The Opener

1. The Mariners are tied for first place in the AL West. They walked off the Angels in 12 innings, a day after walking off the Angels in 13, to pull even with the Astros. This division is an absolute mess. Those two teams are just two games ahead of the Rangers, who would be the first team out of the AL postseason picture.
2. Apparently struggling Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe has a partially torn labrum in his shoulder, and has been dealing with the issue since May. He got a cortisone shot this week after reaggravating the injury on a diving play.
3. In continuing the theme of newly known old news, the Orioles promoted Mike Elias to president of baseball operations … months ago. They are now looking at adding another executive under him as general manager, per The Athletic.

Happy Friday everyone. It’s a free bits and bobs edition as Hannah finishes up her much-deserved break.

Count this as an opportunity to share The Bandwagon with a baseball-enjoying friend as we hit the home stretch toward the postseason.

The Bullpen

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Maybe the lethargic Dodgers are going to wake up and storm through the playoffs like the power that was promised. And maybe that’s actually the threat to the broader baseball entertainment product. Friend of the newsletter Craig Goldstein makes that compelling case at Baseball Prospectus, writing: “If teams show minimal interest in the regular season and its related stakes, it threatens the entire project.”

One of the closest and most frustrated observers of the Dodgers — those two things seem very related! — Craig cites an array of decisions that betray the organization’s time-shifted sense of urgency, and how it warps the experience of watching a team that is theoretically trying to win a tense game on the TV screen while concerning itself more with winning a hypothetical game in late October.

“There’s nothing strictly wrong with prioritizing a World Series; it’s where the league and its culture have arrived, hand in hand. But the impact of taking the longest view available at every possible turn undeniably results in a diluted on-field product—again, much as we’ve seen with the league as a whole.”

I pretty whole-heartedly agree with this idea, though I think the Dodgers might be the only team sturdy enough to really feel it in the day-to-day of watching their games.

I don’t think there’s a realistic path backward to the one-game Wild Card playoff game model, but each passing season makes that setup feel more and more like the right one.

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There is some baseball that makes a lot of sense, at least. The Hanshin Tigers, who you may remember from when they shut out the Cubs and Dodgers in preseason exhibition games in Japan, turned out to be the class of the NPB!

The Tigers, who play in a suburb of Osaka, clinched the Central League crown earlier than any club in history. Jason Coskrey of the Japan Times has a full rundown on the dominant club, which includes slugging MVP favorite Teruaki Sato, a couple dynamite starting pitchers and also former Diamondbacks prospect Jon Duplantier.

This is a team two years removed from winning the Japan Series, so they’re on a run of success. We’ll see if they can pair another postseason victory with the stellar regular season.

(I will be rooting for them. Because — in the Bandwagon-iest of Bandwagon reasons — a Tigers hat was the souvenir Hannah brought back for me when she covered the Olympics in Japan. Good hat!)

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Next time you drop your keys down a storm drain or fall up the stairs, remember that a guy who can do this …

… also did this.

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Brice Turang hits 110 mph homers now.

Perhaps the Brewers second baseman gets lumped into the whirlwind of Milwaukee’s unexpected excellence, but his transformation from slap-hitting defensive specialist to all-around star has been one of the biggest reasons for it. Turang has been a fascinating test case in adding bat speed, and in reassessing his own potential as a hitter.

As Ben Clemens documented last week at FanGraphs, Turang hasn’t gone full slugger by any means, but he made changes that allowed him to swing for damage when the situation warrants, and it is really working. He’s batting .319 with 12 homers in the second half, making him one of the elite players in baseball in that span, but that’s not really who he is, per se.

The change here, one we’ll undoubtedly see other hitters attempt, is about threading the needle to allow a strength (like bat-to-ball ability) to play while still finding ways to bolster weaker parts of your game.

If there’s a takeaway from Turang, it’s that what he’s doing is actually very hard. If it were as simple as adding bat speed, a lot of guys would be improving a lot now that Statcast measures it to the decimal on every cut. His gains balancing power and bat control have been rare and impressive.

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Apropos of very little, I noticed the Royals employ two of the dozen most valuable position players in the sport (Bobby Witt Jr., Maikel Garcia), and that Vinnie Pasquantino whopped his 30th homer Thursday. If you gave me just those bits of information in March, I would have confidently guessed they were sailing toward a nice postseason berth.

Instead, they’re in the muck on the outside in large part because they can’t get offense from their corner outfielders. It’s offensive how little offense they’re getting from these famously offense-first positions. Hitters playing corner outfield for the 2025 Royals have a .207/.275/.335 batting line. That’s a 67 wRC+, meaning 33% worse than the average major-league hitter, or the same as worst-qualified-hitter-in-MLB Joey Ortiz.

No other team’s corner outfielders have run worse than an 80 wRC+ this year, and only two corner outfield units since FanGraphs splits data picks up in 2002 have been worse than these Royals over full seasons (one being the 2004 Royals).

It’s a huge outfield at Kauffman Stadium, which creates challenges both for the would-be big bats and their prospects at fielding the positions. But it shouldn’t be this difficult to solve.

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Hell, maybe they should have claimed this guy named Michael Helman at one of the various times he was on waivers.

A 29-year-old rookie outfielder who was drafted in the 11th round back in 2018, that seems to be the only way to introduce the Rangers’ surprise contributor — “this guy named Michael Helman.” A decidedly subpar hitter at Triple-A this season, Helman has crushed five homers and batted .255 in 23 games that coincide with Texas belatedly charging into the AL West race.

This week, he belted a grand slam, then hit another homer and robbed one to spark a sweep of the Brewers.

“I'm sure he'd say that's pretty hard to top for the best two days of his life,” Rangers starter Jack Leiter told MLB.com in summing things up. “It’s incredible.”

Winners of five of their last six, the Rangers arrive at Citi Field Friday night to face the freefalling Mets, and they’ll send Jacob deGrom to the mound he once owned. Buckle up.

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The latest layer of Mets malaise comes courtesy of Phillies starter Jesús Luzardo. The begoggled lefty allowed four runs in a rocky first inning Thursday night, then retired 22 in a row as the Phillies lineup thumped their way to the lead, then passed the torch to closer Jhoan Duran to finish things off.

This was a) very indicative of the whole Luzardo experience and b) maybe more painful for the Mets fans than if Luzardo had just thrown a perfect game.

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Maybe volleyball is the official pastime of MLB managers’ children, but what are the odds two recently fired managers — Derek Shelton and Brandon Hyde — wound up at the same girl’s volleyball tournament in Alabama earlier this summer?

“Here we are, both fired managers, and we’re looking at each other, 'What are you doing here?' Shelton said in a story by USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. “Hey, it is what it is. But you know what, as much as I hated losing my job, it’s a blessing spending quality time with my 15-year-old volleyball player. You have to think everything happens for a reason, so if that reason was to spend quality time with Gianna, I’ll take it."

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Finally, happy trails to Anthony Rizzo. The first baseman and core member of the 2016 Cubs retired this week. Rizzo, who beat cancer as a prospect, continues to run a charitable foundation devoted to helping children battling the disease, and will be returning to the Cubs as a team ambassador.

The jovial three-time All-Star will go down as a classic Hall of Very Good guy who often had a big smile on his face. My first image of him will be arms raised, having caught the final out to clinch the longest-awaited World Series triumph, but probably the second image will be the time he razzed Freddie Freeman by calling him “Frederick” while pitching — and striking him out — in a blowout.

Enjoy.