Here are five things to watch and predictions as the Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays play a three-game series at Yankee Stadium starting on Friday night...

5 things to watch

AL East crown in sight

This weekend series is the final time the Yanks and Blue Jays face each other in the regular season, and it's a big one. Entering Friday, the Blue Jays hold just a 3.0 game lead over New York for first place in the AL East. 

A sweep by New York would leave the Yankees and Blue Jays in a relative tie -- Toronto has the tiebreaker -- but it would put the pressure on the Jays with just a few weeks left in the season. The AL East crown is important because it will likely be one of the top two seeds in the American League playoffs, thus avoiding the three-game Wild Card round. 

Can the Yankees win the series to get even closer to Toronto? Or will the Jays put the Bombers in the rearview? 

What's Jazz Chisholm Jr.'s status?

Chisholm exited Thursday's series finale with the Astros with contusions in both knees, which puts his availability for some, if not all, three games of the series in jeopardy.

If Chisholm does miss time, Jose Caballero will likely be his replacement in the starting lineup. Caballero has been very good since being traded to the Yankees at the deadline. In 24 games, he's hitting .270 with two home runs -- he had two in 86 games with the Rays in 2025 -- with eight stolen bases. But Chisholm's power and athleticism would be missed, especially as a left-handed hitter against the Blue Jays' right-handed starters. 

Can the bullpen get right?

The Yankees' bullpen has been an Achilles heel for the team all season and this week especially. The Yanks were on the verge of winning their series against the Astros on Wednesday, but the bullpen blew a three-run lead. Devin Williams' meltdown -- with the help of a certain home plate umpire -- led to their defeat.

It was a bit shaky on Thursday. Luke Weaver allowed a run on three hits in his 0.2 innings of work, and the Astros almost came back on David Bednar after the closer allowed the tying run to the plate with a five-run lead heading into the ninth. 

The bullpen will need to be better against a dangerous Toronto lineup.

What version of Anthony Volpe will we see?

Remember when Volpe was killing it at the plate in Chicago? In the four-game set on the Southside, Volpe went 6-for-14 with a home run and five RBI. In the three games against Houston, the young shortstop went 1-for-11 with five strikeouts.

The Yankees' offense is good enough that Volpe's offense isn't needed, but when he's on, it lengthens the lineup. He's also coming up with runners in scoring position a lot and falling short. When the longball isn't working for the Yanks, they need to manufacture runs, and even moving runners over with productive outs seems to be tough for Volpe at the moment.

For a huge series like this, the Yanks will hope the Chicago version of Volpe shows up.

Cam Schlittler setting the pace

The Yankees will have Schlittler, Luis Gil and Max Fried starting for them in this series, and a good start from Schlittler could set the tone for the weekend. Schlittler has been on fire, pitching at least six innings in three straight starts while allowing just one run in that span (18.2 IP). The young right-hander has jumped Will Warren as the team's third-most reliable starter, and a strong performance on Friday could cement him as a potential Game 3 starter in a playoff series.

Although that potential is a ways away still, the Yankees hope the youngster can give them the best chance to win the series opener and put the pressure on Toronto.

Predictions

Who will the MVP of the series be?

Trent Grisham

After going against a trio of right-handers and driving in seven runs in Houston, Grisham will continue his hot stretch.

Which Yankees pitcher will have the best start?

Max Fried

The southpaw has been excellent in his last few starts and that will continue when he takes the mound on Sunday.

Which Blue Jays player will be a thorn in the Yankees' side?

George Springer

Springer has been a thorn for the Yankees since his Astros days. But this season, he's been amazing. In his last seven games against the Yankees, he's 12-for-24 with four home runs and 12 RBI. 

The Mets open a three-game series against the Reds in Cincinnati on Friday at 6:40 p.m. on SNY.

Here's what to know about the game and how to watch...

Mets Notes

• Juan Soto is hitting .301/.463/.710 with 12 home runs, 28 RBI, 30 runs scored, and 10 stolen bases in 123 plate appearances over his last 26 games dating back to Aug. 6
• Francisco Alvarez is returning from the IL. Before getting injured, Alvarez had been a force at the plate following his brief stint in the minor leagues. In 71 plate appearances over 21 games from July 21 to Aug. 17, he slashed .323/.408/.645 with four homers, six doubles, one triple, 13 RBI, and 14 runs scored
• David Peterson is looking to rebound from his worst start of the season, when he allowed eight runs in just 2.0 innings against the Marlins on Aug. 30

What channel is SNY?

Check your TV or streaming provider's website or channel finder to find your local listings.

How can I stream the game?

The new way to stream SNY games is via the MLB App or MLB.tv. Streaming on the SNY App has been discontinued.

