By the time Gerrit Cole takes the mound at Yankee Stadium, two games will already have been played in Baltimore and Cleveland will be preparing to defend the smallest division lead on the board.
That is the shape of a 16-game September 23 schedule that gets better as the day moves along. Tampa Bay and New York have split the first two games of their four-game series. Cleveland goes into Fenway Park with six straight wins and Chicago only a game behind in the AL Central. Milwaukee, sitting at 98-59, sends Logan Henderson to the mound after dropping its series opener in Philadelphia.
Then comes the late game in Los Angeles: San Diego and the Dodgers are both 15-5 over their last 20, even if the standings no longer make them look like equals.
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Tampa Bay has the lead. New York has Cole.
The first two games at Yankee Stadium settled almost nothing. Tampa Bay won 6-1; New York came back with a 2-0 win. The Rays still own a six-game lead in the AL East, and they have won seven of 10 against the Yankees this season, but Wednesday's game begins with the series square.
Cole is a good reason for New York to like its pitching setup. His 3.63 ERA is backed by a 3.91 FIP and 1.10 WHIP, and he has walked only 1.6 batters per nine innings. Tampa Bay's Ian Seymour has not prevented runs quite as well — 4.38 ERA, 4.18 FIP — yet he brings a different problem. His 11.0 K/9 is among the best marks in the supplied starter pool.
The offenses are separated by almost nothing in average scoring: 4.56 runs per game for New York, 4.54 for Tampa Bay. How they produce those runs is less similar. The Yankees have 217 home runs, second in MLB. Tampa Bay owns the better average and on-base percentage.
If neither starter gives much away, the late innings should not offer much relief. New York's bullpen ERA is 3.15; Tampa Bay relievers have allowed more runs but carry a 1.19 WHIP.
The Rays have had the better season and the better season series. The Yankees get Cole and home field for Game 3.
Milwaukee's offense isn't built the way its run total suggests
Milwaukee has scored 5.13 runs per game, second in the majors. Normally that number points toward a lineup living on power.
Not this one.
The Brewers have hit 149 home runs, the lowest total in MLB, yet they lead the league with a .340 on-base percentage. They have found another route to 98 wins, and Philadelphia saw enough of it to win 6-4 in Tuesday's opener.
Now the Phillies have to deal with Logan Henderson.
His 2.51 ERA already stands out, but the more striking figure is a 0.81 WHIP across 93.1 innings. He has walked 1.5 hitters per nine and struck out 10.3. Aaron Nola has thrown nearly twice as many innings for Philadelphia, 168.1, but comes in with a 4.49 ERA and 4.79 FIP.
The Phillies can point to their home record — 42-34 — and the fact that they have already taken the first game. Milwaukee has a different sort of insurance behind Henderson. Its bullpen owns a 3.42 ERA, fourth in MLB.
So the second game is less about the Brewers' 98 wins than about whether Philadelphia can do twice what few teams have done consistently this season: keep Milwaukee off base and then beat a strong pitching staff late.
Cleveland and Chicago are playing in different cities, but the same race
Cleveland has won six straight. Chicago has won three.
That leaves exactly one game between them in the AL Central.
The Guardians handled the first part of their trip to Boston with a 3-2 win and now send Foster Griffin against Sonny Gray. Griffin has given Cleveland 166.2 innings with a 3.67 ERA. Gray has been better by most run-prevention measures — 2.82 ERA, 3.50 FIP, 0.90 HR/9 — and Boston also owns the best bullpen ERA in baseball at 3.09.
For the Red Sox, the timing is awkward. They have lost three straight even though their 84-73 record still has them listed second in the AL Wild Card standings. Cleveland's offense ranks only 26th in scoring, but during a six-game winning streak, that has been enough.
Chicago's assignment looks different. The White Sox go into Kansas City after a 14-11 opener, a score that does not fit especially well with what the pitching numbers say about the two clubs. Chicago's bullpen ranks eighth in ERA; Kansas City's ranks 29th and last in WHIP.
Bryan Hudson is also working with a 3.03 ERA through 65.1 innings, compared with Seth Lugo's 5.06 over a much larger 169-inning workload.
Cleveland controls the division by a game. Chicago does not need the Guardians on the same field to keep the pressure there.
Same 15-5 stretch, very different view of the NL West
San Diego and Los Angeles have identical records over their last 20 games.
The standings say the Dodgers lead the Padres by 10.
Tuesday's opener looked much more like the standings than the recent-form column: Los Angeles won 7-0. The Dodgers have now won five straight, are 51-28 at home and have taken eight of 11 games from San Diego.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto gets the next turn. Through 179 innings he has a 2.51 ERA and 0.87 WHIP, with quality starts in 78 percent of his outings. Robbie Ray's 3.60 ERA is solid, although the rest of his line is less comfortable against this particular opponent. His FIP sits at 4.73 and he has walked 4.6 hitters per nine.
