Sacramento Prayers - 1988 FLB Season

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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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June 14 – June 30, 1996 | Games 68–83 | Fifty and Thirty-Three

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ANDRETTI'S BACK SPASMS, FIVE LOSSES TO BAD TEAMS, AND THE BEST WIN TOTAL IN FRANCHISE HISTORY

There is a specific kind of June stretch that tests whether a team is actually good or has been playing in a comfortable schedule. Sacramento got that test across these sixteen games: three home losses to Philadelphia, two home losses to Portland, a ten-inning loss to Long Beach, a shutout loss to a thirty-one-and-forty-nine Boston team. Against all of that, the team went ten and six and closed the month at fifty and thirty-three, which is the best record in franchise history through eighty-three games. Fifty wins before July 1st.

And then on June 29th, in the fourth inning against Boston, Bernardo Andretti was removed from the game with back spasms. He is listed as day-to-day. I have been covering this organization for three years. The sentence "Andretti is day-to-day with back spasms" is the most alarming sentence I have typed in that entire period, and I typed it in an article where I also needed to report that Philadelphia swept us at Cathedral Stadium and Portland beat us twice at home.

The division lead is thirteen games. We are fifty wins into the year. Alejandro Navarro just appeared at number five on the midseason prospect list. The rotation — Andretti's health aside — has been the best in the American League. Everything is good. And Andretti left a game against Boston with injured back.

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DID YOU CATCH THAT GAME? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY

vs. Philadelphia, June 14-16 (0-3)

The Philadelphia series was perhaps the worst three-game home stretch of the season. Three different pitchers, three different modes of collapse.

Game One was Andretti allowing nine earned runs in four and a third innings — a game score of ten, his worst start since joining the organization. Arellano hit a solo home run in the first, Bandy hit a grand slam in the fifth. The offense scored ten runs and it wasn't close to enough. Twelve to ten, Philadelphia. I want to note that to score ten runs and still manage to lose by two is a very aggravating experience, and I do not have an analytical response to Andretti's line on June 14th except to file it as his first disaster on the mound after seventeen consecutive quality starts.

Game Two was Espenoza holding seven and a third innings and allowing only two runs, and Gonzalez entering with a lead and surrendering an Arellano three-run homer in the eighth off an inherited runner. Seven to three, Philadelphia. Espenoza pitched well enough to win and lost because the bullpen could not hold two thirds of an inning.

Game Three was Strickler's bad-start pattern activating against a left-handed starter. He lasted three and two-thirds innings, allowed six runs, and a rotating cast of relievers spent the remaining five innings managing the damage. Yoshida went four for four with a home run and two walks. Ten to five, Philadelphia. The full home sweep complete.

vs. Portland, June 17-19 (1-2)

Portland came to Cathedral Stadium at twenty-three and forty-eight and won the first two games. I want to let that sentence sit for a moment.

June 17th: Rubalcava threw eight innings and gave up four runs — three of them on solo home runs from three different Portland hitters, including McKenzie's two-run shot in the first. The lineup scored three and ran out of inning. Four to three, Portland.

June 18th: St. Clair held seven and two-thirds innings and allowed three home runs. Taylor hit a two-run shot in the eighth to break a four-to-four tie. Five to four, Portland. Two losses to a second-year expansion franchise. The Hot Corner does not editorialize without evidence. The evidence is the scorecards.

June 19th was Andretti cleaning it all up in one start. Seven innings, two hits, zero runs, eight strikeouts, a game score of seventy-nine. Rodriguez tripled in two in the second. Perez homered. Berrios doubled in a run. Six to nothing, Sacramento, and the Portland series ended with the only result it was always supposed to produce.

@ Seattle, June 21-23 (3-0)

Three wins, three quality starts, three consecutive evenings of watching the rotation function exactly as designed.

Strickler on June 21st: seven and a third innings, two earned runs, eight strikeouts, a game score of seventy. Alonzo hit a two-run homer in the seventh. Choi hit another in the eighth. Four to two.

Rubalcava on June 22nd threw eight innings of one-hit baseball. One hit. One run on a Penela solo home run in the fourth, which is the only reason this was not a shutout. One hit, seven strikeouts, ninety-three pitches. This is the Rubalcava who held six innings and gave up one run to finish the ALCS last October. Four to one.

Espenoza on June 23rd went seven innings of one-run ball in the rain, MacDonald pinch hit a home run in the ninth, and Lawson closed it. Four to one. Three wins, three starts under two runs allowed, Seattle swept and falling to thirty-three and forty-three.

@ Tucson, June 24-25 (2-0)

Tucson is twenty-nine games under .500 and it showed. Andretti on June 24th went eight innings and won his eleventh game. Lopez hit two home runs, Rodriguez hit two, Lozano and MacDonald also went deep. Thirteen to four. Andretti's ERA through this start: 3.06.

St. Clair on June 25th won his seventh game with seven innings of three-run pitching. Cruz hit a three-run homer in the third. Blake, pinch hitting in the eighth, hit his first major league home run. Seven to three. Medina saved his twenty-third. Six consecutive wins for Sacramento.

vs. Long Beach, June 26-27 (1-1)

Strickler on June 26th went seven innings with a game score of sixty-seven and pitched well enough to win. The bullpen held for nine. Then Gonzalez entered in the tenth, allowed a single, and a Hall run-scoring hit ended it. Four to three, Long Beach. Hernandez was injured throwing in this game and placed on the ten-day IL with dead arm the next day — Shinohara was purchased from Triple-A Oxnard to fill the roster spot.

June 27th was Rubalcava holding six innings of three-run ball while Musco homered in the first, Lopez homered in the third, and MacDonald hit a three-run shot in the fourth. Five to three, Sacramento. Medina saved his twenty-fourth. The series split against the NL Pacific leader was about as good a result as could be expected from a two-game interleague window.

vs. Boston, June 28-30 (2-1)

Vince Lett shut Sacramento out on June 28th. Seven and two-thirds innings, seven hits, zero runs, eight strikeouts. A pitcher who is five and ten on the season and carries a 5.97 ERA held this offense scoreless on one hundred and eighteen pitches. Espenoza pitched six and two-thirds innings of two-run ball and lost two to nothing. Very disappointing, other than this, I have nothing else to report from that game.

June 29th was the game where Andretti left with back spasms. He lasted four innings before being removed after allowing a Lee three-run home run in the third that gave Boston a three-to-one lead. The bullpen held for six innings of combined baseball, Mollohan drove in two in the seventh to tie it, Lopez tripled in the ninth to extend the game, and Alonzo's single in the tenth won it. Four to three. Andretti is listed as day-to-day. The injury report says back spasms. The Hot Corner has no additional information beyond what the team has disclosed.

June 30th was the series clincher and the fifty-win milestone. Musco's grand slam in the eighth off Ramirez turned a six-to-six game into a ten-to-six lead. St. Clair held five and a third innings, which was adequate given the bullpen work that followed, and Cruz reached base five times with two singles and three walks. Eleven to seven, Sacramento. Fifty wins before July 1st.

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THE STORIES THAT DEFINE THIS STRETCH

Andretti's back spasms are the most important story in Sacramento baseball right now — Eleven and two, 3.19 ERA, second in wins across all of baseball, and on June 29th he was removed in the fourth inning with a back injury and is now listed as day-to-day. I cannot evaluate the severity of back spasms without medical access I do not have, but what I know is that the rotation around him has depth — Strickler is seven and six with a 4.25 ERA and has been remarkably consistent lately, Rubalcava just threw eight innings of one-hit baseball, St. Clair is seven and four. If Andretti misses two starts, Sacramento survives. If he misses two months, October becomes a different conversation entirely. I am not panicking. I am watching.

Strickler's run of consistency is now extended enough to be called a pattern — His last five starts: game scores of seventy-six, seventy, eighty-three, sixty-seven, seventy. The ERA of 4.25 continues normalizing away from the Portland and Philadelphia disasters. He leads baseball with one hundred and ten strikeouts. The good-start Strickler has now been the only Strickler for ten consecutive outings, excluding the June 16th Philadelphia collapse.

Rodriguez has sixteen home runs and is being discussed nowhere near enough — Sixteen home runs through eighty-three games. I predicted in March that he would have a breakout year at twenty-six. He is outpacing that prediction by a margin that I find privately satisfying. He has more home runs than Cruz, Choi, Lopez, or Musco. He hit two in the Tucson blowout. He hit one off a Boston pitcher in an extra-inning game that Sacramento needed to win. The AL West MVP conversation should include his name, and it currently does not.

Alejandro Navarro is the number five prospect in all of baseball at age eighteen — The midseason prospect update arrived and the Hot Corner noticed that the Sacramento shortstop prospect, currently at Triple-A Oxnard, jumped to fifth overall. He is eighteen years old. This matters for one reason above all others: Musco's durability situation means a short-side timeline for organizational succession planning, and the fifth-ranked prospect in baseball being a shortstop in Sacramento's system is the best possible answer to that question. I will continue monitoring Navarro's Triple-A statistics.