In order to stream games in SNY’s regional territory, you will need to have SNY as part of your TV package (cable or streaming), or you can now purchase an in-market SNY subscription package. Both ways will allow fans to watch the Mets on their computer, tablet or mobile phone. 

How can I watch the game on my computer via MLB? 

To get started on your computer, click here and then follow these steps: 

• Log in using your provider credentials. If you are unsure of your provider credentials, please contact your provider. 

• Link your provider credentials with a new or existing MLB.com account. 

• Log in using your MLB.com credentials to watch Mets games on SNY. 

• Select the SNY Mets game you wish to view from the Multimedia Center. 

How can I watch the game on the MLB App? 

MLB App access is included for FREE with SNY. To access SNY on your favorite supported Apple or Android mobile device, please follow the steps below.  

• Download the free MLB App.

• Open “MLB” and tap on “Subscriber Login” for Apple Devices or “Sign in with MLB.com” for Android Devices. 

• Type in your MLB.com credentials and tap “Log In.”  

• To access live or on-demand content, tap on the "Watch" tab from the bottom navigation bar. Select the "Games" sub-tab to see a listing of available games. You can scroll to previous dates using the left and right arrows. Tap on a game to select from the game feeds available.  

For more information on how to stream Mets games on SNY, please click here.

Anyone getting off the elevator outside the Colorado Rockies’ clubhouse in the bowels of Coors Field is greeted by the logo from the 2007 World Series, the only one the Rockies have played in.

Around the corner, near the entrance to the visitor’s clubhouse, the walls are covered with drawings of Dante Bichette, Todd Helton, Larry Walker, Andrés Galarraga and other former Rockie greats. The youngest of those players is 52 and has hasn’t played for a dozen seasons, giving the whole tableau the feel of a tattered and worn museum exhibition.

Colorado has made the playoffs just twice in the last 15 seasons, winning no postseason games over that span. The Rockies last won a playoff game in 2009.

This year the team has the worst record in the majors, have already lost 101 games for a third straight season and their run differential of minus-364 heading into the weekend is the worst for any team in at least 125 years. The team’s fWAR, or FanGraphs wins above replacement, is a big-league low 2.0.

In other words, it’s a mess.

Read more:A gondola to Dodger Stadium? How about a gondola to the Big A?

Yet the Rockies, who were eliminated from playoff contention long ago, just may factor in who wins the National League West. Because after they finish a three-game series with the second-place Padres this weekend in Denver, they come to Dodger Stadium for three games with the first-place Dodgers beginning Monday. After that, they head to San Diego for four more with the Padres.

But as the Rockies prepare for those showdowns, they are focused on neither a glorious past nor a dismal present. The team is concentrating instead on what it insists will be a bright future, one that will arrive sooner rather than later.

“We can win,” said Warren Schaeffer, the team’s interim manager. “We can absolutely win here. And we’re going to win here. It’s just a matter of time.

“But why not get the ball moving right now in the right direction?”

The big question is how to get that ball rolling. The team has finished with a winning record just twice since 2010 and last three seasons have been the three worst in franchise history.

Digging out of that deep hole, said veteran infielder Kyle Farmer, will first require changing the culture and expectations around the team by refusing to accept losing. That may already be happening: The Rockies’ 11 wins in August were a modest total but it was the most in a month for them this season. Building on that momentum gives the team something to play for in the final month of an otherwise lost season.

“We’re starting to create an identity with the team,” Farmer said. “The last part of the year is really important as long as we can keep winning games.”

How fast the Rockies rebuild will depend in part on the depth of their farm system and how they use it. That’s not exactly encouraging news since Colorado’s collection of prospects ranks in the bottom seven in baseball in multiple surveys.

And that rating has slipped precipitously since the start of the season.

That’s a problem for a team that has spent more than $146 million on its opening-day payroll just once. The Dodgers agreed to pay Shohei Ohtani alone $70 million a season, although much of that money is deferred. To compete, the Rockies are going to have to strengthen their farm system and loosen their wallet.

“You constantly look at how you’re going to carve the path forward,” said Chris Forbes, the team’s director of player development. “Right now is a great time to evaluate what we have that’s ready, or maybe closer to ready, in the farm system and who you want to go forward with as you try to clear your path for 2026.

“I think that’s the space that we’re in right now. You truly have to find out who you want to go forward with.”

For a small-market team like Colorado, the margin for error is small since its can’t afford to buy its way out of a mistake. For that reason Forbes said he takes character and makeup into account in both signing and promoting players.

Read more:Kyle Schwarber's four-homer game was historic, but his harmless popup averted controversy

“You try to kind of grow that way. And some guys are going to get it and rise to the top. And some guys are going to fall on the wayside and kind of point fingers,” Forbes said.

