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Pittsburgh Pirates second baseman Brandon Lowe has been arguably the best player for the franchise this season. He leads the team in home runs with 33 and he leads the team with RBIs with 93. However, the bad news is that Lowe is a free agent in the offseason.

There could be some good news, as there is apparently mutual interest between the team and Lowe to sign a new deal. According to Lowe the team has not approached him yet about signing an extension but it is normal for teams to table those types of conversations until the season is over. 

Lowe told Colin Beazley of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette the Pirates have not approached him about an extension, though he added: “I think this team’s got a very bright future and a lot of good players, and there’s a lot of good baseball that’s going to be played in this park for a long time. [If] they want to talk, I’m all ears.” Post Gazette

In the event a multiyear agreement does not materialize before free agency begins in November, the Pirates will likely give Lowe a $23.1MM qualifying offer. If the Pirates do present Lowe with a QO and he signs for upward of $50MM elsewhere, they will receive a pick after the first round of the 2027 draft in return. 

Lowe was acquired in a three-team trade involving the Astros last December. In a swap that also delivered left-handed reliever Mason Montgomery and outfielderJake Mangum to Pittsburgh, the team shipped righty Mike Burrows to Houston.

One of the most important things that the Pirates need to take care of in the offseason is Lowe. He has been so good this year defensively and of course offensively. The power and leadership that he has brought to this young team has been apparent and that’s a guy that needs to resign. 

I understand the asking price could be a lot but a team that never likes to spend money should especially for a player that is producing and showing interest in returning.  

MLB.com | Bryan Hoch, Adam Berry: The long and winding season is coming to a close, and the Yankees find themselves six games back of the Rays with just seven games remaining. The good news is that four of those remaining games will be against those Rays in the Bronx starting from Tuesday, giving the Yankees a very small chance to keep their division hopes alive. How small? Per FanGraphs, the Yankees have just a one percent chance of finishing first in the AL East. Given the way things have gone as of late, even that figure seems a tad optimistic, but as a wise man once said, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.

Hoch and Berry outline the key details of this crucial homestand for the Yankees. Of note is the starting pitching matchups; Tampa Bay will send out their two best starters in the opening doubleheader — Nick Martinez for Game 1 and Drew Rasmussen for Game 2 — but they’re slated to rely on Ian Seymour and Freddy Peralta for Wednesday and Thursday, which is a step down in quality. Meanwhile, the Yankees will counter with Carlos Rodón and Max Fried for the doubleheader, then Gerrit Cole for Game 3 and Cam Schlittler for Game 4. If the Yankees can come away with two wins on Tuesday — a big if, admittedly — a four-game sweep might not be out of their reach.

New York Daily News | Gary Phillps: Of course, in all likelihood, the Yankees will have to settle for a Wild Card matchup with the Red Sox for the second season in a row. Phillips takes a shot on predicting the Yankees’ 26-man roster for the WCS. The most impactful decision looks to be who to start in center field, with Trent Grisham progressing in his recovery from a hamstring strain, while Spencer Jones continues to hold his own in the big leagues. Personally, I’d rather see Jones out there, but we’ll have to see.

The Athletic | Brendan Kuty: ($) There’s one Yankee in particular who is licking their chops at the opportunity to stick it to the Rays in the upcoming homestand, and that’s José Caballero. Having been traded from those Rays to the Yankees at last year’s deadline, the feisty infielder has used that to fuel his competitive fire, saying, “For me, it’s just, ‘All right, I’m going to show you that I was good enough to stay in this game. I was good enough to make you pay for it.’ That’s all.” While Caballero hasn’t recaptured the magic that saw him post a 133 wRC+ over last season’s stretch run, he nonetheless has been a valuable role player in 2026, accumulating 1.5 WAR over 131 games so far. Here’s hoping he backs up the talk and stings those Rays.

In a thoroughly depressing 2026 season for the San Francisco Giants, there was some hope about the future of the outfield Monday night. Drew Gilbert went 3-for-4 with 3 RBIs. Bo Davidson got a hit and stole a base in his big-league debut. And Jonah Cox continues to show he’s a plus defender at both second base as well as center field as the Giants won, 5-2.

Of course, the main theme of the 2026 season is that the Giants and their fans cannot have nice things. Blade Tidwell got his first win of the season Tuesday in St. Louis, then had to leave Monday’s game in the 4th inning due to ominous “elbow discomfort” one batter after allowing a Brooks Lee home run that just barely made it out of the park in right.

