pipeline Prospect Team of the Week at third base.

And, Tim Cowlishaw tries to hit his Rangers article quota for this year by writing about the weird, wild American League West.

Have a nice day!

With 31 games left to go in the season, the Orioles are in a weird spot. After the Guardians win last night, Baltimore finds itself 2.5 games back of the final AL Wild Card spot with just over a month of baseball left to play. It’s far from an insurmountable deficit; the O’s have nine games left against the Guardians and Blue Jays—two teams they’re competing with for the third Wild Card berth—as well as six upcoming games against the bottom-dwelling A’s and Rockies.

The problem the Orioles have faced all year is consistency. Despite going 24-20 since the beginning of July, the O’s have only actually occupied the last Wild Card spot for a couple of days after their recent series in Tropicana Field. And even though that last playoff spot is currently occupied by a team that’s only .500, common sense says someone will eventually get to 81+ wins and claim a berth in October. If the O’s want to do that, they’ll need to get back to .500 for the first time since they were 15-15 on April 30th.

To find some level of consistency, the O’s will need some more offense from players not named Pete Alonso. Since July 1st, Baltimore has the 7th-best ERA in baseball (3.71), just behind fellow playoff contenders, the Guardians. The bats have often been Baltimore’s biggest problem, with the O’s ranking 20th in the majors at 4.23 runs/game since the beginning of July. You only have to watch one Shane Baz start to know that this sometimes-potent offense has a bad tendency of disappearing.

So if the Orioles are going to go through an offensive revival over the last 31 games of the season, they’ll need some of their previously hot bats to reignite. With that in mind, here are three players who the Orioles need to wake up if they’re going to make the postseason

Jackson Holliday

Holliday was a revelation for the Orioles’ offense in July. The 22-year-old was an on-base machine for Baltimore last month, posting an OBP of .500 to go along with a .368 average and a .421 slugging. It finally felt like the former No. 1 overall was putting it all together and becoming the type of hitter at the majors that we saw all throughout the minors.

Once the calendar turned to August, though, Holliday has seemingly turtled up and stopped being the offensive force the Orioles were relying on. In 21 games this month, the 2B is slashing .165/.221/.266 with more strikeouts (19) than base hits (13). It’s no coincidence that while the infielder was on a hot streak, the O’s went 15-8 in July. Since his downturn, Baltimore has fallen to 9-12 in August.

That regression could just be the latest episode in the mercurial career of Holliday, or it could be the 22-year-old struggling to adjust to a more prominent role in the lineup. Since August 7th, Holliday has hit 3rd or higher in the lineup and has been the Orioles’ leadoff hitter each of their last six games. His July clearly earned Craig Albernaz’s trust and you’d expect he’ll continue to hit in the leadoff spot for the rest of the season. If the offense is going to get back on track, its leadoff hitter needs to lead by example.

Christian Encarnacion-Strand

CES joined the Orioles thanks to the injury to Blaze Alexander and at first looked like an unlikely shot in the arm for an offense that had lost its second-best player. In his first nine games after joining the Orioles on July 18th, Encarnacion-Strand went 11-for-34 (.324) with three homers and 11 RBIs. That hot start to his Orioles’ career had many willing to hand him the starting 3B job for the rest of the stretch run.

Since then, the former Red has come back down to earth. His August triple slash is a measly .177/.224/.355 while posting 21 strikeouts in 62 ABs (33.9%). CES has consistently been a lefty masher, with a .286 average and 1.016 OPS against southpaws this season. However, against right-handers, the 26-year-0ld only has a .197 average and .563 OPS. Those are the same drastic splits we see with Coby Mayo, except Mayo is actually producing in August, with an OPS this month that is nearly 300 points higher than Encarnacion-Strand’s number.

With Mayo hitting, Samuel Basallo back in the fold and Alexander’s return supposedly on the horizon, CES has a lot of pressure on him. He has the pressure of not only trying to play his part in the playoff run, but also the pressure of keeping his roster spot.

Tyler O’Neill or Leody Taveras

Colton Cowser and Dylan Beavers have cemented themselves as the offensive leaders of this Orioles outfield—Cowser via his all-around good play and Beavers through his clutch hits. Albernaz has three other outfielders to complete the trio (O’Neill, Taveras or Christian Franklin), but if someone is going to break out, you’d expect it to be TON or Taveras.

