Jeff Nelson, the second-base arbiter who brutally botched a crucial call in last night’s ALCS game between the Tigers and the Evil Empire, must hold a graduate degree from the Richie Garcia School of Umpiring (see Maier, Jeffrey). But even a lifelong pinstripe-hater like me has to wonder, upon further review, just why the pastime can’t extract a measure of accountability from the men in blue.

The estimable Joe Torre told the postgame presser that Nelson had clearly blown the call. The cry of “More instant replay!” rang out across the land. If some way to arrange that without further lengthening what are already absurdly long games could be found, fine. Still, while that’s getting hashed out, here’s a suggestion: Suspend Nelson, and the crew chief, for the rest of the postseason, both for blowing the call and then digging in their heels in that arrogant, unaccountable, mule-headed way that umpires seem to have learned from Marvin Miller, the old players’-union boss.

Nelson not only blew the call; he was out of position to get the call right. There was no consulting with other members of the umpiring crew, that I could tell. And the crew chief did nothing, except help shoo Girardi away. Why? Because MLB umpires have a sense of their infallibility that would boggle the mind of any pope.

Enough of this is enough. Surely the commissioner has the power, “in the best interest of the game,” to enforce accountability among umpires. And if Bud Selig doesn’t have the cojones to do it, let Torre, who does, do it for him — and for the rest of us.  

— George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Rich offered condolences to Nationals fans after Friday night’s 9–7 season-ending loss to the Cardinals.

I did the same at Nationals Park moments after Ryan Zimmerman popped up a 1–2 pitch that landed in Daniel Descalso’s glove.

From the moment General Martin Dempsey threw out the first pitch, the ballpark was way louder than at any game I have attended since the Expos moved to Washington after the 2004 season. The crowd of nearly 46,000 reacted loudly and waved their red towels in response to every pitch Gio Gonzalez threw in the top of the first inning. Jayson Werth led off the bottom half with a double. Bryce Harper followed with a triple, and when Zimmerman socked a 2–1 pitch into the right-center field stands to put the Nats up 3-0, well, the joint was on fire.

After the Nats doubled their lead in the third, thanks to home runs from Harper and Michael Morse, everyone around me felt certain of victory. (And why not? Only Red Sox fans would think differently.)

Even as chillier fall weather descended on the ballpark and the Cards chipped away at the lead — one run in the fourth, two in the fifth, one in the seventh, one in the eighth — the crowd remained wild, lifting themselves out of their seats to chant so often that it started resembling a synagogue’s congregation during Rosh Hashanah services.

Whatever doubts might have crept into people’s minds after Descalso hit the solo home run in the eighth were set aside moments later when Kurt Suzuki knocked in an insurance run.

In the top of the ninth, closer Drew Storen gave up a leadoff double to Carlos Beltran, but after a groundout and strikeout, everyone was confident that he would get that final out.

Two strikes on Yadier Molina? “One more, Drew!”

Alas, Molina walked and the tying run was on base.

Two strikes on David Freese? “One more, Drew!”

Alas, Freese walked and the bases were loaded, with the tying run in scoring position.

By now, the euphoria was long gone, having been replaced with extreme skittishness. The only folks talking smack now were wearing St. Louis caps or Molina jerseys. Descalsco tied the game with a bullet up the middle that Ian Desmond could not smother. After Pete Kozma poked a ball into right field, putting the Cards up by two, the nervousness pretty much gave way to shock.

And in the ninth, after Harper chased a pitch over his head for strike three, the ballpark grew dead quiet and numerous fans started streaming for the exits. Moments later, the season was over, and those who remained got to watch the Cardinals celebrate on the diamond.

Interestingly, I don’t recall seeing any Nats players come out of the dugout to wave good-bye to the fans. Contrast with the scene at O.co Coliseum on Thursday after the A’s had been eliminated.