Cruz has fifteen errors and I have to say something about it — Twelve of those errors were logged in June alone. The Gold Glove second baseman from 1994 has committed fifteen errors in eighty-three games, which is the kind of defensive regression that starts a quiet conversation in the coaching staff even when the offensive numbers — .316 batting average, twelve home runs — remain excellent. I do not know whether this is a throwing mechanics issue or a concentration pattern. What I know is that Cruz's Gold Glove reputation is being tested by the scoresheets.

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AROUND THE LEAGUE

Columbus is fifty-eight and twenty-five. The number is almost incomprehensible. They are thirty-three games over .500 before the All-Star break. Charlotte is fifty-one and thirty-one. Sacramento at fifty and thirty-three is six and a half games behind Charlotte in the wild card standings, which matters for October seeding rather than division survival. The AL West title is settled in everything but formal arithmetic — thirteen games up on Seattle with seventy-nine games remaining.

Manuel Hernandez is at .386 with forty home runs and ninety-nine RBI. He is one RBI away from one hundred before the All-Star break. The Hot Corner has run out of ways to document this appropriately. It is happening and it will continue happening.

The NL midseason picture: San Antonio leads the NL Central at fifty-six and twenty-seven. Albuquerque leads the NL Desert at fifty-one and thirty-two. Long Beach leads the NL Pacific. The NL Wild Card is a five-team pile at or near forty wins with Phoenix holding a nine-game lead. None of this affects the Sacramento October bracket directly.

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THE INBOX — Questions worth answering

From Marcus Delacroix of Folsom, a man who narrates audio tours for the state capitol building and has delivered the same seventeen-minute script approximately four thousand times, which has made him the world's leading expert on staying calm when things repeat in predictable patterns, who asks: "Should we be scared about Andretti?"

Marcus, yes. Productive fear. Not panic fear. Back spasms can be nothing or they can be a slipped disc, and day-to-day is the injury designation that tells you almost nothing. I am going to watch the next two weeks carefully, and if he misses more than one start I will say clearly that this has become a rotation problem. For now: cautious concern.

From Yuki Takahara of Sacramento's Land Park neighborhood, a restaurant supply salesperson who has somehow convinced himself that watching baseball from behind home plate is more accurate than watching it from any other angle, who asks: "Is the Philadelphia series a sign of something wrong or just a bad week?"

Yuki, both. The Andretti start on June 14th was genuinely alarming — nine earned runs in four and a third innings from the best pitcher in the American League. That does not happen by accident. Andretti was off-command from the first inning and never recovered, and Philadelphia's lineup is good enough to make a struggling Andretti pay. The other two losses were bullpen failures rather than rotation failures. A bad week, yes. But a bad week that contained one of the worst individual starts a Sacramento ace has posted in recent memory, which puts it in a different category than ordinary variance.

From Renata Soroka of Rancho Cordova, an occupational health nurse who spends her days reminding people how their bodies actually work and who would very much like to apply that expertise to the Sacramento training staff right now, who asks: "How worried are you about the injury situation generally?"

Renata, I'll answer you directly because you're asking the right question. Adams is done for the year. Hernandez is on the IL with dead arm. Perez is day-to-day with the hamstring. Musco has missed portions of half the series this season. And now Andretti has back spasms. None of these injuries is catastrophic in isolation. All of them together describe a roster that is managing accumulated physical stress across a long season, and the cumulative load matters. The rotation depth — Strickler, Rubalcava, St. Clair, Espenoza — is sufficient to absorb one Andretti start. It is not sufficient to absorb six.

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Houston comes to Cathedral Stadium next week, then Detroit on the road. The second half of the season begins with the best record in franchise history — fifty wins, thirteen games up, and a rotation that five weeks ago looked like the best in the league.

Andretti's back is the story until it isn't. I will report what I know when I know it.

Got a question for the mailbag? Find the Hot Corner wherever you get your podcasts.

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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.

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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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July 1 – July 18, 1996 | Games 84–96 | Sixty-One and Thirty-Five | All-Star Edition

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RUBALCAVA 250, ANDRETTI HEALTHY, AND A ROTATION THAT WILL NOT STOP

Jordan Rubalcava won his 250th career game on July 2nd at Cathedral Stadium. He allowed five runs in six and a third innings and the lineup scored nine and he got the win and after the game he stood at a microphone and said he never dreamed of winning this many. He has a 250-96 record and a career ERA of 2.72. He is thirty-three years old. There is no standard frame of reference for what that sentence means — two hundred and fifty wins with a 2.72 career ERA at thirty-three — except to note that the win came against a Houston team that is currently on pace for eighty wins, which is the appropriate occasion for a man who should eventually have a bronze plaque.

Andretti is listed at twelve and two with a 3.25 ERA through the break — a fact that would be more impressive if the ERA hadn't been as low as 2.55 two weeks ago, but which still represents the best first-half ERA of any Sacramento starter since Rubalcava's 1994 season. And the back spasms? He went six and a third innings at Portland on July 14th and won his thirteenth game. The back held. I will stop typing about the back now.

Sixty-one and thirty-five. Nineteen and a half games up on Seattle, who is forty-two and fifty-four. The division is not a race. It is a calendar exercise.

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DID YOU CATCH THAT GAME? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY

vs. Houston, July 1-3 (3-0)

Strickler on July 1st threw eight innings of zero-run baseball. Zero. Three hits, five strikeouts, zero walks, one hundred and two pitches, a game score of eighty-one. Houston produced four baserunners over eight innings and scored none of them. The ERA through this start: 3.95. His strikeout total through this start: leading baseball. Eight to nothing would be appropriate. The offense managed two runs. The result was the same. Two to nothing.

Rubalcava's milestone on July 2nd: six and a third innings, five runs, seven strikeouts. It was not an elegant two hundred and fiftieth win. Shinohara hit two home runs, including a grand slam in the fourth inning when he arrived at the plate with the bases loaded and hit a fastball from Netsch to left. He had not previously appeared in a game log that was going to matter. He appeared in this one and drove in five runs. Nine to five, Sacramento.

Espenoza on July 3rd held six and two-thirds innings of one-run ball. Cruz, Musco, and Blake each got hits in a twelve-hit offense. Lopez homered in the seventh. Eight to four, Sacramento. The three-game Houston sweep completed and the AL West lead extended.

@ Detroit, July 5-7 (2-1)

Andretti on July 5th returned from the back spasm scare and won his twelfth game. Six innings, three runs — higher than his recent quality standard but enough. Rodriguez had a bases-clearing double in the third inning, then homered in the eighth for his seventeenth on the year. Eight to five, Sacramento.

Strickler on July 6th threw seven innings of one-run ball in an eight-to-one win. Lopez homered in the first. Alonzo singled in two in the fifth. Detroit managed four hits. The ERA dropped to 3.79. He is nine and six with one hundred and thirty-four strikeouts — tied for second in baseball.

July 7th was a ten-inning extra-inning loss that I want to document accurately without editorializing beyond what the box score supports. Rubalcava held seven innings and allowed three runs — two of them on a Putz triple in the third. The bullpen held for two. Then Gonzalez entered in the tenth, allowed a base hit, and Rodriguez singled home the game-winner. Four to three, Detroit. The loss was Gonzalez's third on the year and his second in ten-inning situations.

@ Portland, July 11-14 (4-0)

Four games, four wins, zero moments of drama until the McKnight solo home run off Medina that momentarily threatened the July 14th save opportunity. Portland is twenty-seven and sixty-nine. The specific results are listed below, and the Hot Corner will not pretend they required extensive analysis to produce.

Strickler, July 11th: seven innings, one run, seven strikeouts, game score of sixty-six. Choi doubled in two in the eighth. Medina saved his twenty-sixth. Three to one.

Rubalcava, July 12th: seven and a third innings, one unearned run, one hit. One hit in seven and a third innings. The offense provided four runs on nine hits and Medina saved his twenty-seventh. Four to two.

Espenoza, July 13th: eight and a third innings, one run, three strikeouts. Musco homered in the third for the four-run lead. The good-start Espenoza has a ERA of 2.18 over his last six starts — the number that appears in the who's hot section — which is what this pitcher produces when his command is right and he is throwing his sinker at the bottom of the zone. Four to one.

Andretti, July 14th: six and a third innings, two runs, his thirteenth win. Musco doubled in a run in the fourth. Lozano homered in the seventh. Prieto held a run and two-thirds. Medina saved his twenty-eighth despite giving up a McKnight solo shot in the ninth. Four to three.

@ San Jose, July 16-18 (2-1)

I was prepared to report a clean sweep against a forty-and-fifty-four team. San Jose prevented that on July 16th when Adams hit a solo home run off Strickler in the sixth, Avitia and Clausing followed with hits, and the Demons scored nine runs total. Strickler allowed four earned in five and a third innings — not the disaster-start version, but not the quality-start version either. Nine to three, San Jose.

July 17th was Rubalcava going six and two-thirds innings of two-run ball. Musco hit a two-run triple in the fifth. Lozano tripled in the second. Five to two, Sacramento.

July 18th was an eight-inning offensive explosion that required, as these things sometimes do, five innings of mediocre Espenoza pitching to make interesting. Cruz hit a grand slam in the eighth inning when the lineup needed it after the Demons had cut a two-run lead to one. Ten to four, Sacramento. Cruz drove in five runs total. Lawson won in relief and is five and zero on the season.