We’ve seen O’Neill more recently prove what he can provide this offense. Last month, TON looked like the best version we’ve seen in black and orange (albeit in only 42 ABs). The oft-injured outfielder delivered five home runs while posting a 1.009 OPS. This month, O’Neill has continued to get more playing time and has given us a handful of web gems, but a diminished offensive output. The biggest drop is in his slugging percentage, which has gone from .691 in July to .404 this month.

Taveras offers almost an opposite profile to O’Neill; a player who mixes some small ball with a balanced approach that contrasts with O’Neill’s power-heavy game. After struggling mightily in June and July, we’ve seen Taveras turn it around a little in this month, with a .674 OPS in 63 ABs. If Taveras can become a secondary table setter at the bottom of the Orioles lineup, he can give Baltimore the offensive depth it needs to stay in the playoff race until the end.

This question is funny because the Braves could start Ha-Seong Kim as soon as tonight, for all we know. But, for the sake of discussion…

Jim Jarvis has been optioned back down to Triple-A. Jarvis had start 29 of the team’s 34 games against right-handed starters since being recalled. Mauricio Dubon was the starter in all the other recent games, other than a lone Kim start on August 7. On top of that, the Braves’ division lead is 3.5 games, and their divisional odds are about 3-in-4… but their playoff odds are close to unity. So, whether the Braves feel they can afford to try Kim kind of depends on which of those numbers they care about more.

Kim has pretty much some of the worst stats we’ve seen by a Brave in any accumulation of time, with -1.2 fWAR in just 85 PAs. Dubon is at 1.7 fWAR in 500 PAs. Dubon’s batting line (.312 wOBA, .306 xwOBA) is an improvement over his career line (.294 wOBA, .290 xwOBA) but not a career high; he had a very similar line in 2023 in Houston, which is the only other time he’s crossed the 450 PA mark. That said, Dubon has a worse .280ish xwOBA (or worse) in his last seven, 14, and 30 days. To work backwards and get to a point where his seasonal line looks decent, you have to go back to June, where he was having a great time while the rest of the team careened on the edge of the abyss. (Dubon from June 1-forward: .321 wOBA, .309 xwOBA; Dubon from July 1-forward: .292 wOBA, .278 xwOBA.)

So, basically, Dubon isn’t lighting the world on fire, but Kim was doing exactly that but in a bad way, which is what caused his playing time to essentially disappear. Will he get any back, start-wise with Jarvis gone?

After a struggle of a series in Seattle that involved two crushing walk-off defeats, wasn’t that better?

Kevin Gausman threw seven outstanding shutout innings and the Cubs got a pair of homers, one of which was a monster shot by Michael Conforto, and opened the series on a high note with a 7-0 shutout of the Diamondbacks.

After a scoreless first inning, the Cubs got on the board in the second. Ian Happ singled with one out, and one out later scored on this triple by Pedro Ramirez [VIDEO].

Gausman, meanwhile, was mowing down D-backs hitters. He allowed a leadoff single to Tim Tawa in the third, then picked him off [VIDEO].

Corbin Carroll walked off Gausman in the fourth and stole two bases, but Gausman got out of that inning with a ground ball to first.

The Cubs extended their lead to 2-0 in the fifth. Conforto led off with a double and two outs later scored on this double by Seiya Suzuki [VIDEO].

Then the Cubs blew the game open in the fifth — all after the first two hitters were routine outs.

Ramirez singled and then Conforto absolutely destroyed this baseball [VIDEO].

Did I say “destroyed”? Yes I did, and check out the exit velocity and distance on that homer [VIDEO].

And the “home-run race” lead now belongs to Conforto, who now has 12 home runs to Kyle Tucker’s 11 — in 235 fewer at-bats.

Three pitches later, Carson Kelly also went deep [VIDEO].

Back-to-back homer facts from BCB’s JohnW53:

The back-to-back homers by Michael Conforto and Carson Kelly were the sixth pair by Cubs batters this season.

Half of those have come in the past eight days: Pete Crow-Armstrong and Seiya Suzuki last Monday, Alex Bregman and Michael Busch on Saturday, then Conforto and Kelly. They had done it once before, July 8 at Baltimore.

