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The Cleveland Guardians got a key win against the Boston Red Sox last night, leaving their magic number to clinch a postseason berth at two. What should Guardians’ fans be watching for starting with tonight’s primetime matchup with the Red Sox and Sonny Gray?

First, obviously, the Guardians are trying to beat Boston, again, while rooting for the Mariners to GET THEIR CRAP TOGETHER and beat the Astros and the Mets to remember they have a billion dollar roster for one more night and beat the Rangers again. If either of those events happen, the Guardians’ magic number reduces by one more. So… a win over the Red Sox and a loss by either Houston or Texas and Cleveland has punched their ticket to October baseball. The Astros will start Ethan Pecko who doesn’t strike anyone out and won’t be out there more than like three innings at the most, so, that helps, but the Mariners are starting George Kirby who has a 4.24 ERA. Come on, Seattle, play spoiler for those hated ‘Stros. The Mets will start Nolan McLean who is good and has a 3.18 ERA while the Rangers do a sort of bullpen game starting Cody Bradford who has a 4.19 ERA. So, there is hope all around here.

As for the Guardians tonight, they face old nemesis Sonny Gray. In the past three years, Gray has pitched 15 innings against the Guardians to the tune of an 0.60 ERA. It’s a small sample size! But, of course, Gray does have a 2.82 ERA this season. He is, unfortunately, very good. So, the Guardians will need to find a hero or two offensively. Petey Halpin hit a home run off Gray earlier this season; start him today. Give it a shot. Travis Bazzana has a .429 wOBA, Austin Hedges and Brayan Rocchio have .349 wOBA’s against him, and in 30 pitches seen Jo Adell has a .300 wOBA against him. Is that good? No. But it’s way better than the rest of the Guardians’ options have against Gray. It’s probably all mostly small sample size; Gray is just good and they need to put up good at-bats and come through with runners in scoring position.

ALSO, of course, it would be a good time right now for Foster Griffin to really put forth the kind of effort the Guardians were hoping for when they acquired him at the trade deadline. Unfortunately, the Red Sox do have a 107 wRC+ against LHP this season; however, they are missing Willson Contreras who was a big piece of that. They do still have bats who can provide some right-handed thump like Adley Rutschmann, Jahmai Jones, Trevor Story, Caleb Durbin, Nate Eaton, and Andruw Monastario. Griffin will have to find a way to keep them at bay for a while, and I suspect we will need a return scoreless appearance from Craig Yoho and no gopherballs tonight from Hunter Gaddis. The Red Sox for the season have been +4 runs above average when facing lefties against Griffin’s best pitch (the cutter), but they’ve been -0.6 against sinkers and -4.9 against changeups, so I’d see if Griffin can leverage those two offerings into some outs tonight if I were designing the gameplan.

Finally, of course, we ideally want the Guardians to find a way to hang on to their slim one-game lead in the AL Central and get the #2 seed in MLB’s postseason bracket, including the bye. BUT, the Chicago White Sox have the tiebreaker and they are playing the terrible Royals and then the even more terrible Colorado Rockies to end the year. Tonight, the White Sox will open with very good reliever Bryan Hudson and then go to Erick Fedde, who is a solid but not dominant arm. The Royals will start the very bad Seth Lugo with an ERA over 5. He has surrendered a .341 wOBA to the White Sox this year, which is also bad. BUT, the Royals scored 11 runs last night. Let’s hope they can do that again because they’ll probably need it. The Royals will start Randy Dobnak on Thursday and he has a 3.08 ERA (somehow!) and they’ll be facing the back end of the White Sox rotation… so that may be the best chance for Chicago to lose a game this series. The Guardians, however, will be facing lefty Ranger Suarez who is good… and will need David Fry and Jo Adell to make some noise in that one.