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THE STORIES THAT DEFINE THIS STRETCH

Rubalcava's 250th win belongs in a paragraph by itself — Career record 250-96. Career ERA 2.72. If this were any other sport, we would call it a Hall of Fame career in progress. In baseball, we note that he is thirty-three years old, that the Prayers signed him through 1997, and that on July 2nd he allowed five runs in six and a third innings and walked off the mound a milestone pitcher in a major professional league. The Hot Corner has covered this franchise for three seasons. Rubalcava winning number 250 at Cathedral Stadium, on a warm July night, against Houston, with Shinohara hitting a grand slam in the same game — that is a game log worth filing.

The rotation through the All-Star break is the best unit in the American League and it is not close — At the break: Andretti thirteen and two at 3.23, Strickler ten and seven at 3.78, Rubalcava nine and six at 3.84, Espenoza seven and seven at 3.70, St. Clair seven and four at 3.78. The ERA leaders in the who's hot section list five pitchers, all from this rotation, all under 3.10 over their recent samples. Medina has twenty-eight saves and a 2.04 ERA. Lawson is five and zero. This bullpen and rotation combination is the deepest I have covered in three years at this organization.

Strickler at one hundred and thirty-four strikeouts is tied for second in baseball and I want to document exactly how we got here — He was seven and three with a 4.74 ERA entering May. He was seven and six with a 4.52 ERA after the Philadelphia disaster on June 16th. He is now ten and seven with a 3.78 ERA. That correction happened across twenty-one starts. Each time the bad-start version appeared, the good-start version followed and reset the trajectory. The who's hot section lists him at 2.16 ERA over his last six starts. The strikeout rate of 8.9 per nine innings has been this consistent all year, even through the bad starts. That is the number that separates him from being merely inconsistent and places him in the category of genuinely elite when he is functioning.

Rodriguez is seventeen home runs and Musco is sixteen and Cruz is fourteen and I need to make a specific observation — Three position players on the same roster with fourteen or more home runs at the All-Star break, all producing WAR above three, all playing premium defensive positions. The specific comparison that comes to mind is the 1994 offense that won the World Series. That team had Cruz and Musco as the offensive cornerstones. This team has those two plus Rodriguez, who did not exist in the 1994 lineup. The Hot Corner predicted Rodriguez's breakout. The specific validation I want on the record: he is producing this in his first full season of the breakout, not a fluke year.

Andretti made the All-Star roster as a starter and is listed at three and twenty-nine WAR through the break — He was not selected as the starter — that went to Ian Thompson, which is reasonable given Thompson's 2.95 ERA and higher WAR — but the selection itself is the appropriate recognition of the best first half from a Sacramento pitcher since Rubalcava in 1994. The back spasms are not currently a concern. Twelve and two, 3.23 ERA, All-Star.

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AROUND THE LEAGUE

Columbus is sixty-five and thirty. San Antonio is sixty-five and thirty in the NL. Two teams in different leagues running at the same pace, both approximately on pace for one hundred and eleven wins. The Hot Corner notes this without drawing a conclusion that the data does not currently support.

Charlotte is fifty-six and thirty-eight — eight and a half games behind Columbus. Sacramento is sixty-one and thirty-five — four games behind Charlotte in the Wild Card standings. The division title is settled. The Wild Card seeding matters for postseason bracket positioning.

Manuel Hernandez won the Home Run Challenge with fourteen round-trip victories in the final against Jimenez. He has forty-four home runs and one hundred and fifteen RBI at the break. The NL won the All-Star game eight to five. Jose Mesa of Milwaukee hit a home run and was named the game MVP. Hernandez, who is also playing in this game and hitting .372 with forty-four home runs, did not win the MVP. I have no comment on the selection process.

Charlotte's DeMario Raya tore a flexor tendon and is done for the year. That is a significant rotation loss for a team eight and a half games back of Columbus. The Hot Corner will track whether Charlotte closes the gap in August.

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THE INBOX — Questions worth answering

From Tomoko Ishida of Sacramento's Pocket neighborhood, a woman who professionally translates instruction manuals from Japanese into English and once spent three weeks translating a document about rice cookers that turned out to be about sewing machines, who asks: "Is Andretti definitely a Cy Young candidate?"

Tomoko, thirteen wins, 3.23 ERA, All-Star selection, and the second-best ERA in the AL through the break after Ian Thompson. Yes, he is a Cy Young candidate. Whether he is the Cy Young winner depends on what happens in the second half and how Thompson finishes. Right now it is a two-man race and I would not tell you with confidence which way it lands.

From Darius Okwuosa of Sacramento's Tahoe Park neighborhood, a structural engineer who spends his days ensuring that buildings do not fall down and his evenings watching Gil Cruz commit errors, who asks: "What is happening with Cruz defensively?"

Darius, eighteen errors through ninety-six games. The Gold Glove at second base from 1994 has committed eighteen errors. I do not have a clean mechanical explanation. What I have documented is that the errors are distributed across the season rather than concentrated in one collapse — he is making one roughly every five games, which suggests this is not an injury-related issue but a focus or mechanics pattern. The offensive numbers are excellent: .315 average, fourteen home runs, thirty-three stolen bases. The defensive number is quietly alarming. Coaches have presumably noticed. I am watching.

From Henrik Halvorsen of Elk Grove, a retired harbormaster who moved inland from Bodega Bay twenty years ago and still, in his own words, does not entirely trust land, who asks: "How worried are we about the second half?"

Henrik, Columbus is the concern. Not the division — Seattle is nineteen and a half back. Columbus is six and a half games ahead of Sacramento in the win column and has Flores in their rotation for the ALCS. That is the October problem. The second half of the regular season is not particularly worrying. The second half of October is where the preparation needs to happen, and that preparation takes the form of figuring out what Flores is throwing against this lineup and why it works. He is three starts in against Sacramento in 1996 and has allowed three runs combined. The Hot Corner will continue watching.

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Columbus comes to Cathedral Stadium Friday night. Schlageter, Gaias, and Hernandez in succession — the same rotation that held Sacramento to four runs in three games at Columbus in April. The division race is over. This series is October preparation. Sacramento is sixty-one and thirty-five. The All-Star break ends Thursday.

The season is half complete. Jordan Rubalcava has two hundred and fifty wins.

Got a question for the mailbag? Find the Hot Corner wherever you get your podcasts.

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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.

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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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July 19 – July 31, 1996 | Games 97–109 | Sixty-Six and Forty-Three

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FIVE STRAIGHT LOSSES, A BENCH-CLEARING BRAWL, AND A TRADE THAT CHANGED THINGS BEFORE IT WAS ANNOUNCED

Let me start with what happened in the bottom of the ninth inning on July 19th, because it is the best thing that happened in this entire stretch and it deserves to sit at the front of the article rather than be buried in the recap section.

Columbus led by two runs. Their closer Matt Cooney — a man who has converted five saves this year and faced seventeen batters all season — entered with two on and two out. Ha-joon Choi, twenty-one years old, thirteen home runs entering the at-bat, took the first pitch he liked and drove it over the fence for a three-run home run. Cathedral Stadium went from collective tension to complete eruption in the time it takes a baseball to land in the seats. Sacramento won eight to seven. I was there. I will not forget it.

Then they lost two to Columbus and five in a row to Fort Worth and Brooklyn and the division lead contracted and the trade deadline arrived on July 31st and the team sent Rafael Alonzo to Seattle for Hector Florez. And in his first start as a Sacramento Prayer, Florez hit a home run against the Baltimore starter in the fourth inning.

The team is sixty-six and forty-three. Twenty-three games above .500. Twenty-three games ahead of a Seattle team they just traded their catcher to.

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DID YOU CATCH THAT GAME? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY

vs. Columbus, July 19-21 (1-2)

Game One was described above and requires no additional analysis beyond one data point: Choi's home run was the thirteenth of his career, which means at twenty-one years old he is already producing better than his preseason projection in a category where his ceiling remains genuinely unknown. Eight to seven, Sacramento.

Game Two ran thirteen innings and took four hours and twenty-two minutes. St. Clair held six, then the bullpen used five additional arms across the next seven innings and kept Columbus off the board through twelve. Then Cruz committed his twentieth error of the season — a misplay in the thirteenth that allowed two inherited runners to score — and Sacramento lost seven to six. I have been waiting for an appropriate moment to address the Cruz defensive situation directly and this is it: twenty errors. The Gold Glove second baseman from 1994 has committed twenty errors this year. He is hitting .318 with fourteen home runs and the defensive numbers are a quiet catastrophe running alongside the offensive excellence.

Game Three was Strickler allowing four home runs across six and a third innings — Salcevo, Aguilar, Flynn, all at different moments in the game — while the Sacramento offense scored three. Five to three, Columbus. The series split one-and-two in the October preview that I said would matter. I still believe it matters. I will document what I learn accordingly.

