Some sweeps feel much more euphoric or much more soul-crushing than others. The St. Louis Cardinals' sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium fits into this category.
It was the Cardinals' first sweep in Los Angeles in 12 years, so that's impressive enough, but it's how they did it that makes it especially damaging to the Dodgers. The Cardinals won 5-3 on Monday with two home runs off Kenley Jansen in the ninth inning. They had a more routine 5-2 victory on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Paul DeJong did this off Jansen in a tie game in the ninth:
ICYMI - DeJong hits two-run homer to put #STLCards up in the ninth. pic.twitter.com/iC7HDHjTRn
— FOX Sports Midwest (@FSMidwest) August 23, 2018
Before the ninth, rookie hurlers Jack Flaherty and Walker Buehler engaged in a great duel of potential future aces. Flaherty took a no-hitter into the sixth before Joc Pederson homered. Buehler fanned nine in seven scoreless innings.
In the old days, Buehler stays in the game. In 2018, Dave Roberts goes to the scarepen. In the eighth, Tyler O'Neill homered off Dodgers reliever Scott Alexander. In the bottom of the eighth, Manny Machado came up with the bases loaded and two outs against another rookie, Dakota Hudson. He grounded out.
Then Jansen came on for his second outing since his return from an irregular heartbeat. He grooved an 0-2 cutter to DeJong, and the Cardinals improved to 17-4 in August. Some notes on this Dodgers disaster:
-- Roberts just called Jansen the best closer in the game. Umm, he's now 0-5 and has allowed nine home runs. He hasn't gone all Mitch Williams or anything, but since the Astros torched him in the World Series, he hasn't been the same pitcher in 2018.
-- This was the first time since 2013 that Jansen allowed multiple earned runs in back-to-back outings.
-- He has allowed home runs in consecutive appearances twice in 2018. That happened just once in his first eight seasons.
-- Last year, the Dodgers were 104-7 after leading in the seventh inning or later, the best mark in the majors. They're 67-11 this season, the 20th-best such win percentage.
It has been a remarkable 12 games for the Dodgers, going back to Aug. 10 in Colorado. They're 3-9 in this stretch:
-- They've suffered three walk-off losses.
-- They've lost four other games in the top of the ninth, including a 5-2 loss to the Giants in which the Dodgers allowed four runs in the ninth.
-- They lost another game in which they led 4-3 in the seventh.
In these 12 games, Dodgers starters have a 2.40 ERA. Dodgers relievers have a 4.93 ERA, no saves, five blown saves ... and eight losses. The team's season is disappearing in this unfathomable run of late-inning defeats. (But, hey, the front office added Machado and Brian Dozier at the trade deadline!)
Buchholz feeling it: Every baseball season is full of minor little miracles -- and I'm not referring just to Matt Chapman's defense, though he has made enough sensational plays this season to make Brooks Robinson jealous. I'm thinking of Clay Buchholz, one of those surprises that pop up every season.
The Arizona Diamondbacks remain atop the NL West, and Buchholz has become a big reason for that. He threw seven scoreless innings in the D-backs' 5-1 victory over the Angels on Wednesday, striking out seven with no walks, to improve to 7-2 with a 2.25 ERA in 13 starts.
The two-time All-Star has had many big moments in his career: He threw a no-hitter in his second big league start in 2007. He went 17-7 with a 2.33 ERA in 2010. He went 12-1 with a 1.74 ERA over 16 starts in 2013 and allowed one run in his lone World Series start that year.
Between those moments, however, he had trouble staying healthy, with those runs of success interrupted by various DL stints during his 10 seasons with the Red Sox. There was a torn fingernail, a hamstring pull, a stress fracture, a neck strain, a knee injury and finally two years of elbow pain that led to surgery last season, when he made just two starts with the Phillies.
As teams threw big money at free agents such as Yu Darvish ($126 million), Alex Cobb ($57 million), Tyler Chatwood ($38 million), Andrew Cashner ($16 million) and Jason Vargas ($16 million), Buchholz had little choice but to settle for a minor league deal from the Royals. Considering the rebuilding state of the Royals, if you signed with them, that was a strong indication that the other 29 teams weren't much interested in your services.
That rotation of free agents listed above is a combined 16-43 with a 5.36 ERA -- while making a combined $64 million this season. Buchholz will make $1.5 million. You can't predict baseball. When Buchholz signed with the Royals late in spring training, he had a clause that he had to be added to the major league roster by May 1. He made three minor league starts and allowed two runs in 16 innings, but the Royals declined to call him up -- I guess they just had too many quality arms -- so Buchholz exercised his opt-out clause, and the Royals granted him his release.