Pitching rotations are not set for the Astros and Rangers after today, but the Mets will throw Zac Thornton who has a 3.40 ERA against Texas on Thursday. Meanwhile, to face the Astros, the Athletics will throw Mason Barnett who is capable of a decent performance but not great, Jacob Lopez who is like Logan Allen but worse, Jack Perkins who has been very good his last two starts, and Brady Basso who hasn’t been good but whose expected numbers look better. The Athletics are bad, no doubt, but they do have a bit of kick to them and should be motivated to spoil things for big bad Houston. The Rangers wrap up their season with three versus the Twins, who should be throwing Joe Ryan one of those games, so that’s the one to steal.

For the Guardians, Travis Bazzana needs to find it again soon, we need some Playoff Rocchio and Hero Hosey, and the bullpen will have to hold up while Griffin, Joey Cantillo and Tanner Bibee finish strong. The team has been putting up good at-bats and finding a way. I believe they can continue to do so – we will see where they end up on Sunday evening!

Five games remain in the 2026 regular season.

The Cubs, Padres and Phillies are currently tied for the top Wild Card spot at 87-70, with the Cubs holding the tiebreaker in any of the two-team or three-team tie scenarios among those clubs.

The Diamondbacks are 83-74 and on the verge of elimination, four games behind all three clubs; their elimination number with the Cubs is 1, so the Cubs can clinch a Wild Card spot by defeating the Marlins Wednesday (or a D-backs loss to the Rockies).

This is where it’s really fortunate that the Cubs have that tiebreaker over the Padres and Phillies. If all three teams wound up tied at the end of the regular season, the Cubs would get the first wild card spot. In that scenario they’d host the Phillies, because Philadelphia swept their season series 6-0 over San Diego. Here are all the various tiebreaker rules.

This article in The Athletic noting the odds and percentages for various postseason scenarios has been updated through Tuesday’s games, so let’s have another look at the various odds and chances.

First, here are the percentage odds for the possible postseason matchups for the first two rounds:

As you can see, compared to the last post I made on this topic on Monday, the chances for the Cubs to be the No. 4 seed (and top Wild Card) have decreased from 60 percent to 45 percent. The Cubs still control their own destiny — win out and they’re the top Wild Card.

The Brewers are still very likely to be the No. 1 National League seed. They currently lead the Dodgers by one game and hold the tiebreaker.

Now, here are the Cubs’ percentages of making the postseason and where they would wind up, based on each possible W/L record in the remaining six games:

The Cubs still are 60 percent or better to host the Wild Card Seires next week if they can go at least 3-2 over the five remaining games. Going 4-1 or 5-0, obviously, increases those odds.

The good news is that even if the unthinkable happens and the Cubs don’t win another game, they still have a 94 percent chance of getting into the postseason as the No. 6 seed.

But let’s be positive and think about taking the next two games from the Marlins. That would be a huge boost.

Now, here’s what we know about the series this weekend between the Cubs and Red Sox scheduled to begin at 6:10 p.m. CT Friday at Fenway Park.

As I wrote yesterday, I think the best move would be to move the series to a neutral site, perhaps Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. The league seems disinclined to do that. Instead, this might happen:

This might actually work. Here is the current weather forecast for Boston on Friday:

A chance of showers, mainly after 10am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 63. Northeast wind 16 to 18 mph, with gusts as high as 36 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

That’s… not terrible, though it will be quite windy. It seems likely that the teams could get two games in before the rain hits later Friday and possibly all day Saturday and Sunday. If they do play a doubleheader Friday, it’s possible that the National League wild card race could be sorted out after that and the third game could be cancelled. More on the doubleheader possibility in this Athletic article by Sahadev Sharma:

A doubleheader Friday or Saturday is possible, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke anonymously so as to freely discuss a fluid situation, with Friday being the more likely. The forecast suggests conditions will get worse over the weekend, with rain expected all day Sunday.

I’d think they would have to make this decision sometime later today. I will update this article if such a decision is made Wednesday afternoon. As always, we await developments.