On the walk up to the lower-level concourse, with our jackets now zippered up, we heard numerous folks wonder what had gone so horribly wrong, even as they realized there would be no game against the Giants on Sunday and Monday, no more walk-off celebrations, A-Ha “Take on Me” renditions, presidents’ races, or Clint showing off with his T-shirt tosses that often landed in the 200-level seats.

Not in 2012, anyway.

Good morning.

Here are several postseason go-to links to make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• The Tigers took the first two ALCS games from the Yankees in the Bronx. Justin Verlander’s reaction to teammate Jose Valverde blowing a 4–0 lead in the ninth inning of the opener was priceless, but Derek Jeter’s pain was difficult to watch.
• No one knows for certain how the Cardinals-Nationals NLDS series would have progressed had Stephen Strasburg been available to pitch, but Hardball Talk’s Craig Calcaterra offers some tough talk on the subject:

The losers never get to set the narrative. Just ask the Buffalo Bills fans who want their great early 90s run recognized as a success rather than a failure. Just ask Atlanta Braves fans (cough, cough) who have tried for years to say that their team was better than any other one-time World Series champ. Ask anyone else who roots for a team that, however good, doesn’t follow through on its promise. You can say you were good enough among friends and you can all make yourself feel better about things by doing so, but you’re never going to convince anyone else of it. Sports don’t work that way. Winners are the winners and losers are the losers, and when you conspicuously tempt fate and conventional wisdom the way the Nationals did with Strasburg, the voices calling you losers will be even louder.

• On a related note, Joe Posnanski uses the ninth inning of game five of the NLDS to explain the importance of walks.
• Citing Ian Desmond, Chase Headley, Aaron Hill, and A. J. Pierzynski as examples, Jon Roegele of Beyond the Boxscore tries to answer the question, “Are unexpected power surges sustained?”
• Bill James answers a befuddled reader’s question:

“I continually hear announcers talk about how a player is a fast ball hitter.I don’t think I can name one player who would rather hit any pitch other than a fastball. What are they talking about?!”

Asked by: Florko Answered: 10/13/2012

Without data, it’s hard to know. I always think . . . you meet guys every week who tell you that they were outstanding baseball players until the pitchers started throwing breaking pitches. But you know, NOBODY really hits the curve.   Most good major league hitters just take the curve unless it’s going to be strike three, and try to hit fastballs. Slider is sort of the same; more hitters will chase a slider because it’s harder to figure out that it’s breaking, but . . . good hitters mostly lay off the slider and try to force the pitcher to throw a curve ball. Unless somebody hangs a curve in the middle of the plate, not that many people are going to hit it.

• Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times interviewed Bud Selig on a variety of topics, including his thoughts on the new postseason setup.
• Ned Garver, a “sinker-slider” pitcher, enjoyed early success in the majors, despite being stuck on losing teams. (He finished second behind Yogi Berra for the 1951 MVP Award.) Gregory Wolf interviewed the 86-year old righty, who spent 14 seasons in the bigs with the St. Louis Browns, Detroit Tigers, and Kansas City Athletics.

• The aces of the Tigers and Yankees, Verlander, and C. C. Sabathia, went the distance in their teams’ ALDS clinchers.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Rich offered condolences to Nationals fans after Friday night’s 9-7 season-ending loss to the Cardinals. I did the same at Nationals Park after Ryan Zimmerman popped up a 1-2 pitch that ultimately landed in the glove belonging to Daniel Descalso.

From the moment General Martin Dempsey threw out the first pitch, the stadium was louder than any game I have attended since the Expos moved to Washington after the 2004 season. The crowd reacted loudly to every pitch Gio Gonzalez threw in the top of the first inning. And when Jayson Werth led off the bottom half with a double, Bryce Harper followed with a triple, and Zimmerman socked a 2-1 pitch into the right-center field stands, well, the joint was on fire.

After the Nats doubled their lead in the third, thanks to home runs from Harper and Michael Morse, everyone around me, including a handful of Cards fans, were sure that the Giants would be flying to DC.

(I am also pretty sure there were more instances of seated fans suddenly rising up to chant than at a synagogue on Rosh Hashanah.)

