[BigRed75]

The Quendas cruised to a playoff spot, finishing with a 100-62 record. That was five games better than last season. Even more encouraging was that this was the first season with an all-rookie (or near rookie) line up, now that we acquired Francisco Mejia as our backup catcher.

Pete Alonso stopped hitting home runs in September but he still finished with 27, good enough for the team lead. Casey Mize joined us mid-season but his 12-3 record with a 2.61 ERA, 162 ERA+ and 3.6 WAR in 20 starts easily meant he was our pitcher of the year.

The DMV Beltways, on the other hand...you may recall we entered today's play in third place, 6 games out, with a 4.5% chance of making the playoffs. That quickly narrowed as we played .500 ball for the first eight games (which, to be fair, was ahead of the .486 clip we had been playing at. A loss made us 4-5, and we were losing ground, now in 4th place, 8 1/2 games back.

The next game was a win. So were the 8 games after that. Then a loss, then another 5 wins. And incredible 14-1 stretch in the back half of September actually saw us take the division lead on September 29. Unfortunately, we couldn't hold on, but we did go to a Game 163, clinching our playoff spot with an 85-78 record. We could have played the last month of the season 25 times, and not made the playoffs in 24 of them. But this was the one where we did.