@ Cleveland, July 22-23 (2-0)

Two games, two wins, against the team that is thirty-five and sixty-two. Rubalcava held seven and two-thirds innings, Choi hit a solo home run in the ninth for the winning run, Medina saved his thirtieth. Three to two. Then Espenoza held seven and two-thirds against the same Cleveland lineup, Lozano hit a three-run home run, Blake hit one in the fourth inning. Eight to three. The Cleveland series provided what it was supposed to provide.

vs. Fort Worth, July 24-25 (0-2)

Andretti pitched seven innings of two-run ball in Game One and lost because the lineup scored only one run. The lefty Ori hit a two-run home run in the eighth and that was enough. Three to one, Fort Worth. Andretti's ERA after this start: 3.13. His record: thirteen and three. He pitched excellently and still lost.

Game Two was St. Clair allowing four runs in six and two-thirds innings. Lange hit a two-run home run in the sixth. The lineup scored three. Six to three, Fort Worth. Two home losses to a fifty-and-fifty-two team. The who's cold section lists Rodriguez at .059 over eleven games, which is the kind of cold stretch that can happen to any hitter but which is particularly conspicuous when it happens to the team's RBI leader in a stretch where the lineup is going quiet against average pitching.

@ Brooklyn, July 26-28 (0-3)

Strickler threw eight innings of one-run baseball in Game One but the bullpen gave it away. Medina allowed a Gonzalez two-run home run in the ninth to tie it, then Gonzalez allowed a Kaeding pinch-hit two-run homer in the tenth to win it. Five to four, Brooklyn. Strickler had a game score of seventy and he deserved much better outcome.

Game Two was Rubalcava pitching seven innings and losing two to one because Carpenter singled in the fifth and Martinez sacrificed in the fourth and the Sacramento lineup managed a single MacDonald at-bat of four-for-four and otherwise produced almost nothing. Two to one, Brooklyn. Five consecutive losses. The losing streak had different causes in each of the five games: Andretti unlucky, St. Clair ineffective, Strickler brilliant, Rubalcava pretty adequate. The common thread was an offense that scored one, three, four, one, and one runs across the streak, which is a hitting problem and not a pitching problem.

Game Three was Espenoza allowing two runs in six and a third innings against a Brooklyn starter named Alex Trillo who was making his first professional appearance and pitched eight innings of zero-run ball. That sentence contains everything necessary to understand what happened. Two to nothing, Brooklyn. The five-game losing streak complete.

@ Baltimore, July 29-31 (2-1)

Andretti on July 29th ended the losing streak decisively. Seven and a third innings against Ian Thompson — the same Thompson who had shut Sacramento out at Cathedral Stadium six weeks earlier — and the offense tagged Thompson for three home runs, Choi in the third, Perez in the fourth, Lopez in the fifth, all off the pitcher who is competing with Andretti for the Cy Young Award. Eight to two. That was Andretti's fourteenth win.

July 30th has seen a bench-clearing brawl in the seventh inning, which followed Jorge Jaime being hit by a pitch from Benson and apparently having strong feelings about it. Both Jaime and Benson were ejected. The game itself was already effectively decided — Baltimore led ten to nine at the time — and finished thirteen to nine as the bullpen could not hold the lead through a chaotic sixth and seventh inning sequence. Four home runs against St. Clair in two innings, Jaime, Carrasco, Saldana, England. Thirteen to nine, Baltimore.

July 31st was the trade deadline game. Strickler pitched six innings. Florez, newly acquired in the Alonzo trade, had a great night — in his debut for Sacramento Florez went 2 for 2, scored twice and drew two walks. More importantly, he homered in the forth to tie the game at two a piece. Perez homered in the sixth for the go-ahead run, and Medina saved his thirty-first. Five to two, Sacramento.

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THE STORIES THAT DEFINE THIS STRETCH

The Alonzo trade is the most consequential roster move since the expansion draft took away Baldelomar — Sacramento sent Alonzo, prospect Miguel Diez, and five draft picks to Seattle for Florez and two draft picks. Alonzo was hitting .243 with four home runs and declining. Florez entered the article as a name in the who's hot section of the previous article — the Seattle catcher I had been watching as the best offensive catcher available on a team headed nowhere. He is thirty-one years old, hitting .289 with eleven home runs in the first half, and he immediately started at catcher on July 31st in Baltimore and homered in the fourth inning. The draft pick cost is significant. The immediate production validates the move.

The five-game losing streak against Fort Worth and Brooklyn needs close attention — The team scored a combined nine runs across five games against a fifty-fifty team and a fifty-eight-and-forty-five team. Not against Columbus. Not against Charlotte. Against Fort Worth and Brooklyn. In each game the rotation performed adequately — Andretti lost one to three while pitching seven innings of two-run ball, Strickler lost four to five while throwing eight innings of one-run ball, Rubalcava lost two to one while pitching seven innings. The lineup did not score. That is a hitting problem. I do not have a mechanical explanation for why it concentrated in these five games. I am filing it under the same category as the San Jose series in June: genuinely baffling and hopefully self-correcting.

Charlotte is losing its rotation and the gap is closing — Sato torn a rotator cuff and is out for the year. Closer Rodriguez is out for the year with elbow inflammation. Charlotte was fifty-nine and forty-nine at the end of July — fifteen and a half games behind Columbus in the AL Central. They are now competing for the wild card from a position of rotation depth that has materially weakened since July. The Hot Corner notes this not because it affects Sacramento's division title — which is effectively sealed — but because Charlotte's October viability affects the bracket Sacramento will navigate.

Florez homered in his first start — I have been covering this organization for three years and the transaction note "traded for catcher" has always meant "coverage gap at position filled." Florez is not coverage gap material. He is a thirty-one-year-old catcher with eleven first-half home runs and defensive skills that rated him second in the AL at his position in the preseason scouting package I keep on file. He hit a home run in his first start in a Sacramento uniform. I am not reading into one at-bat, but the sample is not zero.

Andretti beat Thompson eight to two — The Cy Young competition between these two pitchers has been the most interesting individual story of the second half, and on July 29th Andretti's lineup lit up Thompson for three home runs while Andretti himself held Baltimore to one run in seven and a third innings. The ERA comparison at the end of July: Andretti 3.04, Thompson 3.67. The wins comparison: Andretti fourteen, Thompson eleven. The Hot Corner is not making a Cy Young prediction in July. I am just saying that the most direct head-to-head metrics available give advantage to Andretti.

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AROUND THE LEAGUE

Columbus is seventy-five and thirty-four. The number continues being incomprehensible. They are forty-one games over .500 before August. Detroit is thirteen and a half back in the AL Central and climbing — sixty-one and forty-seven, a better team than their first half suggested. Charlotte is fifteen and a half back after the rotation injuries and has been one and nine over their last ten games.

Manuel Hernandez has forty-eight home runs and one hundred and twenty-five RBI. I want to note for the record that one hundred and twenty-five RBI before August is a number that cannot be found in any historical reference I have access to. He is twenty-eight years old. His team is fifteen and a half games behind Columbus in the division. The Hot Corner is keeping this in the file.

The NL Desert is tightening: Albuquerque at sixty-three and forty-six, Phoenix at sixty and forty-nine. The Damned lost Fernando Soto for the year with a torn labrum, which removes their best second baseman from the wild card race.

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THE INBOX — Questions worth answering

From Bernardo Kasprzak of Sacramento's Arden Hills neighborhood, a piano tuner who travels the city visiting the same eighty instruments on a rotating schedule and has been doing it long enough that he can tell when a piano is going sharp before he even touches a key, who asks: "Is Choi's walk-off the best moment of the season?"

Bernardo, yes, with no close second. Twenty-one years old, bases loaded, two out, two down in the bottom of the ninth against the best team in baseball. Three-run homer. I'll be describing that at-bat to people at dinner parties for years.

From Odessa Fontaine of Sacramento's Fruitridge Vista neighborhood, a retired marine biologist who now maintains a saltwater aquarium at her home with approximately forty-seven fish she has named after Sacramento Prayers players, who asks: "Are we actually worried about the five-game losing streak or pretending not to be?"

Odessa, a little of both. The rotation pitched fine across all five games. The lineup scored nine runs in five games against two mediocre teams. That is the concerning part. The not-concerning part is that the answer to that question was immediately provided by the offense scoring seventeen runs against Baltimore across the next two wins. I'm naming my concern "temporary" and filing it accordingly.

From Ezra Thornton of Rancho Cordova, a man who professionally writes the small explanatory plaques that go on museum exhibits and who has spent fifteen years condensing complex history into two-hundred-word summaries, who asks: "Describe this season in one sentence."

Ezra, the best rotation in the American League, a five-game losing streak that made no sense, a trade deadline acquisition who homered in his first start, a walk-off by a twenty-one-year-old against the best team in baseball, and a division lead that has never seriously been in doubt.

That is probably more than one sentence should consist of, but you asked as a museum plaque writer for a summary and I am a podcast host, so we both got what we deserved.

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Sacramento comes to Lucifers Park to start August. The rotation faces pitchers with ERAs ranging from 5.00 to 6.42. The division lead is twenty-three games. The October bracket is forming. Columbus is seventy-five and thirty-four.

Sixty-six and forty-three. The first September game is six weeks away.

Got a question for the mailbag? Find the Hot Corner wherever you get your podcasts.

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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.

