Man, meaningful games in a pennant race are fun. Of course our guys were not the team in the race. But they played like they were. Today’s outing was one of the very best, most exciting games of the year. After the Braves scored 3 in the 3rd to take a 3-1 lead, the Tigers scored the next four runs and took a 5-3 lead into the 8th. But the Braves scored one in the 8th and two runs in the 9th to take a 6-5 lead. Alvarez singled in the tying run with two outs and Profar followed with a go-ahead single. Iglesias got them 1-2-3 in the 9th to seal the deal.
And it really was a meaningful game. On August 24th the Tigers’ division lead was 11.5 games—and 12.5 on the Guardians. Combined with Cleveland’s victory over the Twins this afternoon, the Tigers lead is now 1.5 games. Gulp. It wasn’t as meaningful for the Braves, but it was their seventh win in a row. This team has finally started putting it all together. Far too little too late, but this stretch may help in preparing for next year (at least my own emotional preparation for next year).
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San Ignacio de Loyola was the founder of the Jesuits and the patron saint of lots of things, including those facing adversity and of spiritual retreats and exercises. The Order he founded does a lot of stuff, and among other things is responsible for some of the best college basketball programs in the US.
Our own San Ignacio, “Nacho” Alvarez, was the undoubted hero of this one. Indeed, his performance was downright miraculous. Nacho has been a likable fill-in for the injured Austin Riley, but to date he has done little to demonstrate that he can be a major league regular.
Today Nacho had the game of his career. That phrase doesn’t come close to doing his performance justice. He hit his first two home runs of his career, and then had the crucial game-tying hit in the 9th. He may never have a game like this again, but he will always remember today in Detroit.
A few other guys had performances of note. Joey Wentz went 5 strong innings, giving up two runs and striking out 7. Drake Baldwin hit a two run homer in the third, over 400 feet on a low and away curveball. He has 18 homers and 75 RBI, and by all rights should be the Rookie of the Year. Ozzie and Kim opened the 9th with hits to give Nacho and Profar to drive them in. Oddly, those 4 singles in the 9th were the first Braves hits all game that were not home runs.
Tomorrow, the Braves go for their 8th in a row behind Spencer Strider, who will look to continue his late season resurgence. I’ve got nothing against the Tigers, but I’m happy to continue to ruin their pennant chances.
Thanks, tfloyd. Yale is 1-0 and I will sub for Rusty tomorrow. Next man up!
Good to see about Nacho. He’s been fun to watch in the field and clearly unready at the plate. He doesn’t have to hit as well as Riley to be valuable like he was today, but he can’t be the 610 )PS guy he was coming into today, But this one game took him to 665. It won’t take many more to make him very interesting, if he has it in him.
.600 OPS over your first few dozen MLB games isn’t so bad, especially at 22. I believe in this kid and I think he has a long career in him. Prado-lite is what I envision, but he’s very young. He still may not be good for 2 more seasons and that would be fine.
Agreed
Congratulations to JonathanF and his Elis. They defeated the College of the Holy Cross, a Jesuit school. Not sure how San Ignacio feels about that.
I was glad to recap today since his Bulldogs were playing today and mine weren’t.
Thanks again. The College of the Holy Cross is the last FCS school to have a top-three Heisman candidate: Gordie Lockbaum finished third in the voting in 1987. Some of you may think of 1987 as ancient history in college football, but not for me: my Yale Bulldogs have won 27 National Championships in College Football, even though the last one was in 1927…. seems like yesterday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_Bulldogs_football
That 1927 Yale team was an all time great squad. They only lost one game. Anyone remember who they lost to?
They got “catfished.”
Like many other years, Georgia would gladly trade that win for the shutout they endured in the last game of the season.
In other news, coming back to tie the game in the 9th only to lose it in the 11th on an inside-the-park HR is quite Metsian.
Them ’27 Dawgs was hell… and their only loss was to Tech.
Nacho is now on a 3.2 bWAR 162-game pace. Fangraphs hates him though.
I don’t see a spot for Nacho next year, but if he could run into a couple more pitches, he could be tremendous trade bait in the offseason.
Charlie Morton was DFA’ed, and that’s probably it for his career. So he’s made $160M in exchange for 16.1 bWAR, or $10M per bWAR for his entire career. $10M per WAR is usually reserved for guys post-free agency, not during their cost control years. His durability in his late career is obviously what made him his money, but he’s in the pantheon of the most “overpaid” players in his career.
By the way, I normally don’t rely on ChatGPT for baseball analysis, but it actually generated a pretty healthy list of “worst salary per WAR” than I was expecting. I’m amazed how many guys made close to $40M per WAR for an entire contract (though not career). I’ll need to use ChatGPT more.
I hope Patrick Corbin was on the list. He’s very close to $11,000,000 per WAR for his career, and with another couple of bad starts could get there.
A little more Googling suggests the winner has to be Yasmany Tomas: $68 MM for a -2.4 WAR career.
Masataka Yoshida signed a $90 million contract and thus far has produced 1.2 WAR, and the Sox are expected to cut ties as soon as they’re able, so that’s $75M per WAR, more than Yasmany Tomas signed for though admittedly not as gaudy as his mathematically improbable ratio.
Our old acquaintance Hector Olivera also produced -0.3 WAR on the six-year, $62.5 million contract he signed, for what it’s worth!
I think it’s worth $62,5 MM — to Olivera. Yoshida does indeed have the capability to out-Yasmany Yasmany. But someone has to sign him and he has to suck.
Rafael Montero is up there with $42 million for just a shade under replacement level pitching. Unfortunately we paid a significant portion of that for replacement level results
We ended up being a pretty good baseball team, but much, much too late. Raisel and Strider pitching like they are now for the whole season would’ve made us at least threaten for a playoff spot.
Recapped
We got the fever, we’re hot, we can’t be stopped.
If you’re only gonna end up w/ 76-77 wins or so, I guess it’s better to end this way than to start this way.
Off to see The Baseball Project play in Jersey City. I’ll holler for “To the Veteran’s Committee.”
Drake Baldwin now has a 799 ops, 18 homers and 2.8 WAR. Cade Horton is vastly outperforming projections but still has a 2.66 era and an 11-4 record , a 2.2 WAR and seems to be Balwins top competition for ROY. If Baldwin finishes strong (.800 ops, 20 homers), is it a given that Drake wins ROY? I don’t see how voters could pick against Drake