UPDATE: Early afternoon today, this Boston Globe article indicates the league is seriously considering a Cubs/Red Sox doubleheader on Friday:

Desperate to finish the regular season, the Red Sox and Cubs are planning to play a doubleheader Friday ahead of a possible nor’easter this weekend in Boston, a league source said.

If they can get those two games in, it would leave one additional game in the series. The thinking as of Wednesday afternoon was that their best chance would come Saturday, a source said.

The Saturday game is scheduled for 7:15 p.m., but it can be moved up.

Major League Baseball and the teams want to be proactive with these changes to avoid a potential scheduling nightmare — including, in a worst-case scenario, making up one or two games on Monday, the day between the end of the regular season and the start of the postseason.

I will post further information if and when it becomes available.

There is no doubt that 2026 has been a disappointing year for Colorado Rockies shortstop Ezequiel Tovar. After injuries hindered him in 2025 and he put together a strong perfromance with Team Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic, hopes were high that Tovar could return to form and propel the Rockies offense.

Unfortunately, he’s mostly done the opposite this season.

You’ll be able to read an in-depth review of his season in the Ranking the Rockies series (which starts next week, by the way). However, as the season winds down, it’s worth noting and exploring the fact that Tovar has actually been better at the plate since the start of August.

Since August 1, Tovar has slashed .279/.325/.404 with 29 total hits, including four doubles and three home runs. In September alone, he is batting .297/.333/.405, going 11-for-37 with a double and a home run along with 10 runs scored. The performance over the last 40 games as been a major improvement for a player who couldn’t seem to buy a hit at times this season, let alone make contact.

So what’s leading to some success lately?

The plate discipline

Tovar entered August with a 25.8% strikeout rate alongisde a .196 batting average and .243 on-base percentage. The 72.3% first-pitch strike rate he carried was the highest in the sport while his 16.3% swinging strike rate was the sixth-highest. Now, a high swinging strike rate isn’t bad if you are coupling that with some predigous power, considering Tovar was behind the likes of Hunter Goodman, Brandon Lowe, and Colson Montgomery.

It becomes a problem when he had the highest swing-rate in baseball at 61.5% but a 73.4% contact rate which ranked 115th in baseball. He also had the third-highest swing rate on pitches outside of the zone along with the highest swing rate on pitches inside the zone, but wasn’t particularly good at making contact with either location.

Things have looked much different in terms swing rate and contact since the start of August. Since August 1, Tovar boasts a first-pitch strike rate of 59.1% which ranks 260th among all players with at least 50 plate appearances. He still swings a fair amount at 57.7% of the time, but he’s down to 12th in that department and has been swinging at pitches out of the zone far less at rate of 39.8% which ranks 29th.

The biggest improvement over the last two months is that Tovar is simply making much more contact, especially on pitches in the strike zone. He has improved his contact rate in the zone to 86.9%, four points higher than it was before August, while lower his contact on pitches outside of the zone.

He may still be striking out 25% of the time, but the slight uptick in walks from 5.6% to 7.0% as a result of his slightly tempered plate aggression is huge for a player like Tovar. He’s never going to be one to draw a lot of walks, but his over aggression on pitches has always been his weakness. There are still issues, but he’s finally making the right adjustments to get back to what he can do well.

Batted balls

With the improved contact, Tovar has been doing something he’s struggled with the majority of the season: hitting the fastball.

Before August, the highest batting average he had against fastballs was a .241 AVG in May. Otherwise, he was hitting below .200, bottoming out at .075 in June. However, the fastball has been handeled nicely over the last seven weeks.

In August, Tovar hit .290 against fastballs and has exploded in September with a .368 AVG. He has still whiffed around 25% of the time, but he is managing to do more against fastballs while seeing them 55% of the time. As a result of catching up to the fastball better, opposing pitchers have increased the usage of offspeed pitches against him.

