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The big-market teams joined the party last night; the Dodgers and Yankees are officially playoff-bound. Plus: Some positivity in this week’s Power Rankings, Pete Alonso returns to Queens and I spent way too much time looking at maps just to solve a baseball mystery. I’m Levi Weaver — welcome to The Windup!
Welcome to the Bash: Dodgers, Yankees join playoff bracket
A third of the 12 playoff spots are now spoken for, with the Dodgers and Yankees joining the Brewers and Rays. Last night’s clinchers had a theme: star power.
Dodgers 4, Reds 1: Tarik Skubal put together his best start since being traded to L.A. In fact, if you go by the Bill James Game Score, it was his best start all year (79). However you quantify it, seven shutout innings with nine strikeouts to clinch a playoff spot is (step one of) why the Dodgers traded for him.
Teoscar Hernández briefly tried to bat out of order in this one, which would be more embarrassing if he hadn’t already homered earlier in the game.
It’s L.A.’s 14th consecutive playoff appearance, which ties the 1991-2005 Braves for the MLB record.
Yankees 8, Twins 3: Aaron Judge hit his first home run since May 24 in a six-run eighth inning. That blast wasn’t as important in this win, but as October approaches, sigh-of-relief homers don’t get much bigger. Judge had been 3-for-14 (.176, all singles) since returning from a three-month stint on the IL.
Both teams will now try to push the gas pedal down and win their respective divisions. The Dodgers have an infinitely easier path, currently holding a nine-game lead over the Padres with under two weeks to play. The Yankees trail the Rays by 3.5 games.
More Dodgers: Edwin Díaz’s most recent rehab-assignment appearance was horrendous, and he may not make the postseason roster.
More playoff chase (find the standings here):
- Chicago wins 7-3 (Part 1): Aided by an 18-pitch walk from rookie Tristan Peters, the White Sox beat the Guardians, locking down the head-to-head tiebreaker and extending their AL Central lead to 1.5 games.
- Chicago wins 7-3 (Part 2): The Cubs beat Atlanta, scooting a half-game ahead of Philadelphia for the top NL wild-card spot. Pete Crow-Armstrong is three steals from a 40/40 season.
- NL wild-card contender wins 8-7 (Parts 1 and 2): The Padres and Diamondbacks both won by 8-7 margins — San Diego over Colorado and Arizona over Miami via Corbin Carroll’s two-run walk-off homer.
- AL still bad: The Blue Jays held the Tigers hitless until the 7th inning, then lost 6-5. Toronto remains a game behind Cleveland in the AL wild card.
Johnny Flores has a full rundown, including tonight’s key matchups.
Middle Relief: Best thing for each team this year?
In this week’s Power Rankings, our team tries to identify the best thing that has happened to each team in 2026. In honor of their playoff clinchers last night, here are our Nos. 2 and 4 teams, respectively shown.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Record: 91-59
Last Power Ranking: 2
Best thing to happen in 2026: The trade deadline blockbuster for Skubal.
Kyle Tucker hasn’t been great. Shohei Ohtani has dealt with injuries. Blake Snell has made seven starts. Edwin Díaz is struggling. And still, the Dodgers are in first place with the best World Series odds in baseball.
When they needed mid-season reinforcements, they traded for the best pitcher in baseball. Are the Dodgers flawed? Sure. But are they about to roll out Snell, Skubal and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in a playoff series? You bet. The best thing that happened to the Dodgers in 2026 is that they remained the Dodgers of 2024 and 2025. — Chad Jennings
New York Yankees
Record: 87-63
Last Power Ranking: T-5
Best thing to happen in 2026: Cam Schlittler is that guy.
Look, watching Schlittler shut down the Red Sox in an elimination game last October in his 15th career big-league start was bound to heighten expectations for the right-hander in his sophomore season. Nobody had this coming: a monster season of 30-plus starts, an ERA under 2.00 and fewer questions about a Cy Young he can pretty much build a mantle for than whether there will be an MVP to go with it. Is there anyone else in baseball you’d prefer to start an important October game right now? — Tim Britton
For the other 28 teams, click here.
