Kershaw makes his final regular season start<\/p>\n
Clayton Kershaw<\/a> already had his final home start in a regular season game, but Sunday was his final regular season appearance \u2014 and, depending on how the Dodgers<\/a> do in the first round of MLB\u2019s postseason, possibly his final-ever appearance, too.<\/p>\n The Dodgers will take on the Reds<\/a> in the NL Wild Card Series, but Kershaw, as Sunday\u2019s starter, was\u00a0left off of the roster<\/a> for this first-round matchup so that Los Angeles could fill the spot with a player who isn\u2019t going to be resting up for days before he can go again, instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n Which means that Los Angeles has to advance past the Reds if this isn\u2019t going to be the last that we see of Clayton Kershaw on the mound. But if this was actually, truly the end, and not just his final regular season appearance before he heads off to retirement, then at least he got a moment to savor it, involving his teammates and a game Mariners<\/a>\u2019 crowd.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Kershaw didn\u2019t look like a pitcher on the way out against Seattle: he struck out 7 batters in 5.1 shutout innings while giving up just 1 walk and 4 hits on 94 pitches. His ERA for the season is just 3.36, which is only high for Clayton Kershaw, whose 2.53 career ERA is, until the moment he actually retires, the best among active players.<\/p>\n Blue Jays win the AL East<\/p>\n Things got out of hand there for a bit, especially when the Yankees<\/a> completely revived in September, but in the end the Blue Jays<\/a> became the AL East champions, and the No. 2 seed on the AL\u2019s side of the postseason. Unlike some more passive clinching going on later in the day, Toronto aggressively made this happen for themselves, defeating the Rays 13-4. This Alenjandro Kirk grand slam ended up being all the offense that the Blue Jays needed\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026but then they scored another nine runs in the innings that followed, anyway. Addison Barger<\/a> and George Springer<\/a> would add their own dingers later on, in what proved to be a very efficient day for Toronto\u2019s offense. Of their 19 baserunners \u2014 15 hits and four walks \u2014 13 of them ended up coming around to score.<\/p>\n The Jays will take on the winner of the Red Sox-Yankees AL Wild Card Series, as their seeding secured them a first-round bye.\u00a0<\/p>\n Guardians clinch with a walk-off HBP<\/p>\n The Guardians<\/a> would have to wait until Sunday to find out if they were AL Central champions, but on Saturday, they clinched a postseason spot when the Astros<\/a> fell too far behind to catch up to either Cleveland or the Detroit Tigers<\/a>. And they did it in the way most befitting a team that was outscored by six runs on the season but managed to put themselves in a position for a postseason trip, anyway: with a walk-off hit by pitch.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t worry, they clinched the AL Central in a slightly more powerful fashion.<\/p>\n This alternate angle that focuses on Brayan Rocchio<\/a> \u2014 and the Guardians\u2019 crowd behind him \u2014 is worth your time, too. Watch them as they watch the ball heading toward that foul pole until finally, clank \u2014 game and division won.<\/p>\n The Guardians might not be much of a threat offensively, but the pitching is legitimate, and they came back from 15.5 games back to win the division \u2014 that\u2019s the furthest back anyone has been. And it wasn\u2019t even a gradual climb back, as the Guardians were 9.5 back of the Tigers as late as Sept. 10. What a whirlwind month for Cleveland, and now they get to bring that pitching staff to a short series against the Tigers, who they have won five of their last six against just this month.<\/p>\n Brewers win franchise-high 97 games<\/p>\n The Brewers<\/a> ended up losing their first two games against the Reds over the weekend, but on Sunday, they avoided the sweep with a meaningful victory. Sure, they weren\u2019t able to keep their division rival out of the postseason with just the one W in three tries, but Sunday\u2019s win was their 97th of the season, and that\u2019s the most in franchise history.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The 2018 and 2011 Brewers were the previous record holders, with 96 wins, both of which had surpassed the previous tie at the top between the 95-win 1979 and 1982 Milwaukee squads. Now there\u2019s a clear-cut, single club at the top, though, and it\u2019s the 2025 edition, which filled the middle of its season with\u00a0one of the greatest stretches of this century<\/a> to leap into first in the NL Central to begin with.<\/p>\n Now, the Brewers are also the NL\u2019s top seed, as the Phillies<\/a> finished at 96 wins. Both clubs get a first-round bye, with Milwaukee facing the winner of the NL Wild Card Series between the Padres<\/a> and Cubs<\/a>, while the Phillies take on whoever comes out of Dodgers-Reds.<\/p>\n Mets fail, Reds back in<\/p>\n The Reds made it to the postseason, securing the NL\u2019s third wild card despite Sunday\u2019s loss to the Brewers. And the team embracing that they were jokingly referred to as cockroaches for their refusal to die is truly fitting, because it\u2019s not as if they had a great September. They went 14-11 and outscored their opponents by just two runs, but at least they did go 8-3 over their last 11 games to pick up that pace a bit and keep the Mets<\/a> from recovering. New York was just 10-15 in September, and even dropped two of three to Cincinnati at one point. They lost two of their last three series to subpar teams in the Nationals<\/a> and Marlins<\/a>, and that ended months of torture and what would have been, at best, slowly backing into the postseason: New York was all of 38-55 from June 13 onward, and played better-than-.500 ball in exactly one month after May. The Reds might have problems, but at least they weren\u2019t the Mets.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n New York\u2019s offense scored plenty of runs, but that pitching\u2026 well, Deesha Thosar<\/a>\u00a0went deep<\/a> on the team\u2019s problems on Monday, and you should check that out. The team isn\u2019t in the worst place imaginable by any means, not when they have Juan Soto<\/a>, Francisco Lindor<\/a> and plenty of promising youngsters who arrived to the majors too-late to save the season, but 2025 is going to sting for a while despite that salve.<\/p>\n Ohtani sets new career, Dodgers\u2019 home run highs<\/p>\n MLB\u2019s final weekend didn\u2019t have all the possible record home runs it could have \u2014 Cal Raleigh\u2019s<\/a> season stopped with 60 and Eugenio Su\u00e1rez <\/a>didn\u2019t become a record fifth player with 50 in a single season \u2014 but Shohei Ohtani<\/a> at least gave us something to marvel at. One year after setting the Dodgers\u2019 franchise record for homers with a personal career-best of 54 dingers, Ohtani improved that figure by one with his 55th homer of the year.<\/p>\n With Raleigh getting to 60 and smashing a bunch of catcher- and switch-hitter-related records along the way, the sheer volume of 50-homer players and Aaron Judge<\/a> having yet another historic season, the quality of Ohtani\u2019s offense might even have come off a little underrated. He hit .282\/.392\/.622 with 55 home runs, though, with that slugging leading the NL, and his 380 total bases led the majors. Oh, and Ohtani stole 20 bases, picking up his final one on Saturday night, making him the\u00a0only player in MLB history to ever have a 50-homer, 20-steal season more than once. Ohtani, of course, became the first \u2014 and only \u2014 50 homer, 50 steals player a year ago.<\/p>\n
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