Mike Harrington
Sports Columnist
Welcome to September baseball. It just feels different than any other month.
For all the storylines that abound over the final weeks of the MLB season, it makes the most sense to keep our immediate focus in our home state, because the Yankees are again in hot pursuit of World Series title No. 28 and the Mets have rallied from an abysmal start and remain in the thick of the playoff battle as well.
New York Yankees stars Aaron Judge, left, and Juan Soto have had plenty of home run celebrations this year but how many will they have in the postseason – and will they continue in 2025 after Soto has gone through free agency?
And while we’ll relish in what the final outcomes are in September and October in both the Bronx and Queens, we have to do it with an eye on what impact they’ll have for 2025. The hot summer turns into the historic drama of fall, but what a winter we’ve got coming up.
In 2022, outfielder Juan Soto turned down a 15-year, $440 million contract offer by the Washington Nationals and was traded to the San Diego Padres. He’s spending this season with the Yankees after a blockbuster trade last December, and the 25-year-old entered Saturday batting .293 with 37 home runs and 96 RBIs.
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Pretty good time for a career year with free agency impending. Soto’s next deal is going to run $500 million to $600 million and the two main suitors look to be, of course, the Yankees and the Mets.
The Bronx Bombers have a built-in advantage in Aaron Judge, who has hit behind Soto all season. At 51 home runs, Judge is 11 shy of the AL-record 62 he hit in 2022 and still has 29 games left. He’s already got 123 RBIs, eight shy of his career high set two years ago, and is running career-high marks in on-base percentage (.464), slugging (.725) and OPS (1.188). Not to mention the wall-climbing we’re seeing in center field.
From the PR coordinator to assistant general manager to the longest-tenured GM in franchise history and to his current role as president of Rich Baseball Operations, Mike Buczkowski has been the major conscience of the Bisons during their modern era.
The Yankees hit Saturday with the best record in the American League and tied with the Milwaukee Brewers, two games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers for the best in baseball.
If the Yankees run the table in October, how could Soto resist that?
Well, deep-pocketed Mets owner Steve Cohen might have something to say. But Cohen has his own decision to make about Pete Alonso, who will turn 30 on Dec. 7 and is at .242-29-74 after last year’s all-or-nothing season (.217-46-118). Heading into free agency, how much is Cohen willing to pay two Scott Boras clients? Or is there an option other than Alonso to get as lineup protection if the the Mets want to make Soto a new face of the franchise in Queens?
As for the rest of this season, Yankees fans howl about general manager Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone but the standings don’t lie, even in the wake of the 10-23 stretch that damaged the Yankees’ 50-22 start and made Boone’s job status a daily point of discussion.
The Yankees have rallied to go 19-11 in their last 30 but are still incredibly up and down at the plate at times. In losing the final two games of a series last week in Washington, the trio of Judge, Soto and Giancarlo Stanton went 4 for 34 with no homers and 10 strikeouts. Soto, back in the ballpark where he became a World Series champion in 2019, was 0 for 12.
The Mets, meanwhile, started terribly under first-year manager Carlos Mendoza at 24-35. But they’re 47-29 since June 2, with only the Arizona Diamondbacks and Houston Astros better since that date. Still, they enter the final month three games out in the wild-card race and have a tough schedule that features seven games left against the Philadelphia Phillies and a season-ending road trip of six games to Atlanta and Milwaukee.
Three games against the Yankees. Three games against the Mets. Back-to-back. Produced by a pandemic. At the corner of Washington and Swan. Unimaginable.
And if you’re thinking of a quick trip to Toronto, note that this is a rare September when the Yankees don’t come to Rogers Centre – but the Mets do for a three-game set that opens Sept. 9.
The last time the Mets played the Blue Jays on the road? It was Sept. 11-13, 2020 – before no fans in Sahlen Field. The Mets won the series opener, 18-1, behind Jacob deGrom before the Jays rallied to win the last two games of a remarkable week that saw both the Yankees and Mets play in Buffalo but no fans allowed to attend.
September questions
1. Shohei Ohtani became a 43/43 man Friday night in home runs/stolen bases. Does the Dodgers superstar become the first player in history to go 50/50?
2. Is Judge a lock for the AL MVP, or does he still have to fend off a challenge from Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. (.341-28-95)? How does it play with voters if the Yankees blow their 1½-game lead over the Baltimore Orioles and the Kansas City Royals overcome their nine-game deficit to the Cleveland Indians and win a division a year after going 56-106?