Tristan Beck (welcome back!) relieved Tidwell and retired all eight batters he faced for a much-deserved first win of the season. He even got his ERA below 6! Trent Harris got his second save with a perfect ninth inning, moving him into a tie for fifth among Giants closers this season. When the entire team has 30 saves for the season, you take them where you can get hem.

The Giants raced out to an early lead thanks to Gilbert and Davidson. Gilbert legged out an infield hit and Davidson followed up by lining a single to right on the 9th pitch of his first major league at-bat.

Davidson went on to steal second base, then scored on Brett Harris’ two-run single. Fun fact! It was Harris’ first two RBIs of the season, coming in his 9th game with the Giants and 13th overall. To his credit, he has not concussed himself on a doorway this season, though there’s still a week to go.

In the second, it was another infield single, this time by Osleivis Basabe, that started a rally. Christian Koss broke out of an 0-for-10 streak with a double, then Gilbert lined the ball over a drawn-in Twins infield to drive in both of his teammates.

Gilbert continued to torment Twins starter Zebby Matthews in the 5th, leading off the inning with his 11th home run. He’s been much better in the second half of the season, slashing .238/.339/.427 since the All-Star break and hitting unusually well (265/.365/.530) when he leads off an inning.

Later in the game, Duane Kuiper texted Mike Krukow that his call of Gilbert’s dinger was the “Worst home run call I’ve ever heard” and Krukow admitted the call was so stressful he may have wet his pants a little.

Marcelo Mayer, acquired in the Erik Miller trade, also made his Giants debut. It wasn’t great, as he earned himself a Golden Sombrero by striking out all four times he came to the plate, the first three coming on 3-2 pitches.

Old friend Taylor Rogers pitched 1.1 scoreless innings in relief and became the first Minnesota pitcher to retire Gilbert. Sadly, his twin brother Tyler may have ended the Toronto Blue Jays’ slim hopes of a playoff berth by giving up a game-winning two-home run homer to Pete Alonso on the same night.

Five more games. Please, no more injuries.

The champagne is on ice as Phillies get set to open final homestand originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Champagne showers are in the forecast as the Phillies open their final week of the regular season Tuesday night at Citizens Bank Park.

The six-game homestand features visits from the top team in the National League (the Milwaukee Brewers) and the top team in the American League (the Tampa Bay Rays).

The Phillies will enter Tuesday night’s game against the Brewers with a magic number of 3 to clinch their fifth straight trip to the postseason. That means Garrett Stubbs could be doing the backstroke in the Phillies’ clubhouse as early as Wednesday night.

The Phils control the third and final NL wild-card spot with a four-game advantage over the Arizona Diamondbacks, currently the last team out. Any combination of three Phillies wins or three Arizona losses would put the Phils in the postseason.  

While Baseball-Reference.com gives the Phillies a 98 percent chance of making the postseason, it’s still unclear where they will play a first-round Wild Card Series next week.

With six games remaining, the Phils are a game behind the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres, who are tied for the top NL wild-card spot. The Phils still have a chance to claim the first wild-card spot, which would make them the NL’s No. 4 overall seed and keep them at home for the best-of-three first-round series.

Finishing as the second (No. 5 seed) or third (No. 6) seed would put the Phils on the road for the first round. Based on the standings today, the Phillies, as the No. 6 seed, would travel to No. 3 seed Atlanta for the first round. Atlanta clinched the NL East on Sunday. The Braves went 9-4 against the Phillies this season.

If the Phils finish as the No. 5 seed, they would open on the road against the No. 4 seed. Based on tiebreakers, that team would currently be the Cubs, who won their season series with the Padres.

If, by chance, the Phillies, Cubs and Padres all finish with the same record, the Cubs would claim the No. 4 seed with the Phillies as the No. 5 seed over the Padres, based on season-series tiebreakers.

On Sunday, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said the team would prioritize making the postseason ahead of striving for the home-field advantage in the first round. So, if the Phillies lock up a postseason berth before the weekend, Zack Wheeler would not pitch Sunday’s regular season finale. He instead would be in place to start Game 1 of the playoffs. Cristopher Sanchez could also be a candidate to start that game, provided the Phillies sew up a postseason berth before his turn comes up again on Saturday.

Wheeler (13-5, 2.99) pitches Tuesday night against Milwaukee’s Dustin May. Aaron Nola (7-10, 4.49) will start Wednesday night.

Here’s a look at what the final week of the season looks like for the teams the Phillies are battling.

