THE HOT CORNER
Baseball coverage from the inside — Sacramento Prayers and the FBL
By Claude Playball | Baseball Insider & Analyst | Host, "Hot Corner" Podcast
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September 3 – 12, 2001 | Ninety-Seven and Fifty | Magic Number Down to Eight | Nakazawa's Power Surge
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A MOMENT THAT WILL DEFINE THE NEXT MONTH
The baseball was as good as it has been all year. Sacramento swept St. Louis, swept El Paso, took two of three from Seattle, then swept Portland to close the stretch — the kind of dominant ten-day run that builds a champion's cushion with two and a half weeks remaining. The division lead grew from six games to eight. The magic number, which tracks the combination of Sacramento wins and San Jose losses needed to clinch, now sits at eight — single digits for the first time all season.
None of that changes what happened on September 11th. Shinohara was hit by a pitch in the fourth inning against Portland and left the game. The diagnosis that followed — iliopsoas tendinitis, five to six weeks — removes the best player in this organization, arguably the best position player in the American League this season, for the remainder of the regular season and a good chank of whatever comes after it. Combined with Victor Alvarez's shoulder labral tear, suffered in a base collision on September 4th and projected to keep him out three weeks, Sacramento now enters its final stretch of meaningful baseball without its two most productive power hitters.
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DID YOU CATCH THOSE GAMES? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY
@ St. Louis, September 3-4 (2-0)
Mollohan went three for four on September 3rd, capped by a two-run double in the eighth that put away a six-to-two win. Jeon worked through traffic for four and one-third innings before handing things to Espenoza and Medina, who combined for four and two-thirds scoreless innings of relief.
September 4th turned into a rout: Navarro homered and drove in three, Lozano added a home run of his own, and Sacramento scored eleven runs against a St. Louis pitching staff that had no answers. Gunn picked up his fourteenth win. The only sour note came when Alvarez was injured in a base collision — the play that would later be diagnosed as a shoulder labral tear.
vs. El Paso, September 5-6 (2-0)
September 5th ended on a walk-off note: Chavarria's two-run homer off Rich Flores in the bottom of the eighth turned a tied game into a seven-to-five win, Sacramento's fourth straight victory. Jang battled through five and one-third innings allowing three earned runs, and the bullpen held.
September 6th brought Alejandro Lopez back into the lineup for the first time since his back strain, and he delivered immediately — a home run in his second at-bat back. Nakazawa added a two-run shot of his own, Cruz threw six strong innings, and Sacramento won seven to two.
vs. Seattle, September 7-9 (2-1)
September 7th was Santiago Gomez's night — six and two-thirds innings, two earned runs, and a Chase Welsh home run that set the tone early. Andretti struggled, allowing five runs in four innings. Five to two, Seattle, snapping Sacramento's win streak at four.
September 8th was a complete reversal: Jeon allowed nothing over six and one-third innings, Chavarria drove in four runs, and Navarro added a home run and seven total bases. Eleven to nothing, as one-sided as any game Sacramento has played this season.
September 9th went to the eighth inning tied before Nakazawa's two-run double off Jeff Dombrowski broke it open. Danny Rodine had thrown seven and one-third shutout innings for Seattle before the bullpen unraveled. Five to three, Sacramento, with Musselman picking up the win.
vs. Portland, September 10-12 (3-0)
September 10th: Navarro went three for four with a home run and two RBI, Nakazawa homered early, and Jang won his fourteenth game despite a shaky finish. Eight to four.
September 11th was the day everything changed. Sacramento won seven to five behind a strong offensive effort — Lozano went three for five, Van Ham drove in two — but the headline was Shinohara exiting in the fourth inning after being hit by a pitch. He would not return, and the iliopsoas tendinitis diagnosis arrived in the days that followed.
September 12th: Andretti continued his remarkable second-half turnaround with seven innings of three-run ball for his twelfth win, and Van Ham's two-run homer in the fifth provided the decisive runs. Six to three, Sacramento's fifth straight win, Portland's sixth straight loss.
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WHAT SHINOHARA'S ABSENCE MEANS
Thirty-one home runs. One hundred and three RBI. A .292 average, forty stolen bases, and the best all-around season any Sacramento position player has produced in recent memory — all of it now paused for five to six weeks at the exact moment the stretch run begins. The lineup will not collapse without him; this roster has demonstrated all season that it can absorb significant losses and keep winning. But there is a difference between absorbing injuries to complementary pieces and losing the single most dangerous bat in the order. Whoever fills the gap in the outfield — Durango, Van Ham, some combination of both — is replacing a level of production that cannot be fully recreated. The honest framing is this: Sacramento's margin for error just shrank considerably, even as its actual division lead grew.