3. Do the Astros make the ALCS for an unprecedented eighth straight season after starting 7-19?
In a nine-second video posted to Instagram that was shot in the Exchange Street parking lot at Sahlen Field, Votto simply said, "That's it. I'm done. I am officially retired from baseball."
4. Does GM Ross Atkins survive in Toronto after a disastrous season but a great prospect haul at the deadline? And does Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (.321-27-88) finish a strong season and then sign a long-term deal?
5. How much housecleaning do the Texas Rangers do after winning a World Series and then flopping (63-72 through Friday)? Amherst native Jonah Heim has lost some playing time at catcher after cratering from .258-18-95 with a .755 OPS last year to .227-11-50/.616 this season.
6. Did you ever think the AL Central would have three playoff teams and the East or West would not? Looks like some form of Cleveland/Kansas City/Minnesota from the Central, New York and Baltimore from the East and Houston from the West.
7. Conversely, the NL Central is likely going to only qualify Milwaukee and what’s up in Pittsburgh? The Pirates were 55-52 and in the hunt, bought at the trade deadline – and are 7-20 since. A pathetic bullpen couldn’t hold a 10-3 lead for Paul Skenes in Wednesday’s 14-10 loss to the Chicago Cubs, leaving GM Ben Cherington and manager Derek Shelton in tenuous positions. This will be nine straight non-playoff seasons in Pittsburgh.
Old friends alert
Dave Roberts and Torey Lovullo – The Buffalo Baseball Hall of Famers are battling again in the NL West and Roberts’ Dodgers held on for a 10-9 win over Lovullo’s Diamondbacks in Friday’s series opener. They could see each other again in October and Arizona has been red-hot of late, rolling to an MLB-best 31-12 mark since July 9. The defending NL champion D-backs were just 45-47 to that point.
The Bisons now have nine slams for the season, equaling the club mark set last year and in 2004, so they have 24 games to hit one more and get to 10 in a season for the first time in their modern era.
Bowden Francis – The Blue Jays right-hander has a WHIP of 0.31 in his last four starts – the lowest over any four-start span in MLB’s modern era to 1901. He’s allowed just six hits over 29 innings and has struck out 32 in that span, taking a no-hitter into the ninth Aug. 24 against the Los Angeles Angels and doing likewise into the fifth Thursday against the Red Sox in Boston.
The splitter really started dancing as Francis gave up two hits and struck out 13 over nine innings of two July starts with the Bisons, and it has been unhittable in his latest big-league callup. He keeps it up and he’s going to arrive in camp next spring as a lock for the 2025 rotation.
Grady Sizemore – Twenty years ago this month, he was a 22-year-old center fielder hopping around the infield celebrating the final out of the Bisons’ only league championship celebration in Sahlen Field. Now he’s a first-year coach thrust into the impossible role as interim manager of the woebegone White Sox, who are on their way to passing the iconic 1962 Mets (40-120) for the worst season in modern baseball history of all time.
The Sox entered Saturday at 31-105, and is on pace to finish 37-125. Sizemore is 3-16 and on an eight-game losing streak, adding to the club’s remarkable skid-ful season under Pedro Grifol that includes a 3-22 start and other losing streaks of six, seven, 14 and 21 games.
Bisons radio analyst Duke McGuire on Hall of Famer Jim Leyland, his manager with the 1973 Clinton Pilots: "He did it the hard way, up each level. You have to respect that. Nothing was handed to him."
Dusty Wathan – The starting catcher on those ‘04 championship Bisons has had a terrific seven-year run as the Phillies’ third-base coach, topped by the 2022 World Series loss to Houston. The Phils’ offense again produced big numbers this year on the way to a 52-26 record by late June, averaging an MLB-high 5.1 runs per game.
Since then? A 27-30 record and a lot less traffic for Wathan to direct, with 24 games at three runs or less. Underachievers for more than two months, do the Flying Harpers figure things out in time?
Carl Willis – The Guardians’ veteran pitching coach and broadcaster Jim Rosenhaus remain the only connections to the Bisons’ glory days with Cleveland (1995-2008), and the 63-year-old pitching mensch could be on his way to directing his sixth Cy Young Award winner. Closer Emmanuel Clase is having the season of his career, becoming the franchise’s all-time save leader Friday night with his 40th of the season and 150th of his career.
Check out Clase’s ungodly numbers over 63 games: An 0.71 ERA with 55 strikeouts and eight walks in 63⅓ innings. Opponents have just 35 hits (eight for extra bases), are batting .161 and slugging a paltry .217. You might vote for the Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal (15-4), but Clase is the closest thing to Mariano Rivera in the game today.