The crowd remained uber-confident until the 8th inning home run to Descalso and then regained its confidence moments later when Kurt Suzuki knocked in the “insurance run.”

Every Nats fan seemed sure that Drew Storen would strike out Yadier Molina or David Freese. By the time Descalsco came to bat, however, the folks around me were downright worried, only for it to be replaced moments later with utter shock.

And when Harper chased the ball over his head in the 9th, it got eerily quiet and numerous fans started streaming for the exit, most with their heads down. I’m not sure anyone really thought Zimmerman was going to keep the season alive.

And while I expressed sympathy for the Nats fans in my midst, I was thrilled for Carlos Beltran, who started the rally .

Justin Verlander was set to pitch the opening game of the American League Championship Series. Instead, Detroit is calling upon him today to save the season, thanks to Oakland’s latest moment of glory.

With the A’s on the ropes at home against the Tigers and already down two games to one in the best-of-five division series, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle appeared to have suggested a headline for her editor (check out the URL title) signaling that the green and gold magic had run its course for 2012. After all, it was the bottom of the ninth inning and Detroit was up by two.

And yet, while general manager Billy Beane was driving around in his truck, listening to his daughter sing Lenka, the A’s batters roughed up closer Jose Valverde with relative impunity, scoring three for yet another walk-off win.

Coco Crisp’s game-winning hit drove the already-delirious O.Co Coliseum crowd to new heights of ecstasy, leading one A’s pitcher to declare:

Boxscore here.

In the ninth inning last night and down a run against the Orioles, Joe Girardi pinch-hit 40-year-old Raul Ibanez, whom the Yankees signed back in February for a pedestrian $1.1 million, for 37-year-old Alex Rodriguez, the slowing slugger who still has five years left on his contract with a base salary of $114 million. 

No, really. The skipper benched A-Rod in the third game of the American League Division Series.

The result?

Well, here’s Ibanez’s game-tying home run:

Here’s the 12th-inning game winner:

Just. Wow.

And as the footage highlighted, the latter shot was no cheap, short-porch Yankee Stadium home run.

While thrilled with the walk-off victory, Jason Rosenberg of It’s About the Money Stupid did take a moment to reflect:

Boxscore here.

Here is Coco Crisp last night:

Compare with a play to forget from the previous game:

The infield-fly rule exists for the simple purpose of discouraging infielders from deliberately dropping pop flies in order to double up base runners on force plays. That’s of course why the rule comes into play only when there are fewer than two outs and runners on first and second (or first, second, and third).

If the infield-fly rule were repealed, infield pop-ups would regularly become momentous plays: Will the infielder fake out the runners by dropping the ball, or perhaps instead by making them think he’s going to let it drop and then catching it at the last moment? I don’t understand how any baseball fan would want to dramatically increase the prospect that games would turn on such silliness.

I’m amenable to the suggestion by William Juliano that the infield-fly rule be amended so that the “defense should be limited to recording one force out” when the infield-fly rule is called. (In other words, if the fielder drops the ball, deliberately or otherwise, the defense could get only one force out.) I’ll note that Juliano’s suggestion cuts in the opposite direction of Rick Klein’s: Under Juliano’s, the defense would get zero outs or one out on a dropped pop up, while Klein wants the defense to be able to get two outs (and presumably even three).

Here is what ABC News’ Klein had to say about the infield-fly rule to NRO before the NL wildcard game mayhem at Turner Field took place:

I used to love the infield-fly rule for its gentlemanly spirit; now I loathe it and want it repealed.

Why should you be rewarded with the guarantee of only one out if you hit a fly ball, with two or three runners on base, that doesn’t even leave the infield? You’re not similarly rewarded if you hit a sharp ground ball or a rocket of a line drive that leaves the defense a chance of turning two.

Think of the extra action if the runner has to go a quarter or half way — a game of chicken on the basepaths while the infielder decides whether to risk letting a sure out drop on the grass.