In the first few months of the season, offspeed pitches came in a little under 10% of the time month-to-month. However, they jumped up to 12% in August and 18.4% in September. He hit over .300 in August but has come back down to a .143 AVG in September has the slower pitches. Breaking pitches will always be Tovar’s bane, especially down and away with two strikes, but the improvement of forcing pitchers to think more because he is timing up the fastball makes it more likely for mistakes to happen that he can take advantage of.

As for when the balls are put in play, there hasn’t been much difference in terms of groundballs, line drives, and fly balls, but there has been some improvement in finding the barrel. Before August, he has a barrel rate of 6.3% but since then has a 7.7% rate which complements his 33% hard hit rate a bit better. There is still room for improvement, but his ability to have more hard-hit line drives off the barrel is generally a good thing. Hopefully, that can then lead to more consistent power in the future. After all, he has now hit double-digit home runs in three of his four full seasons.

Work in progress

There is plenty of work to do for Tovar to get back to the heights of that 2024 season. He’s been in the depths these last two seasons and so getting back to a baseline to build off of is a positive sign. If he can finish the season strong with his current level of play, perhaps he can find the next gear in 2027 to prove he is worthy of his contract and continuing to stick around as a key component for this team.

Ideally, Tovar can find his power again and start collecting extra-base hits and driving in runs. The injuries of 2025 may have taken a toll, something that is hard to recover from, but there is still a quality player in Tovar. If these final two months have been any indication, that player can still contribute in meaningful ways, even if he isn’t the driving force the team had hoped for.

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The glaring Ryan McMahon playoff problem has the Yankees set to once again expand Anthony Volpe’s defensive repertoire.

Volpe, now at second base after transitioning from shortstop, will “probably” play third base in the team’s final five games, Yankees manager Aaron Boone told Talkin’ Yanks.

The team is not planning to do so with Jazz Chisholm, although Boone caveated that statement with a “we’ll see” during his usual midweek interview with the podcast.

The Yankees have six days before they likely welcome the Red Sox — or the AL Central runner-up — to The Bronx for a second straight AL wild-card series and they will use this time to figure out roster construction.

Boone said after the Rays clinched the AL East on Tuesday in the nightcap of the doubleheader that he would consider experimenting with players at certain positions.

The glaring roster question centers on third base.

McMahon has become virtually unplayable due to his shaky defense as of late and horrific offense.

The veteran is hitting just .143 in 15 games since returning from the injured list, going 6-for-42 with one extra-base hit and a .217 on-base percentage.

Against a Boston team filled with lefties, McMahon, who owns a .518 OPS against southpaws this year, becomes an easy fade.

The question is where the Yankees would turn and they have Amed Rosario and Jose Caballero as potential options, although there are flaws with both.

Rosario is a bad defender this year and has not hit lefties like usual, with just a .599 OPS, and Caballero can be rather streaky offensively.

Volpe has tallied just a .695 OPS in 11 games since being recalled, which doesn’t scream must-start, but his righty bat could be needed against potential southpaws.

He also has handled second base rather well since shifting to the position earlier this month with rookie George Lombard Jr. handling shortstop.

Boone added that Lombard will remain at shortstop amid these possible changes.

The complicating factor about Volpe’s postseason role is whether the Yankees trust Chisholm — who is slashing .221/.268/.386 versus lefties — against a southpaw in a three-game series.

If Chisholm is starting, the only other starting route would be third base.

Seeing how Volpe can handle third base opens up the possibility of starting at the hot corner — although that would appear a long shot since he would have, at most, five major-league games at the position before the postseason starts — or potentially entering or shifting in the late innings.

Volpe being able to handle the position could allow the Yankees to optimize their roster in a better fashion in the late innings, with one potential example being a game in which Rosario starts.

Justin Verlander and Kate Upton have been an iconic celebrity couple for years, and one of their funniest moments came after Verlander narrowly lost the 2016 AL Cy Young race.

Nearly 10 years later, Upton’s reaction to her then-fiancée’s loss remains memorable.