[liberty-ca]

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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August 2 – August 15, 1996 | Games 110–122 | Seventy-Eight and Forty-Four

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THREE THINGS HAPPENED IN AUGUST AND ALL OF THEM MATTER

First: the rotation put together the best twelve-game stretch in the history of this franchise. The starters went nine and one with a combined ERA so low, it is impractical to measure — Rubalcava at 0.00 over two games, Andretti at 0.69 over two, Espenoza at 0.00 over three, Strickler at 1.80 over two. The bullpen ERA across those games was not much higher. The Sacramento pitching staff leads the entire American League in ERA, starters ERA, runs allowed, hits allowed, opponents average, BABIP, walks allowed, and strikeouts. Every pitching category available. All of them.

Second: Musco hit four home runs over seven games including two-home-run performances in back-to-back outings against Portland, which is the kind of thing a thirty-six-year-old shortstop with a long history of serious injuries is not supposed to do in August of a long season when he has been managing soft-tissue ailments for five months.

Third: Manuel Hernandez of Charlotte hit his fifty-second home run of the season on August 15th, setting the all-time single-season record in the Fictional Baseball League. He now has fifty-four. He has one hundred and forty-one RBI. He is batting .371. The Hot Corner has been documenting this since April and is now simply bearing witness.

Sacramento is seventy-eight and forty-four on the season. Nine consecutive wins entering the off day. The best pitching staff in the American League by every available measure.

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DID YOU CATCH THAT GAME? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY

@ Seattle, August 2-4 (3-0)

Rubalcava on August 2nd: six and two-thirds innings, one run, six strikeouts. Perez doubled in two in the first. Choi hit a two-run home run. Eight to two. Easy.

Andretti on August 3rd went five and a third innings and allowed four runs — not his cleanest outing, a game score of forty-five — but Cruz hit a three-run home run in the third and Lozano homered in the second and the offense scored nine. The who's cold list for Seattle's August starters has ERA values in the fives and sixes, and the Sacramento lineup is receiving exactly what those numbers promise. Nine to five.

Espenoza on August 4th threw seven and two-thirds innings of zero-run ball. Lopez went four for five with a home run, two doubles, and three runs scored. Perez doubled twice. Eight to one. The three-game Seattle sweep complete.

vs. San Jose, August 6-8 (2-1)

Strickler on August 6th threw seven innings of one-run baseball against a fifty-one-and-sixty-two team and lost three to two because Medina walked two batters in the ninth and the inherited runner scored on Reza's sacrifice fly. Strickler had a game score of sixty-nine. He deserved a better outcome. Three to two, San Jose.

Rubalcava on August 7th responded with six and a third innings of two unearned runs — he allowed seven hits and walked one and was effective enough that the line does not fully represent the quality of the performance. Five to two, Sacramento. Lawson held the final two and two-thirds.

Andretti on August 8th won his sixteenth game on five and two-thirds innings, which is shorter than his recent quality starts but sufficient with the bullpen behind him. Cruz homered in the first, Lozano homered in the fifth. Medina saved his thirty-second. Four to one.

vs. Portland, August 9-11 (3-0)

Espenoza on August 9th threw eight innings of three-hit shutout baseball. Eight strikeouts. A game score of eighty-four. Portland is thirty-four and eighty-six. The differential between those two facts — a game score of eighty-four against a thirty-four-win team — is slightly misleading: Espenoza's command was genuinely excellent and would have produced a similar line against better competition. His ERA through this start: 3.26, down from 3.45 two weeks ago. His WHIP leads the American League. Five to nothing.

St. Clair on August 10th threw eight and two-thirds innings and absorbed both Portland home runs — Skees in the eighth — while the lineup scored seven runs and Musco hit two home runs. I will address Musco's August separately. Seven to three.

Strickler on August 11th threw eight innings of two-run baseball and the lineup scored ten runs, nine of them in the eighth inning when the Portland bullpen lost control of an inherited-runner situation involving five batters and two home runs and eventually a mop-up pitcher named Billy Arana who produced a game score of negative nine. Musco homered twice more. Eleven to two. Five consecutive wins.

@ Los Angeles, August 12-13 (2-0)

Rubalcava on August 12th at Los Angeles: eight innings, five hits, zero runs, five strikeouts, game score of seventy-six. The lineup scored one run — Rodriguez's solo home run in the eighth. One to nothing. The winning run scored on zero baserunners except Rodriguez, who hit a pitch over the fence by himself. That is not how you want to win a game, but it is how you accept one. Six wins in a row.

Andretti on August 13th held seven and a third innings of zero-run ball. His ERA through this start: 2.98. Below three, for the first time since May. MacDonald hit a two-run homer in the fifth, Lopez homered in the eighth. Four to nothing, Sacramento. Seven consecutive wins.

vs. Salt Lake City, August 14-15 (2-0)

Espenoza on August 14th threw seven innings of shutout ball. Berrios hit a two-run homer in the seventh. Lawson held the final two. Five to nothing. Eight consecutive wins at the time of writing.

St. Clair on August 15th won his ninth game with six and a third innings of one-run pitching. Mollohan homered. Perez hit a three-run shot in the seventh. Eight to one. Rodriguez left the game in the sixth inning with a hip impingement and was placed on the ten-day IL the same night. Rodriguez, who has eighteen home runs and forty-nine RBI, is expected to miss approximately three weeks. Prayers win for the ninth time straight.

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THE STORIES THAT DEFINE THIS STRETCH

The rotation is the best pitching staff in this league and I am going to declare it an established fact — First in AL ERA, first in starters ERA, first in runs allowed, first in hits allowed, first in opponents average, first in BABIP, first in walks allowed, first in strikeouts. Not top three. First. All eight pitching categories tracked by the league standings table. The specific question that interested me in March was whether the 1996 rotation would be better than the 1994 championship rotation. The answer is yes. Andretti's ERA is 2.98. Rubalcava's is 3.30. Espenoza, who I spent most of April worrying about, is 3.11. Strickler is 3.52. The fifth starter St. Clair is 3.90. This is a rotation without a weak spot in September.

Andretti is seventeen and three with a 2.98 ERA and leads baseball in wins — The Cy Young conversation is essentially closed. Thompson is eleven and six at 3.67. Andretti leads Thompson in wins by six, ERA by sixty-nine points, and has been the most consistent starting pitcher in the American League over the last sixty games. The Hot Corner is not making a formal Cy Young prediction because there are forty-four games remaining. What I am saying is that the argument for any other pitcher in the American League would require acknowledging a gap that is now substantial.

Musco hit four home runs in three games and is hitting .348 over his last seven starts — Two home runs against Portland on August 10th, two more on August 11th — a four-home-run weekend against a team at thirty-four wins that is meaningless to the standings but meaningful to the question of whether Musco at thirty-six, with the three separate injury interruptions just this year alone, is still the player I have been covering since 1993. He really is. When he plays, he is producing at a level that would earn him AL MVP consideration if he had enough plate appearances to qualify.

Lopez reached fifty stolen bases on August 4th — The Hot Corner predicted in March that the 1995 mechanical regression was resolved. Through August 15th Lopez has nineteen home runs and fifty-two stolen bases. His career high in steals was sixty-nine in 1995. He is on pace to exceed that on his current trajectory. The power-speed combination he has produced this year — nineteen home runs and fifty-two steals — is, to my knowledge, unprecedented in Sacramento franchise history.

Rodriguez to the ten-day IL with a hip impingement is the most significant injury since Andretti's back spasm scare — Eighteen home runs, forty-nine RBI, and the breakout season the Hot Corner predicted in March is now interrupted for three weeks. Alex "Energizer Bunny" Bonilla has been called back up for the first time since 1993 season, and the lineup will shuffle accordingly. I expect the offense to absorb this without catastrophic impact because the depth is genuine — Cruz, Musco, Perez, and Lozano are all producing at levels that compensate for one absent hitter. The concern is October: Rodriguez returning from a hip impingement in late August and being ready for a playoff run in October requires specific monitoring.

The left-handed pitching problem appears resolved — The record against left-handed starters was two and six through forty games. Through one hundred and twenty-two games the record is twelve and eleven. The team found the adjustment somewhere in June and July and has been beating left-handed pitching at the same rate as right-handed since. I do not have a mechanical explanation for what changed. I am just documenting the outcome.

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AROUND THE LEAGUE

Columbus is eighty-one and forty-one. They have been slightly less dominant in August — five and five over their last ten — but the lead over Detroit is eleven and a half and the division title is not in question. The October bracket from Sacramento's perspective requires winning the AL West — which is done in everything but formal arithmetic — and then most likely facing the second-place AL Central team in the ALDS, which would be Detroit at sixty-nine and fifty-two, before an ALCS against Columbus.

Manuel Hernandez broke the all-time FBL home run record with his fifty-second on August 15th. He now has fifty-four. The Hot Corner has been tracking this since April and has run out of adequate language. He is one hundred and fourteen games into a season where he is batting .371 with fifty-four home runs and one hundred and forty-one RBI. The record book has been rewritten. I predict Manuel Hernandez to be a first ballot Hall-of-Famer when he becomes eligible.

Charlotte is fifteen and a half behind Columbus after losing Sato and their closer Rodriguez to season-ending injuries. They have won three consecutive games but the rotation depth problem is real.