The Cubs have gone back-to-back 412 times since 1876, including 393 since 1901 and 182 since 2000.

The Cubs put two more on the board in the seventh. With one out, Michael Busch walked and Alex Bregman singled.

A double by Happ scored Busch [VIDEO].

Bregman took third on that hit and scored on this sac fly by Nico Hoerner to make it 7-0 [VIDEO].

Gausman, meanwhile, was mowing down Arizona hitters. He struck out six [VIDEO].

Here’s more on Gausman’s outing. As you can see, he threw more four-seamers than usual [VIDEO].

Gausman allowed three hits. By Game Score (76) that matched his best outing of the year, a one-hit start vs. the Yankees back in June. But he allowed a run then, the only hit was a solo homer by Jasson Dominguez. In this one, only one D-backs runner got past first base against Gausman. This is the guy the Cubs thought they had traded for. Hopefully he sticks around the rest of the year.

More on Gausman’s night from John:

Kevin Gausman gave up no runs on three hits in 7.0 innings.

The last Cub to pitch at least that many innings, with no runs and no more than three hits, was Justin Steele, with 7.0 and three hit at home vs. the Rangers on April 7, 2025. He walked two, one more than Gausman.

Kyle Hendricks gave up two hits and walked two in 7.1 vs. the Reds on Sept. 28, 2024, and Shota Imanaga pitched 7.0 no-hit innings with two walks vs. the Pirates on Sept. 4, 2024. Both of those games were at Wrigley Field. So was the last with one walk, by Jameson Taillon, who gave up three hits on Sept. 2, 2024, two days before Imanaga’s start.

Ryan Zeferjahn was given the eighth, a good spot for him in a low-leverage situation, and he came through with a 1-2-3 inning on just 10 pitches. Hopefully that’s a good confidence-builder.

Caleb Thielbar, another reliever who’s struggled, took the ninth. He did allow a couple of hits, but completed the shutout, in part helped by this sliding catch by Happ [VIDEO].

Here’s the final out of the game [VIDEO].

A bit of history was made with the shutout. From John:

This was just the Cubs’ second shutout in 97 games at Arizona since the Diamondbacks began play in 1998. The first was by 4-0 on Aug. 24, 2002. Last night’s game was the Cubs’ 74th game there since that one.

Solid win all the way around. Timely hitting, home runs, excellent pitching.

Here’s Conforto on his homer [VIDEO].

And here are Craig Counsell’s postgame remarks [VIDEO].

The Cubs crept to within 5.5 games of the Brewers in the NL Central. They also gained a game on the Phillies, who lost to the Mariners, and are now three games up on Philadelphia for the top wild-card spot.

The Cubs go for the series win Tuesday evening at Chase Field. Clay Holmes will start for the Cubs and Brandon Pfaadt will go for Arizona. Game time is again 8:40 p.m. CT (for folks in ET and CT, this is the Cubs’ last late-night game of 2026!) and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.

It may have been a few days, but most Phillies fans are still buzzing about the dramatic come from behind win that the team authored on Sunday afternoon. After looking utterly lifeless for 8 innings, the team scored 6 runs with two outs in the ninth inning, capped off by Kyle Schwarber’s mammoth two-run, walk-off homer, the first walk off home run for the Phillies since June 9th, 2023, also off the bat of Kyle Schwarber.

You’ve probably watched it 1,000 times by now, but why not make it 1,001?

What makes the comeback even more remarkable is that the Phillies were not only down to their final out, they were down to their final strike three times before Bryan De La Cruz tied the game with a single following Edmundo Sosa’s three run double. Even Schwarber started his at-bat 0-2 before launching the game winning homer over the batter’s eye. 

Let our own Schmenkman illustrate just how rare something like this is:

It was truly one of the most improbable comebacks in recent memory, certainly for the Phillies. Baseball has a way of creating these types of moments, especially for a team that is having everything go well for them at a given time. Yes, it was just a regular season game at the end of August, but the sheer dramatics of the moment will make sure that it goes down as a vividly remembered random Sunday afternoon in August.

Of course, the Phillies don’t have exclusive license for dramatic comebacks. So, what’s the craziest comeback you’ve ever seen in a baseball game? Was it Sunday afternoon? Or was it some other Phillies win from yesteryear? Or did it not involve the Phillies at all?