[Note: Immediately following the Cardinals–Braves wild-card game, in which the controversial application of the infield-fly rule in the bottom of the eighth inning hurt Atlanta’s chances of a comeback, I asked Klein for a follow-up comment. His response: “P.S. Braves fans, I rest my case.”]

More here, including Charles Krauthammer’s take on Bryce Harper’s right arm and Fox News’ Adam Housley’s explanation as to why experience does matter in the postseason.

Good morning!

Welcome to the postseason. Here are several go-to links to make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• Sports Illustrated’s Jay Jaffe wrote a column back in August that was highly critical of the 2–3 Division Series schedule, and it remains a worthwhile read.
• I think it is safe to say that all of us are now experts on the infield fly rule. Rob Neyer of SB Nation explains why Friday night’s call was the proper one, while William Juliano of the Captain’s Blog suggests a rule alteration.
• Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs offers a detailed recap of how the visiting Reds, who lost Johnny Cueto to an injury after only eight pitches, still managed to beat Matt Cain and the Giants in the first game of the NLCS on Saturday night.
• Al Alburquerque, the Tigers relief pitcher WFAN gabber Mike Francesa claims does not exist, is definitely on the A’s players’ collective radar after, as Matt Snyder of CBSSports.com notes, “he did something a bit odd.”
• Accept Alex Rodriguez for who he is today, “just a better than good player,” suggests It’s About the Money Stupid’s William Tasker.
• In the wake of Bobby Valentine’s canning, Ben Buchanan of Over the Monster explains why offering the Red Sox managerial job to Jason Varitek would be a cause for concern:

Basically, Jason Varitek is a risk, and with a payoff probably not terribly high. To me, it’s hard to understand how someone analytical like Ben Cherington would come to the conclusion that he would be a good risk to take compared to any number of safer options with experience.

Unless, of course, you bring in factors outside of just baseball, at which point it becomes easy to figure out not only why they’d be interested in Varitek, but also John Farrell. And it’s a thought which is pretty troubling. Simply put, they’re making a PR decision, not a baseball decision. Kind of like that Bobby V decision seemed to be.

• Mike Matheny’s managerial blunder in the top of the eighth inning yesterday played a major role in the Cardinals’ loss to the Nationals, explains Sweet Spot’s David Schoenfield.
• Rockies skipper Jim Tracy resigned, while Terry Francona was hired to lead the Indians.
• The Hardball Times’ Richard Barbieri unveils his all-October team.

• Coco Crisp remains a decent defensive center fielder but really should leave the dramatic catches to the Say Hey Kid.

That’s it. Have a happy Columbus Day and walk-off week!

You go, Cinderella!

AL
Orioles over Rangers.
A’s over Tigers.
Orioles over Yankees.
A’s over Orioles.

NL
Cardinals over Braves.
Giants over Reds.
Nationals over Cardinals.
Nationals over Giants.

And the winner of the 2012 World Series?

The Oakland A’s in six games.

Josh Reddick will earn MVP honors. In the clincher, Derek Norris, one of the players acquired in the Gio Gonzalez trade, will break a scoreless tie in the seventh inning with a go-ahead home run off of the Cy Young Award candidate.

If these predictions come true, kindly remember me when you fill out your will.

If not, recall that the postseason is, in the words of a certain general manager, merely “a crapshoot.”

EDIT: In case you were wondering, the Acela’s WiFi worked like a charm the entire time I was on board. (That doesn’t seem to happen very often.)

Congratulations to Miguel Cabrera on becoming the first ballplayer since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967 to hit for the Triple Crown.

Cabrera finished the regular season with 44 home runs, 139 runs batted in, and a .330 batting average. He also put up a .393 on-base percentage and sluggged .606.

Will the Tigers third baseman win the American League Most Valuable Player Award? Probably.

Should hitting for the Triple Crown automatically entitle him to the award? No.

Ted Williams won the Triple Crown in both 1942 and 1947 . . . yet did not capture the the MVP in either year.

