There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves.
Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from the weekend in Major League Baseball:
Mets win, snap losing streak
The Mets lost the first two games of their weekend series against the Rangers, which was good news for Texas — they are still fighting for the final AL wild card spot — and horrible news for New York. Saturday’s defeat marked their eighth in a row, and saw their postseason odds drop to just 41%. On Sunday, however, they snapped the losing streak with a 3-run walk-off home run from Pete Alonso, and temporarily righted their ship.
That was Alonso’s 34th homer of the season, matching his 2024 output.
It’s difficult to overstate how awful of a month that September has been for the Mets. They are just 4-9, and have been outscored by 18 runs. The Phillies swept them in a four-game road series, all but securing the NL East crown, and from Saturday through Saturday saw their postseason odds drop over 32% — they went from extremely likely for making the postseason to “well we’ll see what happens” in a week.
They aren’t out of the woods yet, either, despite the Reds trying to bail them out there — more on that in a bit. The Mets have, per Baseball Reference, 57% odds of making the postseason at the moment. However, they have a three-game series against the Padres starting on Tuesday, as well as a three-game set against the Cubs left on the schedule, too. The Nationals and Marlins, the other teams New York will face before the year ends, are far easier targets. But the Mets are going to have to pick up some dubs against the two teams ahead of them in the wild card standings if they want to shake off the Reds and Giants for good. Or else it’s going to be a real long last two weeks of the season for the team and its fans.
Mariners snag sole possession
The Mariners entered the weekend tied with the Astros for first place in the AL West, and they exited standing alone atop of the division. Seattle is having the opposite month that the Mets are, as they are now 9-4 in September following a four-game sweep of the Angels, and have outscored their opponents by 26 runs in the process.
Sunday was the most dominant of the wins, as the Mariners put 11 on the board against Los Angeles pitching, while starter George Kirby put on a masterful performance. The righty allowed a pair of runs in 6.1 innings while striking out 14 Angels without giving up a walk.
The Astros kept pace with the Mariners until Sunday, when they dropped the series’ finale 8-3 to the Braves. While the game was tied 2-2 after four innings, the Braves scored three runs in the fifth off of Framber Valdez, who once again looked off of his game. Since August, Valdez has allowed at least four runs in five of his eight starts, and as many as seven — his ERA over that stretch is 6.41, with 32 strikeouts and 18 walks in 46.1 innings, and his ERA for the season has jumped nearly a full run, from 2.62 to 3.59, in that time. That’s terrible news for both the Astros right now, as they fight for a postseason spot, and also maybe even if they do get to the playoffs.
Raleigh ties Mantle, passes López
Part of the Mariners’ attack on Sunday included starting catcher Cal Raleigh, who packed two records into one dinger. First, the smaller one: his 54th long ball of the year passed Javy López for the most hit while playing catcher in a season, with 43 — Raleigh also has 11 dingers as a DH. The second is a far older record, and encompasses much more than just backstops. Raleigh is a switch-hitter, and 54 is the most homers ever hit by one — Yankees’ legend and Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle set that record back in 1961. It’s now Big Dumper’s record, too.
At least, until he goes yard again: then it’s all Raleigh, with Mantle’s two campaigns over 50 pushed to the second- and third-most by a switch-hitter in MLB history. Big Dumper still has 11 games left to get that blast, too, and maybe more besides.
Reds can’t capitalize, get swept
The Mets might be the luckiest team on a lengthy losing streak that nearly collapses their entire season in recent memory. How do you lose eight games in a row and end up being labeled lucky? It’s all about timing. Sure, the Mets are heading in the wrong direction, but they also have just 12 games left in the season, and are still 1.5 games up on the Giants and 2.5 games on the Reds because of their similarly poor performances this weekend.
While the Giants lost just two of three to the Dodgers, the Reds were swept, and by the Athletics. Because of that, Cincinnati somehow lost ground to the Mets: New York dropped eight straight before Sunday’s W, and the Reds picked up all of 1.5 games on them during that nine-game stretch, despite winning a series against the Mets during it themselves.
On Friday, the Reds were shut out, 3-0, wasting a solid start from Brady Singer, who allowed just 2 runs in six innings. Saturday was a disaster, as Cincinnati lost 11-5: the game was actually tied 5-5 until the bottom of the seventh, when the A’s added the go-ahead run. They would pile on with another five off relievers Graham Ashcraft and Scott Barlow in the eighth, putting the game out of reach. Then, on Sunday, the Reds went up 3-0 early, but a sustained attack in the middle innings — the A’s scored in each of the fourth through seventh — was too much for Cincinnati to overcome.
They are now under .500, with 16 games left to go, still somehow sit 2.5 back of the reeling Mets and have seen their postseason odds drop to 10.8%, with New York’s win on Sunday cutting that by nearly 6 percentage points on its own. The Giants aren’t in a much better position — losing to the Dodgers on Sunday lopped over one-third of their postseason odds off — but they at least look like they have a better shot than the Reds from this point forward.
Nick Kurtz hit a ball 493 feet
But honestly, he probably hit it further than that. “Location Unknown” might have been a more accurate reading of this Nick Kurtz grand slam, because look at this thing go — 493 feet is a guess. An excellent guess based on the technology, but when you hit it over literally everything, sometimes even that’s not enough.
Four-hundred and ninety-three feet. At least that. Just incredible power from 22-year-old rookie, who added another blast on Sunday for No. 32 of the year.
The Guardians keep winning…
The Guardians had a weekend that was completely the opposite of their fellow team from Ohio: Cleveland won all three against the Chicago White Sox, which allowed them to pick up a game on Houston in the wild card race. They are now 2.5 back, and are winners of nine of their last 10 games.
Now, their road is still a long and improbable one. Well, short, really, and that’s the issue: the Guardians have just 13 games left to overtake the Astros, but among those 13 are three to close out the season against the Rangers; Texas is just two back of Houston. Cleveland’s schedule might be the real issue: they face the Tigers six times in their final 13, the Rangers in the last weekend of the season, and the Twins in between. Minnesota is the only break in that stretch.
Between the 2.5 games back and that schedule, it’s no wonder the Guardians’ postseason odds are currently just 15.3%, but they are also twice as high as they were this time last week. Stranger things have happened, is all. And they’ll need strange on their side for this to work.
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