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THE INBOX — Questions worth answering

From Cristina Nakamura of Sacramento's Land Park neighborhood, a woman who builds scale model ships for a hobby and has constructed fourteen of them over the past twelve years in a spare bedroom her husband calls "the harbor," who asks: "Is this the best Sacramento team ever?"

Cristina, yes. The 1994 team won the World Series with Rubalcava at his peak and Cruz and Musco at twenty-six. This team has deeper pitching — a five-man rotation that is first in eight pitching categories — and a more balanced offense. The 1995 back-to-back team was better than 1994. This team is better than 1995. The specific reason is Andretti, whose emergence as an ace has given the rotation a first starter capable of winning a deciding game in October, which Rubalcava provided in 1994 and 1995 but may not be positioned to do at thirty-three in the same capacity.

From Gregory Osei-Bonsu of Elk Grove, a high school band director who has spent twenty years teaching teenagers to play instruments and has developed a specific tolerance for controlled chaos that he suspects prepared him perfectly for following this bullpen, who asks: "What happened to Medina?"

Gregory, the blown save and the loss in July were the anomalies. He has thirty-three saves now with a 2.45 ERA. The bullpen behind him — Lawson five and zero, Gonzalez holding the who's hot section, Benson with sixteen holds — has been the most reliable late-inning unit this organization has assembled. What happened to Medina is that he had two bad outings in July and then went back to being the pitcher who has been closing games since April.

From Patience Abara of Sacramento's Natomas neighborhood, a pediatric occupational therapist who evaluates children's motor development for a living and who recently informed me through the mailbag that she has been naming her assessment categories after Sacramento Prayers players since 2014, who asks: "With Rodriguez hurt, who bats cleanup?"

Patience, the honest answer is that Jimmy Aces has been rotating the four spot among Cruz, Musco, and Perez depending on the opposing starter since July, and Rodriguez's absence formalizes what was already an informal rotation. My projection: Perez bats fourth against right-handed starters, Musco against lefties. Perez has fifteen home runs and eighty RBI and hit a three-run home run in the seventh inning of the August 15th win. The cleanup spot is not unoccupied — it has several qualified candidates.

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Nashville visits next, which is a three-game series against a team that has won nine of its last ten but remains twenty-six and a half games behind Sacramento in the standings. Then Washington at home. The rotation cycles back to Rubalcava, Andretti, and Espenoza over the next six days.

Seventy-eight wins. Forty-four games remaining. The magic number is nineteen.

Got a question for the mailbag? Find the Hot Corner wherever you get your podcasts.

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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.

[liberty-ca]

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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August 16 – August 28, 1996 | Games 123–134 | Eighty-Eight and Forty-Six

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SIXTEEN STRAIGHT WINS, CLINCHING WITHIN REACH — AND ANDRETTI HAD THE WORST OUTING OF HIS CAREER

Sixteen consecutive wins is a number that requires some context to appreciate fully. In sixteen games Sacramento outscored opponents by somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred runs. The rotation produced start after start of controlled excellence — Strickler, Rubalcava, Andretti, Espenoza cycling through like a well-maintained machine. The lineup scored seventeen runs in Nashville on August 18th and eleven in ten innings against Charlotte on August 23rd and ten against Washington on August 22nd.

And somewhere in the middle of that Charlotte game on August 23rd, Bernardo Andretti threw two-thirds of an inning, gave up eight runs on eight hits including a Hernandez two-run home run, recorded a game score of two, and walked to the dugout to let six relievers piece together the remaining nine and a third innings while the lineup scored eleven. Sacramento won eleven to ten in ten innings. Andretti got a no-decision.

The question I want to answer first is whether that start means anything. The short version: it doesn't. But — there is always a "but" — he went back out four days later and allowed five runs in six innings against Seattle, tooking his fourth loss of the year. His ERA moved from 2.98 to 3.33.

The team is now eighty-eight and forty-six on the season, and the magic number is one. Cruz and Perez both left games with injuries in back-to-back days. The window for clinching division is this weekend.

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DID YOU CATCH THAT GAME? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY

@ Nashville, August 16-18 (3-0)

Strickler on August 16th went seven innings and held Nashville to three runs — a Jessee two-run double in the fourth was the primary damage — while the lineup scored four, including solo home runs by Hernandez, Cruz, Choi, and Musco in back-to-back first and fifth/sixth innings. The formula was clean: four home runs, seven quality innings, Medina's thirty-fourth save. Four to three.

Rubalcava on August 17th threw eight innings of three-hit ball with zero walks. I want to note the zero walks specifically because Rubalcava's primary issue this year has been control — he had walked five batters in the Washington start on August 22nd. Against Nashville he walked nobody. Three to two, Sacramento, on Bonilla's sacrifice fly and a Musco RBI single.

August 18th was a seventeen-to-nothing shutout demolition with Andretti throwing eight innings of two-hit ball. Lozano hit two home runs, including a grand slam in the eighth off Edgar. Lopez went three for five and scored four times. Florez drove in four. The lineup collected eighteen hits total off a Nashville staff that has allowed six or more runs in nearly forty percent of its starts this year. Seventeen to nothing. The Nashville series swept six-to-nothing on the year.

vs. Washington, August 20-22 (3-0)

Espenoza on August 20th gave up five runs in three and two-thirds innings — Garza hit a three-run homer in the fourth, Washington led five to one at the time — and then the bullpen shut the door entirely for five and a third innings while the offense came back to win seven to five. Scott held three and a third scoreless. The win made it thirteen consecutive. Espenoza's ERA climbed back to 3.32 before he righted it later in the stretch.

Strickler on August 21st threw eight innings and allowed two runs. Ten strikeouts, two runs, game score of seventy-four. MacDonald doubled in the go-ahead run in the seventh, Mollohan homered in the eighth. Four to two.

Rubalcava on August 22nd went five innings and allowed two runs while walking five — nothing spectacular, so to speak — but Lawson held two innings and Prieto two more, and the offense scored ten including Lopez's twenty-first home run, Lozano's twenty-second, and Perez's eighteenth. Ten to four. Fifteen straight.

vs. Charlotte, August 23-25 (3-0)

The August 23rd Charlotte game deserves its own paragraph before I continue. Andretti entered the game as the AL ERA leader and allowed eight runs in two-thirds of an inning. Here is the summary of the damage: a Torres triple, then a Hernandez two-run homer, then doubles by Lassiter and others, then the hook at thirty pitches. His game score was two. The six subsequent relievers held Charlotte to two runs over nine and a third innings while the lineup scored eleven, including MacDonald going four-for-five with a triple and a home run. Mollohan drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly in the tenth. Medina won in relief. Sixteen consecutive wins.

What made the Charlotte game remarkable beyond Andretti: Hernandez hit his fifty-eighth home run off Andretti in the first inning. He now has sixty. The Hot Corner has been watching this since April and has nothing adequate to add.

St. Clair on August 24th went six and two-thirds innings and gave up three runs while Bonilla hit his first Major League home run in the third inning — the ninth-best prospect in the organization, called up on August 15th, homered in his second game. Florez hit a two-run homer in the eighth. Gonzalez got the win in relief. Six to four.

Espenoza on August 25th held seven innings of one-run ball. Florez hit a two-run homer in the fifth and a two-run triple in the sixth. It is worth mentioning, that Espenoza is now tied for fourth in the AL in quality starts with seventeen, which understates what he has been: his ERA is 3.24, second in baseball, and his performance over his last seven games — five and one, 2.09 ERA — is the best sustained stretch of his career. Five to one was the final score. Seventeen straight wins.

Perez left the game with an intercostal strain. He is expected to return in approximately six days.

vs. Seattle, August 26-28 (1-2)

The streak ended August 26th when Pedro Hernandez — a pitcher with a 5-and-15 record and a 6.17 ERA — threw six innings of shutout ball. Strickler allowed three home runs in three innings, Oregel, Mendez, and Lara all going deep, and the offense mustered two runs in the eighth. Five to two, Seattle. The streak ended at sixteen.

Rubalcava on August 27th responded with eight innings of three-hit ball. Lopez homered in the third, Musco doubled in a run in the sixth. Medina saved his thirty-ninth despite a Holst three-run home run that made the final more dramatic than it needed to be. Four to three. Rubalcava's ERA: 3.18, first in the AL.

Andretti on August 28th allowed five runs in six innings — Penela doubled twice, the Strahan sacrifice fly broke a tie in the sixth — and lost his fourth game. Eight to four, Seattle. The ERA moved to 3.33. He is now eighteen and four.

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THE STORIES THAT DEFINE THIS STRETCH

The Sacramento rotation occupies the top three spots in the AL ERA leaderboard — At the end of August: Rubalcava first at 3.18, Espenoza second at 3.24, Andretti third at 3.33. Three pitchers from the same staff holding the top three ERA spots in the American League simultaneously is something I have not seen in three years covering this franchise. Strickler sits at 3.55 and is approaching two hundred strikeouts. St. Clair has a 3.91 ERA and nine wins. This rotation going into September is the defining characteristic of the 1996 Sacramento team.