Cabrera’s principal competitor, 21-year old rookie Mike Trout, hit 30 home runs with 83 runs batted in, a .326 batting average, and a slugging percentage of .564. He did best Cabrera with an on-base percentage of .399, and he led the league in runs scored while playing in only 137 games.

Moreover, Trout bested Cabrera in both the Baseball-Reference and the Fangraphs versions of wins above replacement (10.7 /10.4 vs. 6.9/7.2). The principal reason? Home runs, runs batted in, and batting average are crude measurements of offense. WAR does a better job at measuring offensive production and incorporates baserunning and defense as well. As Dave Cameron of Fangraphs pointed out recently, Trout cleans Cabrera’s clock in both categories. (It is worth noting too that this is the only instance of a player winning the Triple Crown but not also finishing first in WAR.)

Heck, Joe Posnanski observed that it is unnecessary to pin Trout’s claim to the award on advanced statistics:

His case as the league’s most valuable player is as old-school as Jim Leyland’s mustache. His case is that he’s having a great offensive season in different ways from Cabrera (he leads the league in runs and stolen bases, and his on-base percentage and OPS+ is actually HIGHER than Cabrera’s), and he’s a much better defender and base runner. His case is that when you take into account the whole ballplayer, he’s more valuable than Cabrera, Triple Crown or not.

In a league filled with people who have been badgering us with “you win games with pitching and defense” and “you can’t tell what kind of ballplayer you have based on his batting average” for 100 years, it seems odd to me that so many old-schoolers cannot see that Mike Trout is the very essence of what they’ve been talking about.

For those of you who emphasize a player’s numbers down the stretch, I realize that Cabrera had a superior September/October, with .333/.395/.675 vs. Trout’s .289/.400/.500. (Keep in mind that games played during the rest of the season also count in the standings.)

For those who overlook that baseball is a team sport, I realize that Cabrera’s Tigers are in the postseason while Trout’s Angels fell short. (That said, Los Angeles finished with a better record than Detroit while playing in a tougher division.)

For those who think a player who switches positions should receive kudos for such a noble act, I realize that Cabrera agreed to return to third base this season so that newly signed Prince Fielder could play first base. (But if you make that argument for Cabrera, remember Ben Zobrist — .270/.377/.471 — who this season started games at right field, second base, and shortstop without complaint and is habitually and woefully undervalued outside of the Gulf Coast of Florida.)

In years past, we debated the meaning of “valuable” in MVP.

This season there appears to be a lack of clarity on what “player” means. Cabrera is a tremendous slugger who had a magical season, but Trout was nearly as good in the batter’s box, while he also excelled at taking extra bases and climbing outfield fences.

That’s the most valuable player.

Unless you’re a Dodgers fan, this never gets old — Russ Hodges’s call of the Shot Heard ’Round the World, Bobby Thomson’s home run at the Polo Grounds on October 3, 1951:

Thirteen and a half games behind the Dodgers on August 11, the Giants stormed back in the last seven weeks of the season to tie them for first place in the National League. The two teams split the first two games of an improvised three-game playoff series. In Game 3, the Dodgers were up 4 to 2 in the bottom of the ninth. With two men on, Thomson hit a line drive into the left-field deck of the Polo Grounds, surely one of the oddest-shaped ballparks in the history of MLB.

Some baseball fans know Hodges’s call by heart, much as schoolchildren might have once been able to recite the Gettysburg Address:

The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! . . . I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! I do not believe it! . . . and the Giants win it, by a score of 5 [Hodges’s voice rising slightly on “5”] to 4, and they’re picking Bobby Thomson up, and they’re carrying him off the field.

Rumors that the Giants began stealing signs around the time of their improbable late-season comeback persisted for years. In 2001, as the 50th anniversary of the Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff approached, Joshua Prager in the Wall Street Journal pretty much laid to rest any doubt on the subject. He quoted former players who explained a fairly elaborate scheme that the Giants had invented for stealing signs. Thomson was ambiguous in his answer to the question whether he got help on his pennant-clinching home run, which he hit 61 years ago today.

