The Baseball Buffet for 9/22/2024

Issue #198

What follows is a preview, a beta-test of sorts, of what I hope will be a daily in-season newsletter that I’ll produce in the future—hopefully as soon as next season. My intent is to write in “smart brevity” style (mostly short bullets, getting to the point, with quick analysis/insights), providing useful and interesting information, first about yesterday’s games, and then more a preview of today’s games coming up. Specific features and info provided would be mostly consistent from day to day, with some tweaks here and there—especially as I get feedback from readers like you! What do you think of the below—let me know in the comments or shoot me an email at nowtakingthefield@gmail.com.

Today we have a full slate of late-September games, including:

• Heat in Cincinnati. It will be both around 90 degrees at 1:10pm gametime… and the starting pitchers are PIT rookie sensation Paul Skenes and CIN fireballer Hunter Greene. Both teams strikeout a lot, but Great American is a hitter’s park. Skenes-day is must watch baseball, but even more so given the matchup today.

• Blake Snell is taking on the surprising Royals. Snell started the season late and didn’t do well. But in July/August/September he has been outstanding: 74.1 IP, 31 hits, 105 K, 1.33 ERA, and .125 Opp BA. The Royals need to keep winning to secure their AL wildcard spot—and they don’t strikeout much (second least in all of MLB), so this should be a fun matchup.

• ATL is two games back of NYM for the third and final NL Wild Card. Another win against the hapless Marlins would be very helpful.

• Only two games separate KCR, MIN, DET, and SEA for the final two AL Wild Card spots. Due to a rainout yesterday, MIN has a double-header today in Boston.

I’ll have more on what to watch for today in a moment, but first let’s get caught up on yesterday’s action…

Highlights from yesterday’s games on 9/21/2024

• PIT 1, CIN 7 - CIN SP Rhett Lowder threw 5 shutout innings to win the battle of young rookie pitchers over PIT Jared Jones. Elly de la Cruz hit his 25th HR and 35th double.

• WSH 5, CHC 1 - WSH SP MacKenzie Gore threw seven 1-hit innings, striking out 9.

• DET 6, BAL 4 (10) - DET scored two in the tenth, for a much needed win in the battle

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