Strickler has one hundred and ninety-nine strikeouts and will almost certainly cross two hundred — He leads the American League. He is second in baseball behind Gillon of Fort Worth at one hundred and ninety-six. The first time Strickler's name appeared in a Hot Corner article about the strikeout leaderboard was in April, when I noted the rate was elite even through inconsistent results. The results have largely stabilized. One hundred and ninety-nine strikeouts is not accidental — it is the product of an 8.9 per nine strikeout rate that has been consistent all year.

Cruz and Perez injured in back-to-back games is the most significant September concern — Cruz injured running the bases on August 24th. Perez injured running the bases on August 25th. Perez is expected back within the week. Cruz's status is less defined. Both are in the top two in team RBI — Perez at eighty-seven, Musco at eighty-six — and both are central to any October lineup construction. The timing is manageable if both return before the final two weeks of September. It is less manageable if either requires extended recovery.

Bonilla homered in his second game as a Sacramento Prayer — I want to underscore this not because one home run defines a player's contribution, but because Bonilla was purchased from Triple-A on August 15th to replace Rodriguez while he rehabilitates a hip injury, and in his second game he hit a home run against Charlotte on August 24th. He is the ninth-best prospect in the organization. He is playing every day at the Major League level with the team positioned to clinch the division any day.

MacDonald is quietly having the best stretch of his career — Four for five with a triple and a home run against Charlotte. Three RBI in the Washington game. Ten home runs, twenty-eight RBI, batting .312. MacDonald is thirty years old and has functioned for three seasons as a useful reserve. What he has done in August as a part-time starter — occupying DH and first base while Perez and others have missed time — is the kind of contribution that does not appear in season summaries but wins individual games.

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AROUND THE LEAGUE

Columbus is eighty-seven and forty-seven. They have cooled in August — four and six over their last ten — but the magic number for the AL Central title is nineteen and the ALCS destination remains Columbus in every realistic scenario. Detroit is ten back. Houston has six wins in their last seven and is seventy-four and sixty at thirteen and a half back of Columbus.

The ERA leaderboard for the league now reads: Rubalcava 3.18, Espenoza 3.24, Andretti 3.33, Gonzalez of Detroit 3.34. Three of the top four pitchers in baseball by ERA are in the same rotation. I think it is absolutely remarkable and deserves all the accolades we can think off.

Hernandez continues his amazing season and has now sixty home runs and one hundred and fifty-three RBI. The record is broken. The Hot Corner will stop counting and simply observe whatever the final number becomes.

Hurricane Elena struck the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Cuba this week. Multiple Sacramento players have family in the affected regions. Several league players have pledged significant aid in these trying times for everyone impacted by the disaster.

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THE INBOX — Questions worth answering

From Armen Davtyan of Fresno, a man who repairs antique clocks for a living and who once spent eleven months restoring a single pocket watch belonging to a woman who insisted the watch "just needs a little work," who asks: "Does the Andretti's Charlotte disaster worry you about October?"

Armen, two-thirds of an inning and eight runs is not what you want to see on the ledger going into the playoffs. But his next two starts produced zero runs in eight innings and five earned in six innings. The season line is eighteen and four, 3.33 ERA. The Charlotte outing is already three starts behind him. It worries me the way any unusual data point worries me — I am watching it, I am not catastrophizing it.

From Marlena Suarez of Stockton, a dental hygienist who has cleaned teeth professionally for nineteen years and who believes she can tell everything she needs to know about a person's discipline from a single appointment, who asks: "Is the division officially clinched yet?"

Marlena, the magic number is one. Sacramento needs one win or one Columbus loss to clinch the AL West. The next game is Friday in San Jose. Given that this article publishes before that game, the answer is not yet — but probably by the time you are reading this.

From Noel Bettencourt of Redding, a high school history teacher who has been explaining the causes of World War One to sixteen-year-olds for twenty-two years and has developed a genuine philosophical acceptance of things that seem impossible to explain, who asks: "How do you think about the Seattle loss ending the streak?"

Noel, I think about it the way I think about June — a cluster of bad outcomes against teams that should not produce them, followed immediately by the team re-establishing exactly what it is. Seattle ended the streak with a pitcher who is five and fifteen on the year. Then Rubalcava went out the next night and threw eight innings against the same lineup. The 16-game winning streak is over. Everything comes to the end eventually, lets just move on.

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San Jose this weekend, then Milwaukee. Rodriguez is eligible to come off the IL. Perez is expected back. The rotation cycles to Strickler, Andretti, Espenoza. Strickler needs one strikeout to reach two hundred.

Eighty-eight wins. Magic number is one. The division title arrives when it arrives.

Got a question for the mailbag? Find the Hot Corner wherever you get your podcasts.

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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.

[liberty-ca]

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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August 30 – September 11, 1996 | Games 135–147 | Ninety-Six and Fifty-One | Division Champions

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TWENTY-FIFTH DIVISION TITLE CLINCHED. NOW THE REAL WORK BEGINS.

The Sacramento Prayers are the American League West Division champions for the twenty-fifth time in franchise history. The flag goes up. The champagne flows. The quote from Bernardo Andretti that will go in the official record: "There's not a guy in the room that doesn't believe in this team." Manager Jimmy Aces, characteristically: "The end goal hasn't changed — win the World Series."

There is a specific kind of satisfaction in winning a division that was never really in doubt, and a specific kind of danger in it. The danger is that ninety-six wins feels like completion when it is not. The completion is October. The October opponent is almost certainly Columbus, which is ninety-four and fifty-three, which has been baseball's best team for five months, which will host Game One of the ALCS.

Between now and then: Philadelphia and Boston on the road, and several players — Musco, Perez, Cruz, Lopez — who need to enter the postseason healthy and locked in. Three of those four had excellent weeks. The one who concerns me — I will come to it.

First: Edwin Musco hit three home runs against Portland on September 7th. Three. In one game. The thirty-six-year-old shortstop with the worn out body, and the throwing-arm scar tissue, and the multiple IL stints hit three home runs in a single game in September. He has twenty-eight home runs and ninety-nine RBI through September 11th. I have been documenting this season game by game and I still cannot fully account for what Musco is doing.

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DID YOU CATCH THAT GAME? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY

@ San Jose, August 30 – September 1 (2-1)

The August 30th loss was a five-run eighth inning by a sixty-one-and-seventy-four team. Sacramento led seven to four entering the eighth. Pascual singled in two off Benson and the Demons scored five total in the inning against Gonzalez and Benson. Nine to seven, San Jose. Espenoza had held adequately through five but the lead evaporated when the bullpen couldn't hold it.

Strickler on August 31st won his fifteenth game with six and two-thirds innings of one-run ball. Cruz homered, MacDonald homered, Lozano cleared the bases with a double in the ninth. Eleven to four.

Rubalcava on September 1st: seven and two-thirds innings, one run, eight strikeouts. Cruz doubled in the first. Musco homered in the eighth. Seven to one. The San Jose series finished two-and-one and the rotation was back in order.

@ Milwaukee, September 2-3 (1-1)

September 2nd was Andretti going four and two-thirds innings against Milwaukee and allowing six runs — Sanchez doubled in two in the third, the Milwaukee lineup put ten hits on him — and losing his fifth game. Six to three. Andretti now has back-to-back rough outings. I am keeping the tally. The ERA is 3.51. The wins total is eighteen. September remains ahead of him.

September 3rd was a sixteen-to-three response that Lopez, Florez, Hernandez, and Bonilla constructed across twenty hits. Lopez homered for the third time off Bradford, his twenty-third home run. St. Clair won his tenth game. Mollohan was injured running the bases and is expected to miss some time, but not much. Sixteen to three.

vs. San Antonio, September 4-5 (2-0)

San Antonio came to Cathedral Stadium at eighty-eight and fifty-two — the NL's best team, the franchise playing for a first championship. The Hot Corner watched these two games with October interest.

September 4th was Espenoza going seven innings against the Hell Fire, allowing four runs — Kilmer was four for four, but the offense scored nine including Choi's two-run homer, Bonilla's second career homer, Blake's triple and subsequent solo shot, and Florez going deep in the fifth. Nine to four, Sacramento.

September 5th was Strickler throwing six and two-thirds innings of shutout ball. MacDonald hit two home runs, his thirteenth and fourteenth. Choi hit a three-run shot. Nine to nothing. The Hot Corner noted the specific thing about Strickler's line: zero runs in six and two-thirds innings against a team that wins ninety-four games. That is the version of Strickler that needs to arrive in October.

@ Portland, September 6-8 (2-1)

The September 7th Musco game: three home runs, five RBI, three runs scored. First homer in the first inning off Serrano, two on, two out. Second homer in the third off Serrano again, one on. Third homer in the fifth off Paine, solo. Choi added three RBI with a double in the eighth. Nine to two, Sacramento. Andretti won his nineteenth game with six innings of two-run ball. The Portland game log lists him as "1987 Cy Young Award winner" — a biographical note the Hot Corner finds appropriate documentation for purposes of perspective.

September 6th was Rubalcava — seven innings, two runs, eight strikeouts, his seventeenth win. Choi homered as a pinch hitter in the eighth for the lead. Four to two.