By now, you probably know the inspirational story:

Thanks to a 92-mph fastball that hit him in the back of the head, Adam Greenberg’s first plate appearance in the bigs turned out to be his last — for seven years.

Last night, the 31-year old finally returned to the batter’s box and got to face . . . Cy Young Award candidate R. A. Dickey (2.73 ERA, 3.27 xFIP).

Oy.

Greenberg proceeded to look at strike one, then swung and missed at the next two pitches. All three were Dickey’s trademark pitch: the fast knuckleball.

Jeff Sullivan and Joe Posnanski sum up my feelings pretty well:

Greenberg, who received a standing ovation from the Marlins Park crowd as he returned to the dugout, still hopes to earn a roster spot next spring.

Last night’s 4–3 Athletics victory over the Rangers enabled Oakland to clinch a postseason berth and creep within one game of division-leading Texas with two games left to play. If the A’s win those games — their last of the regular season — they will capture the American League West. Heck, it is still possible, albeit unlikely, that they’ll win home-field advantage through the championship series.

To say that the A’s, who woke up this morning with a 92–68 record, have had a second half to remember is quite an understatement. Back on the Fourth of July, a Yankees fan who moonlights as a media analyst expressed joy on Facebook over the latest Boston calamity — a three-game sweep in Oakland. In his desire to pour salt in Red Sox Nation’s wound, he dismissively labeled the A’s “lowly.” On being informed that the club’s record was actually 41–42, the gentleman gave a little ground, conceding that the team that general manager Billy Beane had assembled for 2012 was “mediocre.” He then assured me that he devoted much of his free time to studying baseball and that the A’s were going nowhere.

After the “mediocre” A’s took four straight from his Bronx Bombers later that month, I politely asked the media analyst if he now wanted to walk back the term “mediocre.” I received no reply. Not wanting to be accused of trolling, I let it go . . . until this morning. I asked again for his thoughts but, alas, the communications guru remains in hiding.

In fairness, I know of no one back in March who picked the A’s to be a .500 club, let alone to challenge either the Angels or Rangers for the division crown. After all, Beane had spent the off-season dealing young pitching stars Andrew Bailey, Trevor Cahill, and Gio Gonzalez. On the surface, it appeared that the club was embarked on a rebuilding process that would not yield tangible benefits until at least 2014.

Well, with an all-rookie starting rotation that has posted the big leagues’ sixth-lowest earned run average, together with a lineup (anchored by 27-year-old Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes) that since the All-Star break has slugged more home runs than any other team, including the Yankees, Oakland has proven all of us spring training-doubters — not to mention those who were still dissing them in July — wrong.

The Rangers and A’s play game 2 of the series at O.Co Colisuem at 7:05 PDT.

Never has a shutout loss to a division rival been so worthy of a champagne-drenched celebration!

MASN play-by-play announcer Rob Carpenter has the call here.

Good morning!

With a mere two days left in the regular season, here are several go-to links to make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• Keep up with the postseason picture at MLB.com. Considerable uncertainty remains in the American League, as only the Orioles, Rangers, and Yankees have clinched postseason berths and none are guaranteed a first-place finish. The Senior Circuit is somewhat less chaotic: The Giants and Reds have won their divisions and the Braves and Nationals have earned trips to the playoffs.
• The Orioles were heading from Baltimore to Tampa this evening for its three-game series with the Rays, but a fire on board the team plane has required the players and coaches to cool their heels in Jacksonville. According to WJZ.com, no injuries have been reported.
• Congratulations to Homer Bailey on his no-hitter in Pittsburgh on Friday evening. The former first-round draft choice struck out ten and walked only one in the Reds’ 1–0 victory. Jack Moore of Fangraphs shows why his batterymate, Ryan Hanigan, deserves kudos too.
• It might come as a surprise to Mets fans that R. A. Dickey’s teammates did more good than harm vis-à-vis the Cy Young candidate’s won-loss record. According to the Wall Street Journal’s Carl Bialik:

The Mets have struggled to play MLB-average baseball in many ways, including two that starting pitchers have little control over but help determine their won-loss record: hitting and relieving. Starters need to leave the game with their team in the lead, which means they need their teammates to score runs. Yet the Mets have averaged 4.08 runs per game, 0.16 runs lower than the NL average. Starters also need relievers to protect their leads or to keep the game close when they’ve left so the team’s hitters can stage a comeback. But the Mets bullpen has an ERA of 4.71, the highest in baseball, and has given up a whopping 5.18 runs per nine innings. . . .