“Hey @MLB I thought I was the only person allowed to f–k @JustinVerlander ?! What 2 writers didn’t have him on their ballot?” Upton wrote after Verlander lost to Rick Porcello by five points.

Dodgers star Mookie Betts hosted Verlander on his podcast recenlty as the star pitcher heads toward retirement at the end of the season, and asked about Verlander’s reaction to Upton’s NSFW tweet.

“I was doing MLB Network, they had the three finalists on the air, and as soon as it came out, she was firing,” Verlander said on the “On Base with Mookie Betts” podcast.

“And so we finished the interview and I go down, and she’s like, ‘You’re not going to like it.’ And sure enough, she had fired off a bunch of stuff, and she had another one preloaded, ready to go.

“And I’m like, ‘Kate, stop!’” he added.

Porcello beat Verlander — then with the Tigers and now also finishing his career with Detroit — for his first and only career Cy Young award 137-132.

The five-point difference was the second-closest of any election since voters could add multiple pitchers to a ballot beginning in 1970.

Verlander was not listed on two ballots, but received more first-place votes than Porcello.

As Verlander noted, Upton’s rant didn’t stop with the first tweet.

“He had the majority of 1st place votes and 2 writers didn’t have him on their ballots?!! Can you pick more out of touch people to vote? @MLB,” read the next tweet.

“Sorry Rick but you didn’t get any 1st place votes? You didn’t win. #ByeFelicia @MLB keep up with the times and fire those writers,” she continued.

Verlander is set to make the final start of his career Saturday at home vs. Pittsburgh.

We have two games today, hopefully. Though it seems like it is cold in Baltimore but not raining. Well, cool, not cold.

Game one is at 1:30 Eastern. Max Scherzer (game #500 for Max, and I’d imagine last) and Chris Bassitt are the starters. The losing team will be eliminated from the playoffs. If they split the two games both will be elminated.

Game two is at 6:30 Eastern. Both teams list TBD. Odds are the rest of the season will be TBD. Likely which ever arms are still connected to bodies after game one.

The lineups for game one. No Kirk or Vlad. The Jays are saying that Brett Bateman had another MRI and nothing structural is damaged. He might play again this season (but really I don’t see the point).

The Jays have CJ Van Eyk, John Klein and Chase Lee are in Baltimore. Yohendrick Pinango is also in Baltimore. They get an extra roster spot. I don’t know that all four will be active for game one. I’d imagine some will be added for game two.

Wins would be nice.

The Mets are close to hiring Derek Falvey in a front office role, reports SNY MLB Insider Chelsea Janes.

Michael Marino was first to note the possibility of the Mets bringing Falvey on.

Falvey, 43, worked for the Twins from 2017 until January 2026, when the sides mutually parted ways.

During his time with Minnesota, Falvey -- who has a background in scouting -- served as the executive vice president and chief baseball officer. 

Prior to joining the Twins, Falvey worked the then-Cleveland Indians from 2008 to 2016, when he overlapped with current Mets head of baseball operationsDavid Stearns(who worked in Cleveland from 2011 to 2012).

Speaking in the SNY broadcast booth during this past Saturday's game, Mets ownerSteve Cohen said that the plan was to make some additions to the front office.

"We’re going to try to add certain voices into the front office that I think will be helpful and I know David supports that," Cohen explained. "And I’m looking forward to, when we make those decisions, to announce them."

Cohen added: 

"It doesn’t have to be a GM. It could be other ways to support David and the front office, and I think the whole point is to get more opinions in the front office and people who are either pretty good at evaluating talent or people who have been in those positions before in the front office – in high positions – and help David out and help the team out as far as getting a different point of view."

Diamondbacks News

Diamondbacks Pound Rockies, Gain Ground on Padres
Nolan Arenado continued his hot-hitting ways. Michael Soroka had another strong outing. The Diamondbacks cruised to a win, keeping pace with the Phillies and gaining ground on the Padres.