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ALVAREZ AND LOPEZ — THE OTHER INJURY NEWS
Alvarez's shoulder labral tear, suffered in the September 4th collision at St. Louis, is expected to keep him out approximately three weeks — a recovery window that, optimistically, returns him in time for the postseason but not for the remainder of the regular season's meaningful stretch. He was hitting .259 with nineteen home runs and seventy-eight RBI, the clear second power threat behind Shinohara, and his absence compounds the lineup question the team now faces.
Lopez's situation is more frustrating than serious. He returned from his back strain on September 6th and delivered a home run, only to be hurt running the bases again on September 8th — back stiffness this time, day-to-day with a one-to-two-week recovery window. The recurring nature of his back issues this season is a pattern worth watching even as none of the individual injuries has been catastrophic.
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WHO'S HOT, WHO'S COLD
Who's Hot: Alejandro Navarro, who is hitting .571 with three home runs over his last six games and has emerged as Sacramento's most complete everyday player not named Shinohara — a .306 average, fifteen home runs, and seventy-one RBI from the shortstop position. Nakazawa has been nearly as good, hitting .478 with three home runs over his last seven games, finally producing the power the organization projected from him entering the season. With Shinohara and Alvarez both sidelined, these two will need to sustain this level of production for the lineup to hold its current shape.
Who's Cold: Javier Gutierrez has a 9.60 ERA over his last twelve appearances, a significant decline from the pitcher who was nearly automatic in middle relief through the first half of the season. The bullpen behind Benson has carried real weight all year; Gutierrez's recent struggles are the most concerning development in relief since Espenoza's midsummer slump.
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AROUND THE LEAGUE
San Jose has already clinched a wildcard berth, securing their place in October regardless of how the division race finishes — a reminder that even if Sacramento's lead were to evaporate entirely, both AL West contenders are now ticketed for the postseason. Long Beach has clinched the NL Pacific. Detroit and Charlotte remain separated by two and a half games in the AL Central with the season's final stretch approaching. Alex Aguilar of Phoenix has fifty-three home runs and one hundred forty-six RBI — a season for the record books regardless of what division anyone plays in.
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THE INBOX
From Vardan Mkrtchyan of Sacramento's Midtown neighborhood, a pharmacist, who asks: "Shinohara is out five to six weeks. How worried should fans be heading into the postseason?"
The timeline is the relevant detail here. Five to six weeks from September 11th puts a realistic return somewhere in mid-to-late October — which, depending on how deep Sacramento goes, could mean he misses the division series entirely and returns for a later round, or it could mean he is fully healthy for whatever October has in store. Iliopsoas tendinitis is a recoverable injury that does not carry the long-term concern of a structural tear, which is the more encouraging read. The honest worry is not about his long-term health — it is about whether this lineup can sustain its production for a month without him while also navigating Alvarez's absence. That is a real test. It is not, by itself, a reason to panic about October.
From Ngozi Chukwu of Sacramento's Downtown neighborhood, a firefighter, who asks: "Navarro has been incredible the last week. Is he capable of being the primary offensive threat with Shinohara out?"
He has already shown signs of it. A .306 season average with fifteen home runs from the shortstop position is excellent production in its own right, and his recent stretch — three home runs in six games — suggests a player capable of carrying additional offensive weight when called upon. Whether he can sustain that specific level of production for five or six weeks is a different question; no player maintains a .571 average for a month. But the broader case for optimism is real: Navarro has gotten progressively better as the season has gone on, not worse, which is the opposite of fatigue and the kind of trajectory that suggests he can handle a larger role without his performance collapsing.
From Camila Espinoza of Sacramento's South Sacramento neighborhood, a real estate agent, who asks: "The magic number is down to eight with Shinohara and Alvarez both hurt. How quickly can Sacramento actually clinch?"
Mathematically, very quickly — eight combined Sacramento wins and San Jose losses would do it, and given Sacramento's pace over the last ten days, that could happen within the next week and a half even accounting for some inevitable adjustment to the lineup changes. The more important question isn't the clinching date, which is now close enough not to be in serious doubt, but what condition the team is in when it happens. Clinching early with a diminished lineup and then using the remaining games to get healthy and find rhythm before October would be the ideal outcome. Sacramento has the housing built. The next two weeks are about who they are when they move into it.
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Ninety-seven and fifty. Eight games up. Magic number eight. Shinohara out five to six weeks. Alvarez out three. Navarro and Nakazawa will need to carry more than anyone expected. Houston on the road, then Columbus, with the clinch coming soon.
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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.