Here are three things to keep an eye on around baseball this weekend\u2026<\/p>\n
1. Trout chasing 400:<\/p>\n
Mike Trout<\/a> belted the 399th home run of his illustrious career last night, placing him just one round-tripper shy of becoming the 59th plate in MLB history to reach the 400 milestone. Trout, currently in a three-way tie with Andres Galarraga<\/a> and Al Kaline<\/a> on the all-time leaderboard, is hitting .235\/.368\/.426 (119 wRC+) and has already secured the tenth 20-homer season of his career (plus 17 homers during the shortened 2020 season). He\u2019ll square off against Luis Castillo<\/a>, Bryan Woo<\/a> and George Kirby<\/a> this weekend as he looks to add another accolade to what\u2019s already a surefire Cooperstown r\u00e9sum\u00e9.<\/p>\n 2. Senga on the mound for Syracuse:<\/p>\n The Mets optioned Kodai Senga<\/a> to Triple-A Syracuse last week upon calling up top prospect Brandon Sproat<\/a>, hoping to get the former Cy Young runner-up back on track. Senga posted a 6.56 ERA over eight starts after returning from a monthlong IL stint due to a hamstring strain. His season ERA still sits at 3.02, but his mounting struggles at a time when the Mets are fighting for their postseason life became too severe for the team to ignore. Senga will make the first of what\u2019ll be multiple Triple-A starts (barring an injury in the big league rotation) later today when he takes on the Red Sox\u2019 Worcester affiliate in a game slated to begin at 6:35pm ET. Home runs (2.02 HR\/9) and walks (12.9%) have been particularly problematic for Senga during this poor stretch, so it\u2019ll be worth keeping a close eye on how the right-hander commands the ball during what the Mets hope will be a swift Triple-A reset.<\/p>\n 3. Key Wild Card series abound:<\/p>\n The Mets have lost six in a row, shrinking their Wild Card lead to a mere 1.5 games over both the Giants and Reds. Things won\u2019t get easier for the Mets, as they\u2019ll be tasked with stopping their September swoon in a matchup with old friend Jacob deGrom<\/a>, who\u2019s pitched to a resurgent 2.78 ERA, 27.9% strikeout rate and 5.8% walk rate in 155 2\/3 innings this year. The Rangers are in Queens for a three-game set that also has major implications in the AL Wild Card hunt as well; Texas sits just two games back of an also-reeling Astros club that is now tied with the Mariners for first place in the AL West.<\/p>\n Elsewhere in the NL Wild Card scramble, the Giants have a tough task keeping their hopes alive, as they\u2019ll host the Dodgers for a three-game set pitting them against Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a>, Clayton Kershaw<\/a> and Tyler Glasnow<\/a>, each of whom has an ERA south of 3.30 on the season. The Reds, meanwhile, travel to West Sacramento to take on the A\u2019s in a three-game series where they\u2019ll face righties J.T. Ginn<\/a>, Luis Severino<\/a> and Luis Morales<\/a>.<\/p>\n Both the D-backs and Guardians can keep their faint playoff hopes alive with series wins over retooling AL Central clubs; Arizona hosts the Twins for a three-game set, while Cleveland hosts the White Sox. The Diamondbacks have pulled to within three games of the Mets (though they\u2019d also need to leapfrog the Giants and Reds). The Guards are 3.5 games back in the American League. The Cardinals are still within four games of an NL spot, but they\u2019d likely need to sweep the Brewers in Milwaukee this weekend to truly stay afloat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here are three things to keep an eye on around baseball this weekend\u2026 1. Trout chasing 400: Mike…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-138720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}