Ahead of the 2024 regular season’s final weekend, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. Freeman nursing injury:
While the mood surrounding the Dodgers was largely celebratory last night in the aftermath of the club clinching their 11th NL West title in 12 seasons, there was one possible cause for concern: first baseman Freddie Freeman, who departed last night’s game against the Padres during the seventh inning due to an ankle injury. As noted by MLB.com’s Juan Toribio, Freeman was in a walking boot and on crutches following last night’s game but seemed optimistic after telling reporters that x-rays came back negative, revealing a sprain.
Freeman noted that while his ankle is swollen, club officials are “optimistic” he’ll be ready to go in time for the playoffs when the NLDS kicks off next Saturday. Freeman joins Miguel Rojas as the second member of Los Angeles’ everyday starting lineup who won’t be participating in the club’s final series against Colorado in hopes of getting healthy enough to participate in the upcoming playoff run. The Dodgers appear likely to shift Max Muncy over to first base while Freeman is out, thereby opening the hot corner up for Enrique Hernandez.
2. Twins facing elimination:
The Twins are staring down elimination after dropping four of their previous five games to the Marlins and Red Sox, leaving them with a disastrous 9-15 record that has allowed the Tigers to surpass them in the AL Wild Card race. Just one season removed from breaking their lengthy drought without a playoff series win, Minnesota now sports a 82-77 record headed into the season’s final series. Both the Tigers and Royals have identical 85-74 records, leaving the Twins in need of a miracle to return to the postseason at this point.
They hold the tiebreaker over both of their rivals, but the club would need to not only sweep the Orioles in their final series of the season but also benefit from either Detroit or Kansas City getting swept in their final series of the year in order to make it into the playoffs. Of those two possibilities, the Royals getting swept by the Braves appears to be more likely than the Tigers getting swept by the White Sox, although Chicago has plenty of incentive to do everything it can to sweep considering they’d avoid taking sole possession of the modern era’s all-time loss record if they can extend their current winning streak from three games to six. Minnesota’s last stand begins at 7:10pm local time this evening when Pablo Lopez (4.11 ERA) takes on Baltimore rookie and former Twins prospect Cade Povich (5.59 ERA in 15 starts).
3. D-backs look to clinch:
The Padres have already clinched an NL Wild Card spot, but their final series of the regular season will still have major playoff implications as they head to the desert to face the Diamondbacks in a three-game set. Arizona currently holds an NL Wild Card spot with an 88-71 record that leaves them essentially tied with the Mets (87-70) and one game up on the Braves (86-71). Still, their playoff hopes aren’t quite as solid as it might seem at first glance after the final two games of this week’s series between Atlanta and New York were rescheduled for Monday. That leaves the Snakes in need of a sweep this weekend in order to punch their ticket to the postseason without waiting on the results of Monday’s doubleheader, as both the Mets and Braves hold the tiebreaker over them.
If Arizona manages to sweep the Padres, they’d finish with a record of 91-71. Either the Braves or Mets could reach that win total, but at least one club is guaranteed to fall short as the Braves would need to win all five of their remaining games in order to do so while the Mets would need to go at least 4-1. Anything less than a sweep, however, leaves Arizona’s fate in the hands of a doubleheader that will occur after they’ve wrapped up their regular season, a frustrating circumstance for the Diamondbacks that would leave them in limbo ahead of a potential NL Wild Card series on Tuesday. They’ll kick off their attempt to clinch at 6:40pm local time this evening with veteran righty Merrill Kelly (3.71 ERA) on the mound opposite Padres veteran Yu Darvish (3.18 ERA in 15 starts).
The scene in Oakland yesterday was surreal. 46,889 in attendance and 30 minutes after the last house (which was standing almost the entire game), you thought they all were there to watch them clinch a division they fiercely fought for. They were all there. Soaking in the moment. Great articles in Yahoo Sports that sum up the last two days. Cheers to the fans of Oakland!
Where were those fans the rest of the season?
What an oblivious response.
In the parking lot, preaching truth.
If you don’t understand the situation don’t offer your opinion. It just makes you look stupid.
Watch out this could be the D’Back senario in 3 years. I hope the Oakland situation does not happen in AZ. With Maricopa County and the D”Back brass are not even talking right now, that is the same way the Oakland and the city of Oakland started out. I know for a fact that Salt Lake City has their eyesight on a ML team and they are hungry enough to give the D’Backs everything they want to get them to Utah in 2028.
Truth….
@baseballandbrews
Too bad. Move on and go cheer for the Giants instead.
Old – That’s cold, man!
I was a season ticketholder of an NHL team that eventually moved, no way in hell would I begin rooting for a nearby rival. I continued rooting for the same franchise from a distance.
@Fever Pitch Guy
Sorry that you don’t root for a real team. And who watches hockey?
Old – Basically everyone from New England watches hockey, and many play it including mothers and daughters.
Need I even mention other northern states or countries like Canada?
Why do you consider a moved team to not be “real”?
Some of your responses are really quite unusual ….
@Fever Pitch Guy
Were you a Hartford Whalers fan? Yeah, that wasn’t a real team. Sorry.