But Mets batters and relievers stepped up their play for their ace this year in a way they didn’t for his rotation mates. The batters have scored 4.8 runs per 27 outs while Dickey was in the game and 4.8 runs per 27 outs throughout his games, including after he’d left the game but left a lead to protect. That’s about double the rate of scoring the Mets lineup has provided for Matt Harvey in his 10 starts for the team this year. His record is 3–5 despite a 2.73 ERA, nearly as good as Dickey’s. Dickey ranks in the top 25% in the majors for run support — not bad for a pitcher on a team with below-average offense.

The Mets bullpen also has summoned its best work for Dickey games. While relievers made Dickey’s last two wins extra-exciting by yielding ninth-inning home runs, he still won both games. In his 15 wins that weren’t complete games, Mets relievers gave up just 2.6 runs per nine innings, half their season rate. Eight times in Dickey wins they yielded no runs and just once, in win No. 20 on Thursday, did they give up more than a run.

• The Indians canned skipper Manny Acta on Thursday. Anthony Witrado of The Sporting News finds the decision defensible but adds that the front office also needs to be held accountable for the Tribe’s woes.
• Jeff Passan of Yahoo! offers up the story of Frater Matthew Desme, born Grant Desme, and his path from center field to a monastery.
• Why was Sean Forman, Baseball-Reference.com’s proprietor, unhappy this weekend?

You may have heard that the AL MVP is between a player who may win the Triple Crown and a player who most (if not all) of the stathead-friendly sites say is the best player in the league this year. There have been a number of articles being written by veteran writers about how stupid WAR is–complaining it’s incomprehensible, stupid, meaningless, dumb, formulas are different, etc. etc. . . .

Now I’m painting the baseball media with a broad brush, but each of these types of articles gets my hackles up. I’m a fellow card-carrying-member of the BBWAA and one would think that I would be afforded some professional courtesy before having a stat we produce being berated in print.

Not a single member of the print media, the broadcast media or radio has reached out to me to learn more about WAR since this MVP controversy has erupted. Not one. . . .

• “How bad is the [last place] Minnesota Twins rotation,” asks Beyond the Box Score’s Bryan Grosnick? Hint: “Pretty, pretty, pretty bad.”
• Speaking of bad, Don Babwin of the Huffington Post reminds us that the Cubs are on the verge of their first 100-loss season since 1966, while Charlie Wilmoth of Bucs Dugout has comparatively little to say about his beloved team’s late-season free fall.

• Watch slugger Michael Morse perform his very best Jake Taylor impersonation at Busch Stadium.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Earlier this evening, Chad Jenkins made the highlight reel on a play that prompted Blue Jays announcer Buck Martinez to proclaim, “You won’t see that every day.”

In only his second big-league start, Jenkins worked 3 2/3 innings against the visiting Yankees, giving up three runs.

The kids may be back in school, but any grown-ups attending games at Citi Field and Comerica Park this afternoon were treated to memorable highlights.

In Queens, R.A. Dickey struck out 13 batters en route to his 20th victory of the season, but it was actually the Pirates’ Travis Snider scaling of the right-field fence to bring back a sure home-run ball that gets deemed the play of the game:

In Detroit, the home team’s starting pitcher set a new American League record by K-ing nine consecutive batters. Amazingly, the hurler’s name was Doug Fister, not Justin Verlander. The Tigers overcame a furious Royals rally in a 5–4 walk-off win.

Exciting action was also on display in Cincinnati and is ongoing (as of this posting) in Arlington, Texas.