CUBS – They are 87-69, tied with San Diego for the top wild-card spot, with six games to play, three at home against Miami and three at Boston.

PADRES – They are 87-69, tied with the Cubs for the top wild-card spot, with six to play, three at the Dodgers followed by three at home against Arizona.

DIAMONDBACKS – They are 82-74, four games behind the Phillies, the current No. 6 seed. They finish with three at Colorado and three at San Diego.

Well, after making fun of the makeup of the Giants’ current roster in my game thread, it’s only fitting that the Twins blew this one. That’s baseball for you.

Zebby Matthews was on the mound for the Twins and was less sharp after a silencing the Yankees his last time out. It was a rough first two innings especially. Zebby was able to get to two strikes on most hitters he faced, but struggled to put away batters from there, as we’ve seen him do in some of his bad starts in the past. He threw 35 pitches and allowed two runs on three singles in the first, and then 28 and two more runs in the second. However, Matthews was pretty strong after that, allowing just a single run in the final three frames on a solo homer while striking out five Giants. A nice rebound from the young starter after a rough beginning.

The offense was a different story. The hitters looked like a group that is just out of gas, barely putting up a fight against a bunch of AAA pitchers. To be fair, the lineup the Twins are running out currently is a bunch of young players who have never played this far into a season before (Jenkins, Rodriguez, Keaschall, Lee, Roden, Sabato) along with Kody Clemens, who is essentially in his first season as a regular, and Ryan Jeffers who broke his hamate bone a few months ago and then has caught nearly ever game since returning. They truly might just be out of gas.

The Twins managed only four hits and five baserunners all night. They never had an inning with multiple hits. The only runs came on solo homers. The first was a classic Brooks Lee wall-scraper, but the second was an incredibly impressive bomb to right-center off the bat of Emma Rodriguez, an impressive feat in San Francisco’s cavernous ballpark.

The swing, approach, and raw power displayed by Rodriguez there are exactly why the Twins have hung onto the Dominican outfielder as long as they have, despite his checkered injury history. There are very few players that have the strength to hit that home run at all, let alone one who has the power and speed that Rodriguez also features. Maybe he’ll flame out like some other talented Minnesota top prospects, but swings like that make me hesitant to use Emma as a trade chip this offseason.

Unfortunately, the home runs were really the only bright spot for the Twins tonight. Taylor Rogers had a scoreless outing in what could be his final season, while Travis Adams continued to flash just enough stuff to make the Twins comfortable with him as the final bullpen option for 2027. But here on out is all about getting the kids reps and keeping everyone healthy heading into the offseason. If we look at it that way, mission accomplished, I suppose.

STUDS

• Emmanuel Rodriguez: mega bomb
• Brooks Lee: mini bomb
• Final three innings Zebby: 3 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 5 K

DUDS

• The lineup: 4-31, 2 R, 1 BB, 8 K
• First two innings Zebby: 2 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 4 K

Tomorrow is Taj Bradley’s final start of the season as he looks to put the finishing touches on what has been a strong first full season in Minnesota. Five more to go until a long winter, let’s enjoy them!

A gut punching series loss at the hands of the Miami Marlins not only had the Diamondbacks lose more ground in the NL Wild Card race to the 3 teams ahead of them, it also seemed to take all the hopium that remained in our systems and replace it with either copium or just straight up despair as the D’Backs would go from 2 losing series against 2 sub .500 teams to welcoming the New York Yankees into town for the final home series of the 2026 season.

The Yankees may have already secured their spot in October before their trip to the desert but with a chance at the AL East title still a possibility, along with having Gerrit Cole and the probable AL Cy Young winner in Cam Schlittler taking the bump, this would be no cake walk of a series and the Diamondbacks would need to at least win this series if they want any sliver of hope going into their final 6 games in Colorado and San Diego. With the 25th anniversary of the 2001 World Series winning team being celebrated this series, maybe they would be able to have some of that magic rub off onto this 2026 ballclub and use it as the fuel they need to propel them towards postseason baseball.

Ed-Rough-do Start-Riguez

Eduardo Rodriguez has undoubtedly been the best starter in the Diamondbacks rotation for all of 2026 as he leads the starters in wins (15), ERA (2.89), IP (183.2) and K’s (140), but the issue that has been rearing its head all season for Rodriguez has been his struggles out of the gate and we got more of the same in Friday night’s series opener with the Yankees putting up a 5 spot before the Diamondbacks even had the chance to swing the lumber.