Old – Stanley Cup champions, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, the list goes on and on ….. but hey, thanks for playing!
Oakland Seals?
@daseballandbrews
As an A’s fan in London, I couldn’t get across for the last home stand and had to say goodbye it June. Thank you for your kind words. I have no connection with Oakland per se, I’m English and fell into baseball by accident. Oakland became my home away from home.
@Fever Pitch – New England is the most sports mad place I’ve been on the planet! You guys would listen to pool on the radio!
@Old York – You’ve conveniently forgotten that without former A’s owner Walter Haas, there wouldn’t be a team in San Francisco.
Shed a tear for Oakland – there are half a dozen teams that could go the same way…
And I thank God (other deities are available) that we won that last game.
@Fever
Was just wearing my Whalers cap. Have a t-shirt signed by the ’94 team. Go Canes!
Wouldn’t it be true that an X-ray wouldn’t show anything relevant to a sprain? And a sprain could be anything from a minor sprain to a severe ligament tear. So idk what to make of it all.Generally if it’s quite swollen and you are on crutches in a boot that’s a bad sign. But it may just be to get back quicker. He did walk off. I didn’t see a good look of the play.
Have they addressed whether Ohtani playing the field (anywhere) could be an option to free up the DH in these situations, to get Freeman ABs?
@RunDMC No chance Ohtani takes the field having not done so all year.
Could be some kind of cold compression boot to minimize swelling. Hard to walk unassisted in those things.
Yea. That would make sense. I mean if it were a severe sprain I don’t think they would sound optimistic like that (it would probably be swollen like a grapefruit).
He was also seen on the field after the clubhouse celebration in just the walking boot and all smiles. The other big tell is nobody has suggested so far that he will be getting an MRI. Dodger fans have visions of Muncy having his shoulder jammed on another ugly play at 1B a few years ago also on the last home game of the season. That was a disaster. In this case I think Freddie is going to be okay, at least after taking a week off. Fortunately they clinched last night and have that luxury.
In looking at the replays, it looked like a low ankle sprain (rolled his ankle), and those swell up fast but heal faster than a high ankle sprain. Hope he’s okay for playoffs.
I see no way to avoid the playoff oddities (this year is a rare case but the layoff is big to me) without eliminating the first round bye. Have 2-3 days off or so. Let any makeup games happen. Let people set their rotation. It is advantage enough for the best teams to have home field advantage and face a worse team. They don’t need a bye.
Ideally maybe they should get a bye but it all works out so much better if it’s eliminated.
Detroit has to win one of their next two games to be able to start Maeda on Sunday. Detroit faces Chicago’s ace Crochet tonight so it’s going to be interesting that’s for sure. 30-11 Detroit’s last 41 games rival it’s 84 35-5 start. Both teams will have a playoff crowd to deal with, and it’s a Detroit home crowd so that gives Detroit the edge with last at bats. GO TIGERS !
No worries. Tigers will clinch tonight, so Skubal is all set for G1 of playoff series in Baltimore. KC will likely take the trip to Houston as WC #3 since it’s a lot harder to beat a motivated Atl club this weekend.
Pretty impressive late season run, well done.
CO – Especially after selling off at the trade deadline.
@MPrck
WSox are going to be hungry to cause some trouble to a division rival trying to make the playoffs and they want to keep that 3-game streak going.
They probably take 2 of 3 from DET this weekend.
It’s a big test for Detroit this weekend having to must win one game out of three. Ideally they win it tonight against the Chicago ace. Then they have to decide to drop 2 players, and or add Madris to the team. Right now it is looking like Jung is the odd man out, but if they do add Madris then another hitting person drops off too. First they have to win one more game.
Madris won’t be added and Jung won’t be dropped. Maeda and Malloy will be off the playoff roster.
Dropping Jham won’t happen I now believe. He has home run power, and Jung has not hit one yet. If they do add Madris then Ibanez would drop, or Jham, but right now I believe Jham is the better bat. Of course, they still have to win one more game before any thing happens.
Malloy is a better bat than Madris, but he does not work anywhere on defense. Madris is a 1B or DH only. Malloy also has shown the ability to pinch hit anytime, any place, which is an underappreciated skill. Nevertheless, Ibanez is a more versatile and reliable defender than both and hits LH pitching very well. Ibanez is absolutely on the post season roster.
Of Madris, Jung and Malloy, Malloy is the best bat and the worst defender. I could see Malloy as a RH’d bat being kept over the LH’d Jung, but I see no place for Madris in the post season unless there’s an injury.
Detroit has it’s core guys of which is very versatile. I think Jung will be left off, I hope this winter some guys learn to play first, someone like Carpenter or another left handed hitter they have that can hit for power.
White Sox are playing for pride this weekend. Trying to avoid the distinction of being part of the worst team in baseball history….
Crochet hasn’t pitched like an ace since June.
Hard to do so when you’re only limited to 4 IP per outing. Give up 2 runs in any inning and your ERA is screwed. Plus the shoddy defense behind him.