Back Again: Alonso returns to Queens
Rookie of the Year. Five-time All-Star. Two-time Home Run Derby winner. Mets franchise’s all-time home run leader. Yeah, Pete Alonso’s first time back in Queens since signing with Baltimore was a bit emotional.
The team showed a montage video to honor the former Mets first baseman, and fans cheered him on as if he were still one of their own, with many leaving after his final at-bat in the top of the 8th inning.
There were also the chants, which started during batting practice (“Pete A-lon-so”) and later shifted to a more punitive message: “Fire Stearns” — referring to Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns, who allowed Alonso to leave via free agency.
It makes sense they’d be upset. Not only did the Mets faceplant out of the starting gate in Alonso’s first year elsewhere, but his 35 home runs and 100 RBIs are just two stats in which he outpaces all his former Mets teammates.
Adding insult to injury: On the night Alonso returned to Citi Field, the Orioles’ 2-1 win mathematically eliminated the Mets from playoff contention. That’s a rough coincidence.
- Alonso and Francisco Lindor both have 299 career home runs. Double party tonight in Queens?
- Tyler Kepner dives into the Alonso-Mets divorce and surmises that it still doesn’t make sense.
It’s Outta Here! But, To Where? … Kentucky?
Have you ever found yourself watching a majestic home run soar through the Cincinnati night sky, when the next thing you know you’re scrutinizing the Northwest Ordinance of 1787?!
It started with this home run by Elly De La Cruz, which literally left Great American Ball Park. The estimated Statcast distance was 457 feet, but beyond that wall lies cement, a road and then …
Kentucky.
Well, sorta. In a simple world, anything south of the Ohio River would be Kentucky, anything north of it would be Ohio, and the mysteries of the river would be none of our business.
But we do not live in a simple world. We live in a civilization that demands to know which state should pay for a bridge and who gets to collect revenue from boat-based business. More to the point, we also need to know: Did Elly De La Cruz hit a ball that bounced into a different state?
As it turns out, the answer to that question lies in an argument that took more than 200 years to solve.
Before it was a state, Ohio was part of the Northwest Territory, chartered in 1787 with a document formally titled: “An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States North-West of the River Ohio.”
You technically cannot be northwest of a river if you are in said river. So (Kentucky argued) Ohio stops where the water begins, right? But (Ohio argued) shorelines fluctuate with things like tides and dam construction, and you can’t have state lines that wantonly float atop each little rising tide.
This argument went on until 1980, when the Supreme Court (invoked here for the first time in any Windup) ruled the official state border should be the low-water mark of the Ohio River as it existed in 1792, when Kentucky was admitted into the union. Sorting that out took five more years to finalize, using surveys conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers around the turn of the 20th century.
(That’s why there’s a bizarre S-curve in the state line right out in the middle of the water a little further east, thanks to an old peninsula that is now underwater.)
ANYWAY, thanks to maps.ohio.gov — here’s your answer:
So no. De La Cruz absolutely did not hit a ball into Kentucky, and nobody ever has (not from that ballpark, anyway).
Mystery solved.
More Reds: Manager Terry Francona says he wants to stick around and be part of the solution in Cincinnati.
More weird Ohio facts: Researching this is how I also learned Ohio didn’t technically become a state until 1953. This is peak mid-September baseball-writer-brain stuff, folks.
Handshakes and High Fives
Before the season, new Yankees shortstop George Lombard Jr. had breakfast with an experienced predecessor: Derek Jeter.
Braves SP Reynaldo López (shoulder) is headed back to the IL. Will Atlanta rethink the plan for AJ Smith-Shawver?
Meanwhile, one of the Braves’ biggest shareholders is publicly pushing for the team to be sold.
Yasiel Puig was convicted of obstruction in February. Sam Blum explains why he hasn’t been sentenced yet.
Chandler Rome has more on the Carlos Correa roster-crunch situation in Houston, as Correa nears his return from the IL.
Jim Bowden gives his perspective on the league’s labor dispute.
Eliminated from contention: I didn’t do this on purpose, but we already wrote about the two teams eliminated last night (Reds and Mets).
Most-clicked in our last Windup: For a second consecutive day: The Instagram post with video of Luis Arraez’s funny reaction to a high-and-tight pitch.
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