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MLB News & Moments You Should Know – 8/31/23

A New Name Powered The Mets Win Yesterday

Asher Dratel
MLB Morning News 8/31/2023

Stay updated on everything baseball with our morning MLB News & Moments articles. We’ve got you covered to keep you in the know.

 

Today’s Headlines

 

Playing All The Hits

The Mets ended up beating the Texas Rangers last night, by a final score of 6-5 in 10 innings. Except it was really mostly DJ Stewart beating the Rangers. To a kind of hilarious degree, really.

Ok so to start things off by making a liar out of myself, the first damage came off the bat of Daniel Vogelbach, who hit a solo shot in the bottom of the second inning, but that’s where DJ’s night begins, as he went back-to-back with a solo jack of his own.

Brandon Nimmo added an RBI double later in the inning to give the Mets an early 3-0 lead that would hold up until the eighth inning when the Rangers charged back into the game and took a 5-3 lead.

DJ wasn’t about that type of thing though, as he tied it up in the bottom of the eighth with a 2-run shot against José Leclerc.

So now the game’s tied in the ninth inning, but the Rangers have a runner on first and Marcus Semien just put a ball off the wall with the potential to give the Rangers the lead. NOT SO FAST BECAUSE DJ STEWART IS HERE! HAHA!

That’s two HRS, three RBIs, and probably a run saved, but DJ’s still got one trick up his sleeve. With his magical assistant Aroldis Chapman on the mound and the bases loaded, DJ pulled the most magical move of the night with this:

WALK. OFF. HIT. BY. PITCH.

Good for you DJ, never change Aroldis. Phew.

Ed Of The Class

But the Mets weren’t the only ones having fun dramatic walk-offs yesterday, as the St. Louis Cardinals decided that they needed to walk the Padres off for the second time in as many days.

And more specifically, Tommy Edman decided it was his job again:

You can’t do much to sweeten the standings for either of the teams we’re talking about winning here, but you gotta take the fun times when you can, right?

We Have The Bats And We’re Voting Wins

The Mariners had one of the stranger themed games I can think of on Wednesday:

I mean, I guess it’s the 20th anniversary of Transatlanticism and the band did form in Bellingham, but it’s still kinda out of left field, right?

Anyway, the M’s took down the A’s 5-4 in the battle of the mononyms, but more importantly, it capped off an utterly incredible month for Seattle:

There are only four games today, and none of them involved the AL West, so Seattle will officially end the month tied with Houston for first place in the division, rocking the second-best run differential in the West with +103, and looking like they’re getting hot at exactly the right time this season.

That’s a lot of dancing…

Harping On 300

Meanwhile, it’s milestone time out on the ol’ East Coast, where Bryce Harper hit his 300th career home run against the Angels to give his team an 8-7 lead in the eighth inning:

We don’t have to talk about the fact that the Angels came back to win it 10-8 in the end, that’s depressing. Instead, we should continue to focus on the 30-year-old with the career .282/.390/.521 batting line who, once again, just hit his 300th career homer. Did you know his lowest season-long wRC+ during a full season was back in 2016, and it was still 111? Has Harper entered The Trout Zone where we’re just so used to his greatness that it fails to register properly anymore?

Waiving Off

In case you missed it, there are a lot of players on waivers right now. And not the old-style revocable ones, either, the “We claimed him he’s ours now” type of waivers (see the Articles You Should Read section for more on this.) And the CFBBQ Boys have your reverse-standings-order list of teams so you can see who has what odds of nabbing themselves seemingly half of the Angels roster:

Oakland has the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever…

 

Best Moments From Yesterday

 

60/60

I think that’s how the math works for this, right? Randy Arozarena stole his 20th bag of the year against Miami on Wednesday, setting a franchise record in the process:

Randy’s flat-out one of the funnest dudes in the league, and here’s to him continuing to wreak havoc on the basepaths for years to come when not playing against my team.

Donglanta

And speaking of franchise records, this one is probably the least surprising one to fall this year:

The Braves have a whole other month to add to that number, and they’re continuing to hit the absolute snot out of the baseball, so I doubt they’re ready to stop now. They’re nearly 50 HRs up on the second-place Dodgers. That’s the same as the difference between LA and 18th-place Cincinnati. Those are some hot bats down in ATL.

Flowering Vines

But it may not be just the bats that are heating up, as Darius Vines made his debut in the most inauspicious way possible: pitching on the road in Coors. Well, it didn’t seem to bother him much…

He got the W as the Braves took down the Rockies 7-3, for their MLB-leading 87th win of the season.

It’s All In The Stache

You know I’m a big believer in the power of good facial hair, and Davis Schneider is out here adding more data to the pile:

That’s after a 1-for-2 performance last night with a pair of walks and a pair of runs as the Jays trounced the Nats 7-0. With their win and the Rangers’ loss, Toronto is only 2.5 games out of the third WC spot right now…

I reckon the whole team needs to start watching Magnum P.I. and taking notes at this point.

A New Career?

And finally, let’s go on a strange cross-sport trip back in time and watch as Ken Griffey Jr. sets up to act as a photographer(?) at the MLS game(?!) between Inter Miami and Nashville(?!?!) down in Florida.

You would have to assume he got some pointers from Randy Johnson, right? I suppose that such a legendary position player couldn’t let a pitcher steal the spotlight forever.

 

Injuries

 

Kendall Graveman left last night’s game with “lower back discomfort,” more news should be available after further testing.

 

Articles You Should Read

 

Free Lucas Giolito. And Reynaldo López. And Matt Moore. And… – Ben Clemens, FanGraphs

Explaining the Angels’ Waiver Wire Shenanigans – Craig Goldstein, Baseball Prospectus (sub req’d)

Mookie’s Case to Take NL MVP Over Acuña – Mike Petriello, MLB.com

 

Fantasy Baseball Coverage

 

Starting Pitcher Roundup

Hitter Performances

Reliever Ranks (Closers) (Holds)

Starting Pitcher Streamers

 

Featured image by Justin Paradis (@JustParaDesigns on Twitter)

Asher Dratel

Asher hails from Brooklyn, wears a 2008 Joba Chamberlain jersey to every Yankees game he attends, and pronounces BABIP funny. Appreciator of Beefy Lad dingers and beers. @asherd.bsky.social on Bluesky.

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