Cardinals Have Nothing to Regret from Arenado Trade
Despite Arenado’s strong 2026, the trade away from St. Louis still appears to have been very much the right move, not unlike when popular franchise cornerstone Paul Goldschmidt was rightly traded to them by Arizona. Both teams have benefitted fromboth those trades.

Other Baseball News

Full Final 2026 Grades for Each Team
For once, the Diamondbacks’ grade feels pretty fair at C+.

MLB Agent Survey Indicates Players Won’t Budge in Labour Fight
Well, that seems pretty silly. Both sides are going to have to budge at some point or the game never comes back.

How San Diego Has Become Flashpoint in MLB Labour Battle
At a time when Major League Baseball is attempting to upend its economic model by instituting a salary cap, the Padres have emerged as a beacon for players and union officials who believe a level playing field can exist without one.

How Good is the 2026-27 NPB Free Agent Class?
There are certainly some intriguing players expected to be posted should MLB avoid a lockout. However, it is unlikely Arizona would be in on any of them.

The MLB postseason is getting closer, and the list of October-bound teams continues to grow.

The Tampa Bay Rays locked up the American League East on Tuesday, Sept. 22, and with it secured home-field advantage throughout the AL playoffs. They're one of several teams that have already punched their tickets to October, while a pair of AL division races and several wild-card battles remain unresolved.

Here's a look at every team that has clinched a playoff berth, plus the clubs closest to joining the 2026 MLB postseason field.

For a lot of the season, there has seemed to be only one obvious choice to end up as the Most Valuable Oriole. You never know if some voters will talk themselves into something silly to stop it from being unanimous. In 2026, it was so obvious that even those people got it right. Pete Alonso was announced ahead of Wednesday’s doubleheader as the Most Valuable Oriole for this season.

The only real downer about Alonso’s first season as an Oriole is the fact that so much of the roster around him was incapable for large stretches of the season of doing its part to make this a good Orioles team. Alonso’s 40 homers, .265/.359/.510 batting line, and 4.6 bWAR (hopefully with more to come over the last five games) were, in some sense, “wasted.” The team will probably be eliminated from postseason contention officially today.

That doesn’t take entirely away from the joy that Alonso has brought to the Orioles. He’s also brought better-than-advertised first base defense. If he doesn’t win a Gold Glove, that would be an egregious snub. He seems excited to be an Oriole in a way that comes along maybe once or twice in a decade, and his sign-off of every interview with “Let’s go O’s” is charming. We can all feel good about that contract going for four more years, at least for now.

The unanimous selection of Alonso marked the first time that the team had a unanimous winner since Cedric Mullins was the choice in 2021. That was the year that Mullins had the 30 home run/30 stolen base season for the Orioles, breaking out at the plate after giving up on being a switch hitter.

The Orioles do not announce the exact vote breakdown, or even who votes for this award. It is a mystery list of media and broadcasters who cover the team. Camden Chat is not included on that list. Ballots are submitted with a first place, second place, and third place, and the winner is tallied based on a points system. It’s easy when it’s unanimous for first place.

What the Orioles do announce is a list of players who did not win but also received votes. These guys were all on at least one voter’s ballot, in addition to the unanimous winner, Alonso: Blaze Alexander, Samuel Basallo, Shane Baz, Kyle Bradish, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Rico Garcia, Gunnar Henderson, Trevor Rogers, and Brandon Young.

Weird votes are typically a fixture of this opaque process. Last year was a bigger “weird vote” year – somebody actually voted for interim manager Tony Mansolino a year ago. Somebody else, or maybe the same person, voted for Dylan Carlson, who was a -0.7 bWAR player for the 2025 Orioles. Most of these guys on the 2026 list were at least good for part of the season and can be somewhat justified as choices. Nobody voted for Craig Albernaz or this year’s negative bWAR outfielders, Dylan Beavers and Leody Taveras.