The Royals saved $1.5 million but missed out on a potential trade chip. Buchholz signed with the Diamondbacks -- general manager Mike Hazen and manager Torey Lovullo knew Buchholz from their Red Sox days -- and when Taijuan Walker went down for the season needing Tommy John surgery and Robbie Ray landed on the DL, Buchholz got the chance to start.
His fastball has averaged just 90.1 mph, but he throws the whole kitchen sink at batters: four-seamer, sinker, changeup, curveball, cutter. His changeup has been a big weapon, holding batters to a .115 average in 55 plate appearances ending with the pitch. That pitch is a key reason lefties are hitting just .190 and slugging just .306 against him.
As the Diamondbacks announcers mentioned during Wednesday's broadcast, however, the biggest key is Buchholz says he feels like he's healthy for the first time in about three years. "It feels so much better to grip a baseball and throw all your pitches without something in the back of your head knowing that this pitch is going to hurt," he recently told Sports Illustrated.
P.S.: Paul Goldschmidt went 3-for-3 with a walk and two-run home run. Don't forget him in that NL MVP discussion.
Mr. Walk-Off: Stephen Strasburg's return from the DL wasn't pretty -- he allowed five runs and two home runs in four innings -- but the Nationals rallied from a 7-5 deficit with a run in the bottom of the eighth to set up Ryan Zimmerman's replay-approved, two-out, two-run, walk-off home run off Seranthony Dominguez:
*pretends to be shocked that Ryan Zimmerman hit a walk-off HR* pic.twitter.com/RukBxKMRiN
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) August 23, 2018
Zimmerman's 11 career walk-off home runs are tied for eighth in MLB history, and his five that have come with his team trailing are tied for most (with Babe Ruth, Frank Robinson and Fred McGriff).
The most walk-off home runs, courtesy of ESPN Stats & Info:
13 -- Jim Thome
12 -- Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, Albert Pujols, Frank Robinson, Babe Ruth
11 -- Ryan Zimmerman, David Ortiz, Tony Perez
The Braves won, so the Nationals remains 7.5 games out of first, but even with the trades of Daniel Murphy and Matt Adams, maybe they aren't quite ready to call it a season. The odds are slim, however, as FanGraphs pegs their chances of winning the division at just under 8 percent.
The Orioles are terrible: The Blue Jays started 24-year-old rookie lefty Thomas Pannone against the Orioles. He had made four relief appearances for Toronto, which I apparently had missed. Before that, he had a 5.36 ERA in the minors, though he had a very good season in 2017 in Double-A. (The Blue Jays acquired him at the trade deadline from the Indians for Joe Smith.)
Anyway, Pannone took a no-hitter into the seventh inning Wednesday and finished with one hit and three strikeouts in seven innings in Toronto's 6-0 victory. The Orioles' lineup wasn't exactly Murderer's Row, of course, with Craig Gentry, Renato Nunez, John Andreoli and Austin Wynns bringing up the rear.
The reason I mention this game at all -- aside from the slim possibility that Thomas Pannone goes on to a long and spectacular MLB career -- is that I received an email after the game from something called Cool Media pointing out that the Orioles might set a modern "record" for finishing the most games out of first place. They're now 51.5 games behind the Red Sox; the modern record apparently is held by the 1909 Boston Braves, who finished 65.5 games behind the Pirates. Even the infamous 1962 Mets finished a mere 60.5 games behind the Giants.
There you go. If you weren't interested in watching the Orioles in September, now you might have some interest. (OK, probably not.)
Here are some Pannone highlights:
#BlueJays No. 27 prospect Thomas Pannone is the 5th player in @MLB history (since 1900) to do this in his first #MLB start, per @EliasSports:
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) August 22, 2018
≥ 7 shutout innings
≤ 1 H
≤ 2 BB
More: https://t.co/850DDFrTbr pic.twitter.com/AjJKEdudiH
Brewers blank Reds: Despite adding Mike Moustakas and Jonathan Schoop at the trade deadline, the Brewers have gone 8-11 in August, so maybe a 4-0 shutout of the Reds will get some momentum going in the right direction. Christian Yelich went 4-for-4 and led off the game with a home run:
"That's my guy!" -@JAguilarMKE #ThisIsMyCrew pic.twitter.com/HO6NaLeDRH
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) August 22, 2018
Yelich has been everything the Brewers had hoped for, hitting .314/.378/.532 with 21 home runs. An interesting thing about Yelich is that he hits a lot of long home runs; his average home run distance of 414 feet ranks 10th among qualified hitters (Marcell Ozuna leads at 427 feet).
Yelich is kind of similar to Eric Hosmer, however, in that he doesn't pull the ball enough (he has pulled just six of his 21 home runs) or hit the ball in the air enough (he has the 11th-highest ground ball rate among qualified batters) to take more advantage of his raw power. Still, he consistently puts up excellent numbers year after year. Maybe the monster season will come one of these years if he adds more loft to his swing, but what he does now is impressive enough.