As for the second part of that equation, the spending part, that will be determined by general manager Bill Schmidt, a former coach at Anaheim’s Magnolia High who has never seen his team finish higher than last in the National League West as full-time GM. Schmidt declined multiple requests to be interviewed for this story.

Yet despite the losing, the Rockies are drawing more 30,000 fans a game at Coors Field, 15th in the majors and better than the playoff-bound Detroit Tigers.

“A lot of time they are cheering for the other team,” Schaeffer said of the fans. “But they are here.”

The nucleus of young, talented players the team has to build around could soon have those fans rooting for the home team.

Catcher Hunter Goodman, 25, has made great strides in his first full big-league season and led the team with 27 homers and 83 RBIs while slashing .280/.326/.526 heading into the Padres’ series. Shortstop Ezequiel Tovar, 24, is an exciting player who won a Gold Glove and led the league in doubles last season and Kyle Karros, the son of former Dodger star Eric Karros, has played well since his promotion from the minors last month.

Karros, 23, is one of 17 players on the Rockies’ roster who has yet to turn 26 and one of 17 who spent at least part of the season in the minors. How fast those young, inexperienced players develop will determine how fast Colorado becomes competitive.

Schaeffer, 40, also figures to have a big say in how long that turnaround takes. A baseball lifer, Schaeffer has spent the professional portion of that life with the Rockies, who took him in the 38th round of the MLB draft — a round which no longer exists — the same year Colorado made its lone trip to the World Series, where it was swept by the Boston Red Sox. An infielder, Schaeffer hit .214 over six minor league seasons before retiring as a player to become a minor league manager in the Rockies system.

He joined the big-league team as the third base and infield coach in 2023, then was asked to finish the rest of 2025 as manager after Bud Black was fired after winning just seven of the first 40 games this season.

Schaeffer, who has the mien of Marine drill instructor, is animated and intense. But he can also be as calm and understanding as a high school counselor, making him a good fit for one of the youngest rosters in the major leagues. And while he’s popular in the clubhouse, he’ll likely remain an interim manager until a decision is made on a full-time replacement for Black this fall.

“He’s done a great job changing the culture around here,” said Farmer, a former Dodger who played for two other teams before signing a one-year deal the Rockies last fall. “You know it starts at the top and Shake has done an incredible job.

Read more:Former baseball commissioner Bud Selig says salary caps are 'working well' in other sports

“I think guys are going to look forward to seeing him next spring starting [with] a clean slate and building a culture from the get-go.”

In the meantime, Schaeffer said the rest of this season will be as much about learning as it will be about winning.

“You can either look at it as we’re trying to not do something like not have the worst record — and you make bad decisions when you think like that,” he said. “[Or] you can also think these games provide an unbelievable opportunity for the players to earn a position for next year and the future when we become a winning team."

The walls outside the Rockies clubhouse testify to the fact the team has won before. The challenge now is to make it happen again.

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Rex Hudler pestered plate umpire Larry Barnett for a game-used baseball, one with the orange laces and number “8” stamp to commemorate Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. breaking Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games record in Camden Yards on Sept. 6, 1995, to no avail.

“He said, ‘No way, you’re gonna have to catch a third out or get a foul ball,’ ” said Hudler, the Kansas City Royals broadcaster who played second base for the Angels the night Ripken broke Gehrig’s record. “ ‘They’re all numbered and counted, and you can’t have one.’ ”

Hudler thought he had one when Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro sent a flare into shallow right-center field with two outs in the bottom of the third inning, but Angels right fielder Tim Salmon called him off and made the catch.

“We’re running into the dugout, and I’m yelling at him, ‘What are you doing? That was my ball!’ ” Hudler said. “And King Fish had this big grin on his face, he kept running and said, ‘Haha Hud, you’ll get one.’ ”

When the game became official after the top of the fifth, and Ripken passed the Iron Man by playing in his 2,131st consecutive game, Hudler took the field and watched as Ripken took an iconic victory lap around the stadium, high-fiving fans, hugging teammates and delaying the game for 22 minutes, 15 seconds.

Ripken shook hands with every player in the Angels dugout — ”And when does that happen?” he said on a Hall-of-Fame podcast — and shared a warm embrace with Angels hitting coach and Hall-of-Famer Rod Carew.

“I told him, ‘You’ve been great for all these years and very consistent in what you’ve done, and one day I’ll see you in the Hall of Fame,’ ” Carew said. “What a record that was, to be healthy for that long.”

Hudler was standing at his second-base spot when Ripken started his lap, but by the time Ripken returned to his dugout and was greeted by his family, Hudler was standing on the pitcher’s mound.

