Dodgers in. Tigers flailing. Jays waiting.

In a little more than a week, we’re going to have a special event here at JoeBlogs with the great Jane Leavy, author of the new book Make Me Commissioner, to talk about baseball and all its many issues. That’s going to be a lot of fun. Jane unapologetically has a lot of answers.

I bring this up because on Friday, Clayton Kershaw made his last home start for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

And most people in LA couldn’t watch it. Because Apple TV.

The same was true in Toronto, where the Blue Jays had a chance to clinch a playoff spot. The Blue Jays DECIDEDLY did not clinch that spot — we’ll get to that in a minute — but they too were not on Toronto television. Because Apple TV.

I simply don’t know of a sport that treats its fans quite so disdainfully to cash in on some sweet, right-now Apple money. I mean, look, I’m not saying other sports think of fans first; they mostly don’t. But baseball is in its own league.

I’m sure we’ll get into all that with Jane. Mark your calendar for October 7.

For now, Kershaw did pitch that final game, and he pitched, you know, meh. He gave up a leadoff homer to Heliot Ramos, and he looked tired in the third inning when a double play grounder saved him. But he finished with a flourish, whiffing Rafael Devers on a slider, the 3,045th K of his remarkable career.

Kershaw left the game in the fifth trailing 2-1, but Shohei Ohtani took care of all that in the bottom of the inning with a three-run blast — a classic Shohei homer where he seemed late on Robbie Ray’s 96-mph fastball but was in fact right on time as he powered over the left-field wall. Mookie Betts followed that up with a blast to center on the very next pitch (so glad to have you back, Mookie!) and the Dodgers were on their way to victory.

That would clinch their spot in the playoffs — the 13th consecutive year that the Dodgers have reached the postseason. 

It would also tie the all-time Dodgers-Giants series at 1,287 victories apiece — the first time the series has been tied since August 10, 1896, when Scrappy Bill Joyce’s Giants beat the Brooklyn Grooms 7-2 thanks largely to a crazy hop on George Van Haltren’s RBI single. 

It’s a joyful reminder that baseball has been around for a LONG time. The Dodgers have pretty much dominated this series for the last decade or so, and since the teams moved out West, LA has a 610-549 record against the Giants. But the Giants dominated the scene when the teams shared New York.

On September 10, the Detroit Tigers had a 9.5-game lead in the American League Central.

Nine days later, that lead is 2.5 games. 

“Really, there’s no panic at all,” Detroit’s Gleyber Torres said.

I believe him. I don’t think players panic the way fans do. But I do believe that confidence matters, and for most of the season, the Tigers just radiated confidence — they were good, and they knew it. That’s not how it looks now. Their 10-1 home loss to Atlanta Friday night was their seventh loss in eight games, and while much of it can be pinned on poor Charlie Morton (who has a 12.75 ERA in his last four starts), the truth is that this team has been playing spiritless baseball for a month. It isn’t a lack of effort, in my view. It almost never is. It’s a lack of confidence. And that can be tough to get back.

That’s doubly true when the team chasing you — the Cleveland Guardians in this case — suddenly feels bulletproof. Cleveland won again, their eighth victory in a row, their 13th victory in the last 14, and they’ve got three more against the surrendering Twins before playing the Tigers in a three-game set starting Tuesday. You never know baseball, right? The Tigers could win out, the Guardians could lose every game for the rest of the year, I mean, anything’s possible.

But I think we all see the way the wind is blowing.

Give yourself a prize if you predicted that the Toronto Blue Jays would have the best record in the American League … and a better record than the Dodgers. It doesn’t really add up … but, you know, Bo Bichette has fully rebounded (he’s on pace to lead the league in hits for the third time), and Vladdy Jr. and George Springer are doing some hitting, and Kevin Gausman continues to quietly be pretty excellent, and the team is 27-19 in one-run games.

So maybe it does add up. I was never great at math.