The three of us looked at ERod’s numbers from the 1st inning of his starts compared to the rest of the game and it was as night and day as it could get with his first inning ERA this season sitting at 7.84, a WHIP of 1.77 and an opposing slash of .302/.389/579. From the 2nd inning and beyond he evolves into a completely different pitcher with his 1.89 ERA, 1.12 WHIP and opposing hitter slashing just .222/.279/.326. This isn’t even necessarily just an issue he’s had in 2026 either as his career ERA in the 1st inning (4.51) compared to the rest of his innings (3.92) shows that he’s always had struggles early in games for most of his career.

Cravin for Pavin?

With the demoralizing 9-2 loss on Friday night the Diamondbacks and all snakes fans in attendance would hope that the vibes would be turned around as Saturday would be the big 25th anniversary celebration of the greatest world series of all time (yes I’m biased) with so many legends from that squad like Randy Johnson, Luis Gonzalez, Tony Womack, Miguel Batista, Damien Miller and more in the building for the festivities.

Both the Yankees and Diamondbacks had clutch pitching and hitting at times throughout this game as the score was knotted at 3 a piece going into the bottom of the 9th inning with the Snakes in desperate need of a win to keep their playoff hopes from lowering even further, and that’s when the infamous Pavin Smith stepped in the box as a pinch hitter with a runner on 1st and 1 out. The baseball gods must like reruns because they decided that a Diamondbacks walk-off of the Yankees on the night of the 2001 WS celebration would be the most fitting outcome, and Pavin delivered just that with a 2-R home run into the sea of Yankee fans in right field.

All 3 of us have been very vocal in our frustrations with Smith’s struggles in his career here in the desert and the front office seeming to refuse to move on from a player that has accumulated 0.1 bWAR in his time as a major leaguer, and we all still feel that he should not be on this roster at the beginning of the 2027 season (if we have one that is) in any capacity, but we did admit that it was nice to see Pavin summon his inner Luis Gonzalez and send the fans into a frenzy with a walk-off over the Yankees.

Unc-enado Still Got It

The fireworks might have been after the game on Friday night, but Sunday’s final home game of the 2026 regular season had plenty of leftovers as it felt like baseballs were flying out left and right. Most of them came for the Yankees off of Corbin Burnes in the 4th inning, but the biggest one was in the Diamondbacks favor with Nolan Arenado hitting a go ahead (and potential season saving) grand slam in the 5th inning, his 3rd in 2026 and the 9th of his career.

The fellas and I discussed how nice of a surprise this offensive resurgence has been from Arenado as he is putting up some of the best numbers at the dish we have seen since his MVP caliber season as a Cardinal in 2022 while also pondering the likelihood that Nolan can get to 30 home runs on the season (27 currently) with 3 of the final 6 games being played in his old stomping grounds of Coors Field where Arenado has 139 dingers in his career in the mile high city.

Colorado Cookin

Setting off for the final road trip of the regular season the Snakes will be heading to Coors Field to take on the Colorado Rockies as they continue to battle for their lives in an attempt to make miracles happen and sneak into the playoffs. 

The last few weeks have seen us and other fans throw the term “must-win games” around a bunch but these 3 in Colorado are all truly must win games if the Diamondbacks want to have any real chance at making the final series in San Diego mean anything as a Diamondbacks loss+Padres win, 2 D’Backs losses or 2 Padres wins would put the final nail in the coffin of the Diamondbacks playoff hopes.

Gabe, Brandon and I all felt disgusted that we would have to actually root for the Los Angeles Dodgers to win baseball games (just typing that out makes me want to puke) but that is the reality we are in as a Dodgers sweep of the Padres with the Diamondbacks sweeping the Rockies would set us up for what could most likely feel like its own wild card series against the Padres in San Diego to decide who gets in and who goes to Cancun.

The Major League Baseball season is down to its final days with plenty of uncertainty and playoff spots still to be clinched.

In the AL West, the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros have been exchanging first place in recent days and it's the Rangers who hold a one-game leading entering play on Tuesday, Sept. 22. The Cleveland Guardians have overtaken the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central, but the Sox are still likely to earn a wild card spot.

The Chicago Cubs, San DIego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies basically have the NL's three wild card spots locked up, but only one game separating the three teams in the seeding.

The regular season ends on Sunday, Sept. 27, with the best-of-three wild card series beginning two days later.

Here's the latest standings and updates on the MLB playoff race: