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 24 – 30, 2001 | One Hundred Five and Fifty-Seven | The Regular Season Is Over | The Playoff Bracket Is Set
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TEAM THAT EARNED A BYE LOOKING LIKE A TEAM ALREADY ON VACATION
There is a particular rhythm to a season's final week once the division has been clinched and the only remaining stakes are health and rest. Sacramento lost four of its last six, got blown out by Seattle, got walked off twice by sub-.500 Portland, and somewhere in the middle of it all produced a seventeen-to-one demolition that looked like a different team entirely. None of it changed anything that matters. The Prayers finish at one hundred and five and fifty-seven, the best record in the American League, and they have earned the bye that sends them directly into the next round while six other teams fight through wildcard to advance.
The bigger news arrived in the injury report rather than the box scores. Victor Alvarez no longer appears on it — he is healthy, full stop, after missing most of the season's final month. Shinohara's recovery window has shortened to three weeks, putting a return inside the postseason window squarely in play. Sacramento enters October as healthy as it has been at any point since July.
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DID YOU CATCH THOSE GAMES? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY
@ Seattle, September 24-26 (1-2)
Devon Goodson turned the opener into a personal showcase, going three for three with four RBI as Seattle piled on eleven runs against a Sacramento pitching staff that had little left in the tank for a game that no longer carried postseason stakes. Eleven to two, a lopsided finish to a series that began with the division long since wrapped up.
The lineup found its rhythm the next night. Nakazawa's three-run homer in the third inning broke the game open, Mollohan drove in three of his own, and Sacramento cruised to a ten-to-four win that looked far more like the team that had spent September running away with the West.
The finale was the one that stung. Jang was nearly perfect — six and two-thirds innings, no runs, eight strikeouts — and got nothing to show for it when Chris Rosenberg's two-run double in the bottom of the twelfth ended a marathon that ran past three and a half hours. Four to three, Seattle, in a game where the better pitching performance simply didn't matter.
@ Portland, September 28-30 (1-2)
Alex Bonilla delivered the dagger in the series opener, a three-run walk-off homer off Benson in the bottom of the ninth that turned what should have been a Sacramento win into a six-to-five Portland celebration. Cruz had allowed three runs over five and one-third innings, and the bullpen couldn't hold the lead late.
Then came the explosion. Gil Cruz hit a three-run homer in the fourth, Mollohan went three for three with two RBI, and Sacramento scored seventeen runs against a Portland pitching staff that had no answers anywhere in its bullpen. Seventeen to one, the kind of final score that belongs more to batting practice than to a major league box score.
The regular season's final game went quietly to Portland. Ricky Serrano allowed one run over six and two-thirds innings, and Sacramento's offense — playing out the string with reserves mixed throughout the lineup — never found traction. Three to one, Portland, and the 2001 regular season closed with a whimper that had no bearing on anything that comes next.
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CLOSING THE BOOK ON ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE WINS
The full-season numbers, now final, tell the story of a team built on remarkable depth absorbing remarkable attrition and still producing the best record in its league. Shinohara's season ended early but his numbers stand on their own: .292, thirty-one home runs, one hundred and three RBI, a 5.3 WAR in only one hundred twenty-seven games — production that, had he stayed healthy the full season, would have entered serious MVP conversation. Jang finished at sixteen and six with a 3.17 ERA, good for fifth in the league and a legitimate dark-horse Cy Young case. Choi, who didn't appear in a game until June, hit .279 with twenty-eight home runs and a 3.6 WAR in just one hundred and six games — arguably the most efficient offensive season on the roster on a per-game basis. Navarro quietly put together the best all-around year of his career: .302, fifteen home runs, seventy-seven RBI, twenty-two stolen bases. Mollohan's .290 average and 3.3 WAR made him one of the most underappreciated everyday players in the league.
Adam Bandy of Philadelphia won the AL batting title at .353, and Hector Martinez of Albuquerque took the National League crown. Neither distinction belongs to Sacramento. What belongs to Sacramento is a roster deep enough that losing its best player for the season's final month barely registered in the standings.
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THE BYE AND THE BRACKET
The postseason field is set. Sacramento and Long Beach, the two best records in baseball, have earned byes directly into the next round. Around them, six wildcard series will play out: Charlotte against San Jose, Nashville against Brooklyn, and Columbus against Detroit in the American League; Fort Worth against Milwaukee, Phoenix against El Paso, and Los Angeles against Cleveland in the National League. Sacramento will face the winner of one of those American League series once the wildcard round concludes — a wait that allows the roster additional time to heal before the games that matter most actually begin.
