Here are three things we\u2019ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day:<\/p>\n
1. Giolito\u2019s 2026 option:<\/p>\n
As the Red Sox gear up for the playoffs, veteran right-hander Lucas Giolito<\/a> is going to be a key part of their October rotation. His turnaround has also made it all but certain that he\u2019ll be a free agent this winter. Giolito is now just four innings shy of reaching 140 frames on the season, at which point his $14MM club option will convert into a $19MM mutual option. Given his impressive 3.31 ERA in 24 starts for Boston this year, Giolito is a virtual lock to decline his end of that option and head back to the open market. He\u2019ll be one of the more prominent arms in a free agent class that also features Framber Valdez<\/a>, Dylan Cease<\/a>, Ranger Suarez<\/a>, Michael King<\/a> and Brandon Woodruff<\/a>.<\/p>\n 2. Raleigh surpasses Mantle, goes for more history:<\/p>\n Cal Raleigh<\/a>\u2019s sensational 2025 season continued last night when he slugged two more home runs against the Royals in Kansas City. That puts him at 56 total long balls on the year, breaking the legendary Mickey Mantle\u2019s record for the most home runs by a switch-hitter in a single season. Mantle had previously owned the all-time mark with 54 round-trippers. Next on the list of milestones Raleigh hopes to reach is the Mariners\u2019 franchise record for home runs, which he currently shares with Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr.<\/a> Griffey hit 56 homers in back-to-back seasons in 1997 and \u201998, but if Raleigh can launch just one more ball over the fence before the end of the year, he\u2019ll take sole possession of the record. He\u2019ll look to do just that against Royals southpaw Cole Ragans<\/a> in his return from the injured list<\/a> tonight.<\/p>\n 3. Cubs go for the clinch:<\/p>\n National League Rookie of the Year contender Cade Horton<\/a> outdueled NL Cy Young favorite Paul Skenes<\/a> yesterday to give the Cubs a 4-1 win over the Pirates and push Chicago to 87 wins on the season. That victory dropped the Cubs\u2019 magic number down to one. Any Cubs win or Diamondbacks loss would guarantee that Chicago will still be playing in October. The Cubs will be wrapping up their series against Pittsburgh with Matthew Boyd<\/a> (3.05 ERA) on the mound opposite Johan Oviedo<\/a> (2.81 ERA in six starts). The D-backs will wrap up a three-game set against the visiting Giants when they send righty Brandon Pfaadt<\/a> (5.31 ERA) to the mound against future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander<\/a> (3.94 ERA).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here are three things we\u2019ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day: 1.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-150022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}