In the case of Alexander and Encarnacion-Strand, they just didn’t get to play enough to demonstrate more value; their overall performance was good in the games that they played. Alexander missed a bunch of games due to getting bones broken by a hit by pitch. Encarnacion-Strand only arrived in the organization during the season. He might turn out to be a Ryan O’Hearn kind of late bloomer story, or he might turn out to be a Jeremiah Jackson kind of flash in the plan.

When it comes to guys like Bradish, Henderson, Rogers, and Mayo, they weren’t good for significant portions of the season, so their season numbers don’t look like anything special. You have to squint more for some than for others to see the case. Mayo is closing out the season with three excellent months. Henderson has been hitting well since about mid-August and has maintained value with solid shortstop defense – that’s not to say it’s flawless, but the good has outweighed the bad even in what is another disappointing year for him overall. For Bradish, I don’t know. It felt good when he got that contract extension.

For me, Alonso is at the top, followed by Young and Rogers. Young’s surprisingly-good season was probably the only thing that prevented the Orioles from being completely buried in May or June. The team is 19-8 in Young starts this year. Whoever voted for Baz clearly didn’t hold the team’s 10-21 record in his starts against him. Baz probably “deserves” like 15-16 in his starts.

After Alonso and Young, you can make the case for a lot of people as third place, and that’s reflected in the variety of names who also received votes. Rogers was not good in April and May but has looked like a fringe Cy Young candidate ever since. That picks up on last year, when he was a Cy Young-caliber pitcher in the 18 starts that he made. That’s why I’d pick him for the third place spot; Rogers was the MVO winner a year ago.

Somebody’s going to pay Rogers this offseason. I don’t have any hope that it will be the Orioles.

A Pod of Their Own and Home Run Applesauce are hosting their annual Dollars 4 Dingers fundraising event this Saturday, September 26 at the Lion’s Head Tavern. The event starts at 2:00 PM, and all proceeds go to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

For those unfamiliar with Dollars 4 Dingers, in the month of September, fans pledge a dollar amount per home run hit by the New York Mets, or any baseball team the donor chooses, with all of the proceeds going to the NDVH. Now in its eighth year, Dollars 4 Dingers has thus far raised over $77,000 heading into this month. This year, we’ve raised almost $6,000 thus far, and will raise even more this weekend with our annual raffle.

Saturday’s event acts as the unofficial close of the year’s fundraising, and we’ve got some amazin’ prizes for our raffle. If you missed a giveaway this season there will be several included as raffle prizes such as a Carlos Beltrán bobblehead, a Mr. Met Unisphere bobblehead, a Francisco Lindor WWE bobblehead, a Mets squishy dumpling, and a Mets’ K-Pop Demon Hunters jersey. For Seinfeld fans, there will be a Cosmo Kramer bobble and a “Nice Game Pretty Boy” t-shirt.

Art But Make It Sports and Athlete Logos were generous enough to donate some prizes as well. There will be a signed copy of Art But Make It Sports’s book and multiple Mets themed hats courtesy of Athlete Logos.

The Mets’ Double-A affiliate, the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, put together amazing prizes for the fundraiser including signed balls from A.J. Ewing, Jefry Yan, Chris Suero, D’Andre Smith, and Jonathan Santucci.

And now for the grand prize (insert dramatic drum roll here). Courtesy of the Amazin’ Mets foundation, a Francisco Lindor signed ball!

The Lions Head has been a fantastic partner for us over the last two years, and this year will have drink specials all day, plus the Mets’ game on so that we can cheer on a meaningless game in a rough season. That shouldn’t deter you from coming, though! There will be delicious drinks, great prizes, and fellow Mets fans to hang out and commiserate with. Misery loves company, after all!

It’s also not too late to make a pledge this season. For every Mets home run hit in September you can pledge any amount of money. No amount is too small for the National Domestic Violence hotline.

We hope to see you all Saturday!