“I had been in this little dream for however long it took him to go around the stadium, wandering, watching him, following him, just enamored by what he was doing, and the next thing I know, I’m on the mound,” Hudler said. “I quietly turned and walked back to my position.”

When the game finally resumed, the Orioles loaded the bases with two outs, and up stepped Ripken, who hit a two-run homer off Angels pitcher Shawn Boskie in the fourth inning.

“Palmeiro was on second base and he said, ‘Hud, it’s only fitting, look who’s coming up, the baseball gods are here,’ ” Hudler said.

Only this time, the gods smiled on Hudler, who was actually drafted ahead of Ripken in 1978 — Hudler was a first-round pick of the New York Yankees and Ripken a second-round pick of the Orioles — but spent his entire 13-year big-league career as a utility man, while Ripken became a Hall-of-Famer.

“I went back to my position and said, ‘God, have him hit it to me, please,’ and Cal flared the first pitch over my head toward right-center,” Hudler said. “It was kind of a loopy liner, and I remember running, looking up at the ball, and it was in slow motion. I had never fielded a ball in my 21-year career that was in slow motion.

“As I’m running, I’m thinking, ‘That’s a six-carat diamond,’ it looked like a jewel, and I told myself, ‘Hud, you’re gonna break your neck for this. You can’t let this ball drop.’ My adrenaline and speed carried me under it, and when I caught it on the run, I shook my arm three times in disbelief. God answered my prayer on the field! It was unbelievable.”

Hudler sprinted off the field, ignoring teammates wanting to high-five him in the dugout for saving two runs, and into the visiting clubhouse, where he stashed the ball in his locker for safekeeping.

“I secured my precious gem,” Hudler said. “I have never caught a ball more valuable than that.”

Ripken, it turned out, was a gift that kept on giving. After the Angels’ 4-2 loss, Hudler was speaking to writers when an Orioles clubhouse attendant interrupted the scrum to present Hudler a shiny black Ripken bat signed with the message:

“To Hud, we go a long way back, you going ahead of me in the draft and all, but now, I feel like you feel when you strike out with the bases loaded: visibly shaken! All my best, Cal Ripken Jr., Sept. 6, 1995.”

Hudler was floored. He had asked Ripken for an autographed bat that May, when the Orioles were in Anaheim, and he was surprised one didn’t arrive when the Angels were in Baltimore in early June and the Orioles were in Anaheim again in late-August.

“I was speechless, I didn’t know what to say,” the always loquacious Hudler said. “Cal signed a bat for me that night. It was so classy. How could he think of me?”

The bat and the ball he caught to end the fifth inning — Hudler got the ball signed two years later — are featured in a special Cal Ripken shrine in the man-cave of Hudler’s Kansas City home.

And to think, this would not have been possible had a work stoppage not delayed the start of the 1995 season until late April and reduced the season to 144 games, placing the Angels, with no Orioles rainouts, in Baltimore when Ripken tied and broke Gehrig’s record.

“I looked at the schedule in April, and a light went off in my brain that these would be historical games of great magnitude,” Hudler said. “I told our old traveling secretary, Frank Sims, that I needed three extra rooms in Baltimore for Sept. 4-6, and he goes, ‘Kid, whattaya mean? That’s so far away.’

“I kind of played it off. I didn’t want to tell him why. Then a week before we went to Baltimore, Frank asked me if I wanted to sell any of those rooms because there were no rooms available. I said, ‘Heck no!’ Three of my best friends who I grew up with in Fresno came out with their wives. Great memories for them, too.”

As cool as it was to be part of Ripken’s historic night, it was bittersweet for the Angels, who were in the middle of an epic collapse in which they lost 29 of their last 43 games and blew an 11-game American League West lead, joining the 1978 Red Sox, 1969 Cubs, 1964 Phillies and 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers in baseball infamy.

Their 5-3 win over the Orioles in the Sept. 4 series opener snapped a nine-game losing streak. The Angels lost nine straight again from Sept. 13-23 to fall two games behind the Seattle Mariners.

They rallied to win their last five regular-season games to force a one-game playoff for the division, but they were crushed by the Mariners and then-ace Randy Johnson 9-1 in that game.

“That was a painful swoon, and it cost us the division, but to be part of that Ripken celebration when your team was struggling so badly took the pain away,” Hudler said. “I was honored to play in those games, because I’m sure one of those lineup cards is in Cooperstown, and that’s the only way I ever got into the Hall of Fame.”

This story originally appeared in "Memories and Dreams," the official magazine of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. For more stories like this about legendary heroes of the game, subscribe to "Memories and Dreams" by joining the Museum's membership program at www.baseballhall.org/join.

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.