Los Angeles is scoring 5.01 runs per game and ranks second in both slugging and OPS. San Diego's bullpen, with a 3.49 ERA, has actually been better over the full season than the Dodgers' group.
The Padres' problem is getting the game to that part of the night in good enough shape for it to matter.
Elsewhere on the schedule
Nationals at Tigers — two identical records, two very different strengths. Washington and Detroit are both 74-84 and have split the first two games. The Nationals own the far better offense, scoring 5.08 runs per game, but their bullpen ERA is 5.04. Detroit's relief group is at 3.81. Richard Lovelady's 3.86 ERA comes from only five starts, and his 5.06 FIP and 1.84 WHIP make that ERA worth treating carefully.
Blue Jays at Orioles — two games, and very little room between the clubs. Baltimore won the first game of the series 4-3 and begins the day one game behind Toronto in the standings. Max Scherzer is Toronto's probable starter for the 1:35 game; Baltimore had not named its starter when the data was collected. Neither probable starter was listed for the 6:35 game. Toronto has scored fewer runs per game than any MLB team, but its bullpen ERA ranks seventh.
Twins at Giants — the ERA column does not tell the whole story. San Francisco's Cesar Perdomo has a 3.72 ERA, but that comes from only 19.1 innings and three starts; his FIP is 4.96. Minnesota's Connor Prielipp has a 4.94 ERA over a much larger sample, yet his 3.76 FIP, 1.30 WHIP and 9.3 K/9 are all better than Perdomo's marks. The series finale starts tied 1-1.
Cardinals at Pirates — Pittsburgh's September run keeps going. The Pirates have won five straight and 14 of their last 20 after shutting out St. Louis 2-0 in the opener. Their offense ranks fifth in runs per game, and Lake Bachar has a 3.56 ERA and 1.14 WHIP. St. Louis counters with Matthew Liberatore, whose ERA is 5.36 through 30 starts.
Reds at Braves — Cincinnati already spoiled the obvious script once. Atlanta is 51-28 at home and Chris Sale owns a 2.18 ERA, 2.28 FIP and 0.99 WHIP. Cincinnati still walked into Truist Park and won the opener 4-0. Andrew Abbott now has the harder half of the pitching assignment: his 4.70 ERA and 4.90 FIP sit well above Sale's, and Atlanta also owns a 3.42 bullpen ERA.
Marlins at Cubs — the best-scoring lineup in baseball has something to correct. Chicago leads MLB at 5.33 runs per game and also ranks first in slugging, OPS and home runs. Miami beat the Cubs 8-2 anyway. Kevin Gausman's 4.55 ERA is not especially flattering, though his 3.75 FIP, 1.27 WHIP and 9.3 K/9 all give a better picture of his season than ERA alone.
Mets at Rangers — Texas cannot afford much help from a schedule that already took the opener away. The Rangers are listed three games out of an AL Wild Card position and lost 6-3 to New York in the first game. Their probable starter was still TBD when the data was collected. The Mets do know theirs: Nolan McLean has a 3.18 ERA across 172.2 innings with 9.8 strikeouts per nine.
Diamondbacks at Rockies — Arizona has started this trip the way it needed to. A 7-2 win extended the Diamondbacks' streak to three and kept them four games from the listed NL Wild Card position. Colorado's 57-100 record looks nothing like its offensive rankings: the Rockies are seventh in runs per game and fifth in OPS. Their bullpen has been another story, with a 4.84 ERA.
Angels at Athletics — Ureña is the best reason to look past the records. The clubs have 157 losses between them, but Walbert Ureña has put together a 2.74 ERA over 144.1 innings for the Angels and has allowed only 0.60 home runs per nine. Jeffrey Springs goes for the Athletics with a 6.18 ERA and 5.93 FIP. The A's won the first game 9-7.
Astros at Mariners — Seattle has owned the season series, Houston owned the opener. The Mariners have won nine of 12 meetings, then were shut out 7-0 on Tuesday. Houston is listed first in the AL West at 78-79. Ethan Pecko's 3.77 ERA comes from only four starts; George Kirby has the deeper track record and the better FIP, walk rate and home-run rate in Wednesday's starter comparison.
The games that can change the shape of the night
September 23 does not need a manufactured theme. The standings already provide one.
Tampa Bay can leave Yankee Stadium with its AL East margin intact or give New York another opening. Cleveland's six-game streak has pushed the Guardians into first place, but Chicago is close enough that the Central can move with results from two different ballparks. Milwaukee has 98 wins and perhaps the strangest elite offensive profile on the schedule. Los Angeles and San Diego reach the final game of the night equally hot over the last 20 and nowhere near equal in the standings.
There are good pitching lines scattered everywhere — Sale in Atlanta, Henderson in Philadelphia, Gray in Boston, Yamamoto in Los Angeles — but Wednesday is not simply a pitcher's slate.
It is late September. The more useful number in several cities is the one in the games-behind column.