Anyway, the Blue Jays had a chance to clinch the first AL playoff spot. And they got off to a great start — Springer led off the game with a monster 30-for-30 homer off Michael Lorenzen.

The Royals rallied with 20 runs to eke out a 20-1 victory.

And the Blue Jays will have to wait just a little longer for that playoff spot.

In the game, Salvador Perez hit his 30th home run, which leads to Brilliant Reader Mike’s observation that Salvy now has 303 home runs and just 268 walks. That’s an achievement!

Here is a list of the top players with more homers than walks.

Salvy, like David S. Pumpkins, is his own thing.

It’s funny, the only REAL division race going is Seattle vs. Houston for the American League West, and those teams are actually playing each other, and I haven’t been able to get that excited about it. That’s my bad.

As a couple of brilliant readers have pointed out, there are potential stakes here. With the Tigers in freefall, it’s looking more and more likely that the division winner could take the second bye. And it’s not impossible that the division loser will get knocked out of the playoffs entirely … after Friday’s loss, the Astros, along with Boston, are now only 1.5 games ahead of Cleveland for that final playoff spot. 

I guess I just had it in my mind that both teams would make the playoffs and neither team would get the bye. That’s how it looked for a good while. But stuff changes!

The Mariners won this one 4-0 as Julio Rodríguez homered — boy does this guy love it when the weather gets warm.

Julio’s career OPS by month:

This year, since the beginning of August, he’s hitting .309/.349/.596 with 13 doubles and 12 homers in 44 games. He’s still not yet 25, and he’s a force.

Two more Mariners-Astros games this weekend! I’ll be watching! I promise!

One major bummer from this game: Seattle’s Bryan Woo, who has just had a wonderful season, was pulled from the game after he experienced some “pectoral tightness.” The MRI will be today. Surely there has to be a better way to keep pitchers healthy, no?

The Red Sox bludgeoned the Rays 11-7 even though Chris Murphy gave up the ninth-inning grand salami to Everson Pereira … it’s actually funny to see the Rays’ win probability in that inning.

Never give up, right?

Juan Soto hit his 42nd home run of the season — a three-run bomb in the fourth with the score tied — and the Mets rolled to a 12-6 victory over the Washington Nationals, who are STILL one victory away from clinching a non-100-loss season. 

In 2002, the Kansas City Royals went into the final game of the 2002 season with 99 losses. They sent out an absurd lineup for that last game in Cleveland — Kit Pellow hit clean up, I remember — and the Royals predictably lost the game without putting up a fight. I asked Royals GM Allard Baird why they didn’t try harder not to lose 100 games for the first time in franchise history. He basically said, “What difference does it make, 99 losses or 100 losses?”

It makes a difference, I think.

The Mets stayed two games up on the Reds, who pounded five home runs off Cubs pitching — two of them by Hollywood rodeo star Spencer Steer — to keep pace. 

The Yankees lost to the Orioles to stay three games behind Toronto, but Jazz Chisholm did homer, his 30th of the season. He also has 30 steals — he’s the third Yankees player to go 30-30, joining Bobby Bonds in 1975 and Alfonso Soriano in back-to-back years, 2002 and 2003.

I was about to close out this DPR with that fact, but you know I can’t help myself, and I was curious: Which team has had the most players with 30-30 seasons?

And I was honestly surprised with the answer because they’re NEVER the answer for these kinds of questions.

The answer is: The New York Mets.

The Mets have had five players with 30-30 seasons — Howard Johnson (3 seasons), Darryl Strawberry, David Wright, Francisco Lindor, and this year, the suddenly super-speedy Juan Soto.

The only team with four is the Braves … sort of. I say sort of because you have to count Henry Aaron’s 30-30 season in 1963, when the Braves were in Milwaukee. Then there was Dale Murphy in 1983, Ron Gant in back-to-back seasons (1990-91), and Ronald Acuña in 2019 and 2023.

Seven teams have never had a 30-30 player. They are:

Why did I do all this research on a Saturday morning? Because I love you, JoeBlogs readers, that’s why!