Innings pitched are innings pitched. His FIP has risen just as much as his ERA. He may not be built for starting. Either way his pitching in a game is far less likely to affect the outcome of a game in the second half than in the first half. I’m just stating facts.
Hope that continues then.
Crochet was dominant in his recent start against the Padres, but only went 5 innings
@CardsFan
“Crochet hasn’t pitched like an ace since June.”
First half: 35.2 K%, 5.4 BB%, 45.7% GB,
Second half: 34.6 K%, 5.9 BB%, 43.3% GB
Close enough to identical. All that’s really changed are his batted ball results.
First half: .290 BABIP, 11% HR/FB
Second half: .386 BABIP, 25% FB
Batted balls results are much more flukey over the short term than K and BB rates. It’s also nearly impossible to be that dominant with BB’s and K’s and that poor with batted balls.
This is almost certainly not sustainable.
If the K and BB rates stay the same next year, there’s little reason to think the results won’t follow.
His home run rate spiked quite a bit which is why his FIP rose in the second half.
Crochet is not an ace, except for the Woe Sox, where he’s the best-talented starter.
Big difference.
@Lester
By what definition is Crochet not an ace?
thereby opening the hot corner up for Enrique Hernandez.
Using Kiki in the postseason? What a concept.
This late White Sox surge will convince management of……what?
That they did it right all along and Grifol was the problem. Thus dooming White Sox fans to even more of this next year
Baez should be given his WS ring and his walking papers if Detroit wins it all. If not, just his walking papers because the team is much better without him
I hope the Padre’s equipment manager remembers to bring shovels, we might have to bury some dead snakes in the desert!
Thank goodness they are moving Muncy to first. While Freeman was away, they had Kike’ play 1st and let Muncy keep kicking the ball around at 3rd. This is much better.
I hadn’t heard but it makes sense, at least for the next three games. Lately Muncy has been passible defensively at 3B though.
“moving Muncy to first”
this is pure speculation until we see the lineup card tonight. I agree it’s a worthy experiment since Kike seems to handle third better than first, But Max has been playing a decent third since he returned from his oblique injury.
Yesterday we were all rooting for the Dodgers to clinch the NL West. Felt weird. But maybe that helps to take off the steam of the Padres.
Padres still playing for home field in the wild card. If they win last night, they prolly not trying this weekend….
Haven’t heard any discussion on this yet, but how is the rainout in Atlanta gong to be made up? This game is hugely consequential to both the NL wildcard and which team is first seed.
@BlueSkies
“the final two games of this week’s series between Atlanta and New York were rescheduled for Monday.”
Correction, wildcard only and it looks like the missed games will be made up in a doubleheader in Atlanta on Monday. Yikes!
This really is extraordinary. It’s very likely that the Padres or Brewers will be playing either Atlanta or Mets on Tuesday, just hours after they’ve completed 18 innings in Atlanta on Monday and then fly 1500-3000 miles Monday night.
As a Padre fan, I’ll take one of those weary/depleted teams on Tuesday (if one becomes the #5 WC) rather than face the more rested Dbacks. Even more reason to beat the Dbacks back to #6 WC this weekend.
Those games will be quite a contest. The D’backs will be fighting to hang onto the last wildcard spot and might not know where they stand until the following day when the Mets and Braves wrap up.
Craziness!
Too bad my Pads couldn’t pick up the rubber game last night to make things easier.
Congrats on the clinch. That LAD bullpen is looking really strong right now
Andrew Friedman said during the clubhouse celebration that if they needed Freddie to play, he likely would be able to. The crutches and boot were worrisome without any comment, but it would seem it’s likely immediate SOP for a turned ankle with so much on the line.
The better sign was that Freddie Freeman walked (albeit gingerly) off the field in the first place, which likely meant he himself knew it wasn’t something catastrophic.
The bye has not seemed to help the last few years, but it’s most welcome in this injury-ravaged season. The Dodgers will almost certainly need the Big Three healthy and hitting to have a shot this year.
Unfortunately, the bye isn’t long enough for the many arms in the rotation who are done for the season. At least, Buehler is starting to look decent on the mound….
Flaherty, Yamamoto, and hopefully Buehler trending upward. Landon Knack and some good bullpen pieces… and some luck (or a lot of offense).
I don’t think your math is correct. I do not believe the significance of Monday rides on whether the Dbacks sweep. The pressure is on the Braves more than the Dbacks.
Whose math? The D’backs are currently one game ahead of the Braves and the Braves own the tiebreaker. So it seems the D’backs have to win at least one game this weekend against the Padres to avoid being knocked out if the Braves win two on Monday.
Diamondbacks play Padres, Braves play Royals and Mets play Brewers. No easy series for neither of them.
Right. Let’s not forget about those other weekend games. The wildest and wackiest part of this is the Mets will have to fly from Milwaukee to Atlanta on Sunday, play two games on Monday, and if they hang onto the wildcard, fly right back to Milwaukee for three more the next day.
No baseball on Monday if the Braves and Mets win while the Snakes get swept today….
Actually, Braves and Mets have to play to decide seeding. My bad….