There is a strange symmetry in the possibility that San Jose, the team Sacramento spent all season fending off, could be eliminated before ever reaching Sacramento again. Whether that happens is out of Sacramento's hands entirely. For now, the bye is a gift: rest, health, and time.
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THE INJURY LEDGER — GOOD NEWS ACROSS THE BOARD
Alvarez is healthy and off the injury report entirely. Shinohara's iliopsoas tendinitis has three weeks remaining — a timeline that, depending on how long the wildcard round runs, could have him back in the lineup for Sacramento's first game of the next round or shortly after. Mollohan's hip soreness is minor, day-to-day, expected to resolve within forty-eight hours. McCartney remains four to five weeks out with his thumb. The deeper injuries — Rubalcava, Delgado, DeVore — remain unchanged but are no longer relevant to anything Sacramento needs this October.
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WHO'S HOT, WHO'S COLD
Who's Hot: Jang closed the season with a 0.00 ERA over his last two starts, the exclamation point on a fifth-place finish in the league ERA race. Medina's 1.00 ERA over his final fourteen appearances confirms he remains the bullpen's most trusted arm heading into October.
Who's Cold: Gutierrez finishes the year with a 7.94 ERA over his last fourteen appearances — a stretch that has now persisted long enough that his role in the postseason bullpen is a genuine open question. Whether he factors into October plans at all may depend on how the next several weeks of evaluation go.
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AROUND THE LEAGUE
Detroit finished the season as AL Central champions, clinching with room to spare over Charlotte. Cleveland claimed the NL Central, and Long Beach took the NL Pacific outright. Alex Aguilar of Phoenix closed his season with fifty-six home runs and one hundred sixty-four RBI — numbers that will be discussed for years regardless of how far his team advances. Marco Corral of Vancouver finished with two hundred fifty-nine strikeouts, the league's most dominant pitching season by that measure, on a team that did not qualify for October.
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THE INBOX
From Anahit Gasparyan of Sacramento's Glen Elder neighborhood, a sommelier, who asks: "One hundred five wins despite losing Shinohara for the final month. How does this team's depth compare to the 2000 championship roster?"
It compares favorably, and in some ways the comparison flatters this year's group. The 2000 team lost Rubalcava in October, during the postseason itself, and still won it all on the strength of contributions from players who weren't expected to carry that load. This year's team absorbed Lopez's recurring back issues all season, DeVore's season-ending injury, Garcia's midseason departure, and then Shinohara and Alvarez both going down in September — and still won one hundred and five games, the highest total in franchise memory for a non-strike-shortened season. Depth was always going to be this roster's defining trait. The final two months simply provided the most rigorous possible test of that depth, and it passed every time.
From Folake Adeyinka of Sacramento's Vintage Park neighborhood, a data analyst, who asks: "With the bye locked in, how should the front office be using these extra days before the next round starts?"
Health management is the obvious priority — getting Shinohara as close to game-ready as the three-week timeline allows, making sure Alvarez's timing returns after weeks away, and using the gap to settle the bullpen questions that lingered through September, particularly around Gutierrez's role. Beyond the physical side, there's value in simulated game work for starters who may go an extended stretch without real competitive innings while the wildcard round plays out. The bye is an advantage, but only if the team uses the time productively rather than simply resting on the accomplishment of getting it.
From Esperanza Cordero of Sacramento's North Highlands neighborhood, a youth soccer coach, who asks: "Looking at the full-season numbers, who was Sacramento's most valuable player this year?"
By WAR, Shinohara's 5.3 in just one hundred twenty-seven games is the highest mark on the roster despite missing the final month — a remarkable rate of production that would have challenged for the league lead in a full healthy season. But value is also about availability, and by that measure a case exists for Jang, who started thirty-six games, threw nearly two hundred innings, and finished fifth in the league in ERA while anchoring a rotation that needed a true ace. My answer: Shinohara was the best player. Jang was the most valuable, in the sense that his full-season durability and production never wavered while almost everyone else on the roster missed time at some point. Both answers are defensible. Neither answer changes what matters now, which is what both of them — and everyone else — do in October.
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One hundred five and fifty-seven. AL West champions. Best record in the American League. A bye into the next round. Shinohara three weeks out. Alvarez ready now. The wildcard round starts today — Sacramento watches and waits.
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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.