Eury Pérez ended his season with the kind of start pitchers dream about and hitters hate to see. The Marlins right-hander worked a complete-game one-hitter in Friday’s 3-0 win over the Braves, with Sean Murphy’s sixth-inning single standing as Atlanta’s only hit.
Pérez walked one and struck out eight on a career-high 105 pitches. It was his first complete game, and the first time in his three MLB seasons that he got through more than seven innings in a start.
Elsewhere in the playoff picture, the Diamondbacks kept pushing the pressure onto Philadelphia with an 11-4 win over the Padres that stretched their winning streak to six. The Phillies, meanwhile, dropped a 2-0 decision to the Rays and have managed just two runs during a three-game skid at the worst possible time.
With two games left in the regular season, Philadelphia is 87-73 and Arizona sits one game back at 86-74 for the final NL wild card spot. The D’Backs also own the tiebreaker.
Chicago, at 88-73, is only a half-game ahead of the Phillies, while San Diego is 89-71 and sitting in the top wild card position. The Padres and Cubs have already clinched, but the final weekend still has room for some tricky three-way tie scenarios, whether that’s for seeding or to sort out who gets in between Philadelphia and Arizona.
The AL West is headed toward a strange bit of history. Houston and Texas both lost Friday, dropping each club to 79-81 and guaranteeing that the division winner will finish with no better than a .500 record.
It also means baseball will have its first playoff team with a non-winning record. The Astros hold the tiebreaker over the Rangers and can clinch the division today with a win over the A’s plus a Texas loss to the Twins.
Hayden Wesneski gets the ball for Houston against Jack Perkins, while Nathan Eovaldi starts for Texas against Minnesota’s Bailey Ober.
The AL Central race is still alive too, with Cleveland up a game on Chicago and the White Sox holding the tiebreaker. Both clubs won Friday, and Chicago’s 6-1 victory over the Rockies carried an unwanted piece of history for Colson Montgomery, who set a new MLB record with his 224th strikeout of the season.
Friday also delivered a few cleaner milestones. Elly De La Cruz became the fourth 30/30 player in Reds history when he swiped third base in the third inning of Cincinnati’s 6-5 loss to the Blue Jays. Carson Benge’s 20th homer came in the Mets’ 7-6 loss to the Nationals, making him the first New York rookie - and just the eighth rookie ever - to reach 20/20 in his first big league season.
And today brings one more notable finish: Justin Verlander is set to make the 557th and final start of his 21-year career. The future Hall-of-Famer is coming off the 60-day injured list to take the mound for the Tigers against the Pirates in what will be his last outing.
In Other News...
Justin Verlanders Farewell Gives Astros Fans One Last Emotional Reminder
Justin Verlanders final major-league start brought a familiar scene at Comerica Park, with the longtime right-hander back where it all began for him in 2005. He worked 5 innings and struck out six, giving Detroit fans one last glimpse of the arm that defined so many October nights, before the curtain started to fall on a career that stretched across two eras and left its mark on the sport.
For Astros fans, it was a reminder of just how much Verlander meant to baseball in Houston as well as in Detroit, even if this farewell belonged to his old home. He had already announced earlier in the season that injuries and the feeling he could no longer perform at the level he expected had pushed him toward retirement, and the standing ovation as he walked off only underscored the sense that a major chapter was ending with one final, emotional visit to the mound. [Read more 🡒]
Astros Waste A Huge AL West Opportunity In Another Brutal Collapse
A trip to Sacramento gave Houston a chance to gain ground in the AL West, and for a while it looked like the Astros were in position to do just that. Instead, a six-run rally from the Athletics in the sixth inning flipped the game and left Houston staring at another frustrating miss in a division race that keeps tightening.
Jos Altuve, Cam Smith and Christian Walker all factored into a messy stretch defensively, while the bullpen could not slow the inning once it started to unravel. For a team trying to turn September into something cleaner than the roller coaster it has been, this was the kind of collapse that lingers because it cost more than one game. [Read more 🡒]
Astros Now Face A Brutal Final Push To Keep Texas Behind
Friday nights losses left the Astros and Rangers tied at 79-81, a grim but strangely simple setup for the final stretch: Houston still controls its own fate in the AL West because it owns the season-series tiebreaker. Even with both clubs stumbling into the finish line, the Astros can still lock up the division with the right combination of results over the final two games, a reminder of how much value there is in having the head-to-head edge when the margin for error is gone.
What makes the finish so tense is the lack of any safety net. Injuries and pitching issues have helped drag both teams into this mess, and with no wild-card fallback waiting, every inning now carries the weight of a season. Houston can still keep Texas behind it, but the margin is razor-thin and the last weekend is setting up as a final test of whether the Astros can finish the job or let the division slip away. [Read more 🡒]