September 8th was a four-to-one loss to the worst team in baseball. St. Clair allowed three runs in six and a third innings and Vite — eight and thirteen, 5.40 ERA — threw seven and a third innings of one-run ball. One to four, Portland. That is the kind of result you absorb in September when the division is clinched and you move on.

@ Seattle, September 9-11 (1-2)

Three games in Seattle, which finished with two losses before the series finale. September 9th: Espenoza gave up five runs in three innings — a Rodriguez triple and a Costner triple in the first inning opened a four-run hole — and the lineup scored four against a pitcher going thirteen and eleven. Five to four, Seattle.

September 10th was Strickler going six innings of two-run ball before Benson blew the lead in the eighth on a Mendez two-run homer. Seven to four, Seattle. The save blown, Strickler's record unchanged at sixteen.

September 11th was Rubalcava going eight innings of two-run ball, his eighteenth win, his ERA dropping to 3.05. Lopez homered in the third, Cruz drove in a run, MacDonald doubled in the fifth for the go-ahead run. Six to two. The Seattle series finished one-and-two against a sixty-five-win team, which is the kind of series that earns a mention but not a crisis designation.

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THE STORIES THAT DEFINE THIS STRETCH

The division is clinched and now the only question is October positioning — Twenty-five AL West titles for this franchise. The twenty-fifth arrived on the strength of the best pitching staff in baseball, a lineup that has scored and stolen bases all year, and a thirty-six-year-old shortstop doing things that no actuarial table could have predicted. The division is done. Philadelphia leads the AL Wild Card standings and Detroit is nine games behind Columbus. The most likely ALCS bracket: Sacramento versus the AL Wild Card winner in the ALDS, Columbus against the other. The Hot Corner will track the bracket through the final two and a half weeks.

Rubalcava leads baseball in ERA at 3.05 and is now eighteen and seven — The who's hot section lists him at 10-1, 1.70 ERA over his last fourteen games. Fourteen games. That is not a hot streak — that is a sustained performance sample that covers nearly two months. The Hot Corner predicted in March that the mechanical corrections Rubalcava made in the offseason would stabilize his command and improve his second-half numbers. What actually happened is better than that prediction: he is pitching the best baseball of his career at thirty-three years old. Three Sacramento pitchers appear in the top five of the ERA leaderboard: Rubalcava first, Strickler third, Andretti fourth.

Strickler has two hundred and nineteen strikeouts and leads baseball — He passed two hundred against Nashville on September 5th. The Hot Corner documented this rate in April when it appeared in box score samples as an 8.9-per-nine ratio. Through one hundred and forty-seven team games, Strickler has produced a strikeout total that leads the FBL. His ERA is 3.35. His record is sixteen and nine. Strickler has been dominant for two months.

Musco is approaching one hundred RBI and it is amazing, considering his condition — Twenty-eight home runs. Ninety-nine RBI. The Hot Corner has used the phrase "thirty-six, wrecked" in every article this year and the data continues not to align with that descriptor in any meaningful way. The three-homer game on September 7th is a data point I am going to need time to process. The Hot Corner has covered this franchise since 1993 and has not seen a comparable individual performance across a full season from a player at this career stage.

Lopez has sixty-five stolen bases and twenty-five home runs — His career high in steals was sixty-nine in 1995. He has already exceeded his 1994 and 1993 totals. The power-speed combination is historically unusual and has been consistent all year. At the end of September this will be one of the two or three individual offensive seasons in Sacramento franchise history.

Andretti's two recent rough starts are the article's honest concern — Charlotte: seven runs in two-thirds of an inning. Milwaukee: six runs in four and two-thirds. Against those two starts: a gem at Nashville, a win at Portland, a win at San Antonio. The ERA is 3.51 which is still excellent by any objective standard. The October question is which Andretti shows up — the one who threw eight shutout innings at Nashville, or the one who faced eight Milwaukee hitters and retired three of them. September will clarify.

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AROUND THE LEAGUE

Columbus at ninety-four and fifty-three, magic number seven. San Antonio clinched the NL Central. The playoff field is clarifying: Sacramento, Columbus, Detroit, and likely Brooklyn or Baltimore in the AL; San Antonio and the NL Desert leaders Albuquerque and Phoenix on the other side.

Hernandez has sixty-three home runs and one hundred and sixty-four RBI with approximately twenty games remaining. The Hot Corner has stopped attempting to contextualize these numbers. They exist in a category that cannot be explained by reference to historical precedent because there is no historical precedent.

Luis Oregel of Seattle took a leave of absence to help with Hurricane Elena relief efforts in Puerto Rico. The Hot Corner acknowledges this without further comment except to note that it represents exactly the kind of decision that deserves public announcement.

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THE INBOX — Questions worth answering

From Delphine Marchetti of Sacramento's Midtown neighborhood, a woman who runs a repair shop that fixes everything from toasters to sewing machines and who once spent three hours diagnosing a blender before discovering the problem was that it was unplugged, who asks: "What do the couple of losses to Seattle mean for October?"

Delphine, they mean the bullpen gave up two leads and the offense went quiet against below-average starters on a couple of September evenings when nobody needed to throw their best pitches. They do not mean Sacramento cannot beat Seattle in October, because Sacramento will not play Seattle in October. They mean Benson had a bad outing on September 10th. Filed under: noted and moved on.

From Cormac Dunlevy of Modesto, a retired air traffic controller who spent thirty years directing things that were going very fast in dangerous proximity to other things, and who says he finds managing the Sacramento bullpen "familiar," who asks: "Should we be rotating Andretti to Game Three in the ALCS?"

Cormac, it is September 11th and we have not yet confirmed the ALCS matchup, but the question is worth taking seriously. Andretti is nineteen and five with a 3.51 ERA. Rubalcava is eighteen and seven with a 3.05 ERA. If the rotation sets up for a potential ALCS, I would start Rubalcava in Game One, Strickler in Game Two, and Andretti in Game Three — giving Andretti the best chance to work through early-game adrenaline against a lineup he has already beaten, and keeping Rubalcava's rhythm intact as the hotter pitcher. Jimmy Aces has earned the right to make this call without my interference, but the question is legitimate.

From Florence Nakagawa of Elk Grove, a high school ceramics teacher who has been shaping clay with teenagers for twenty-one years and has developed a theory that you can tell everything about a person's patience from watching them center a piece on a wheel, who asks: "What happens if Musco gets hurt in October?"

Florence, it is the question the organization has been managing all year. Orozco is in Triple-A but has been recalled before. Bonilla is playing every day now at shortstop and second and has eight games of Major League experience. Rodriguez is on the IL with a hip injury that has no firm return timeline. The honest answer is that there is no comfortable backup plan and there has never been one — this team has run on Musco's availability all year, and October will be no different. The only plan is to keep him healthy, which has required rotating him out of the lineup on short rest and limiting his defensive exposure on days when the body is not cooperating. Aces has managed this carefully. The hope is that September ends with Musco intact and ready.

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Philadelphia and Boston on the road this week. The rotation cycles through Andretti and Espenoza before the final homestand. Twenty-one games remain. Rodriguez is eligible to return from the IL and his readiness for October is the most significant open question on the roster.

Ninety-six wins. Division champions. The banner will be raised.

Got a question for the mailbag? Find the Hot Corner wherever you get your podcasts.

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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.

[liberty-ca]

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 13 – September 29, 1996 | Final Regular Season Edition | One Hundred and Eight Wins | American League West Champions | Your 1996 Sacramento Prayers

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ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT WINS. YEARS FROM NOW SOMEONE WILL SAY "REMEMBER THE '96 PRAYERS"? AND THEY WILL MEAN THIS.

The season is over. Team's record is one hundred and eight wins, fifty-four losses. A first-round bye in the American League Division Series while the bracket plays out below. The team that takes the field in the ALDS will arrive rested, healthy — Andy Benson excepted, and I will come to that — and carrying the best ERA in baseball from a man named Jordan Rubalcava who is thirty-three years old and spent the entire year pitching the way people assumed he used to pitch when he was twenty-six.

Let me give you the final numbers before I say anything else, because the numbers are the story.

Jordan Rubalcava: 21-7, 2.85 ERA, 192 strikeouts. Leads all of baseball in ERA. Second in wins behind Gonzalez of Detroit at twenty-two. Brian Strickler: 17-10, 3.35 ERA, 237 strikeouts. Leads all of baseball in strikeouts. Bernardo Andretti: 20-7, 3.52 ERA, 171 strikeouts. Twenty wins. Mario Espenoza: 15-9, 3.35 ERA, 169 strikeouts. Danny St. Clair: 11-7, 4.25 ERA.

Five starters. The highest ERA among the five is 4.25. Three of the top five ERA qualifiers in the entire league are on this rotation. Strickler leads all of baseball in strikeouts. The Hot Corner ran out of adjectives for this rotation in July and has been reusing them since.

Edwin Musco: 31 home runs, 108 RBI, .289 average. Thirty-one home runs. Thirty-six years old. Body held up by iron will and duct tape. I've been watching his performances all year and I cannot explain how it is possible to do what he does on a daily bases.

Alejandro Lopez: 29 home runs, 70 stolen bases. Seventy! His career high was sixty-nine.

It is October. The Prayers have a bye. The bracket is forming.

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DID YOU CATCH THAT GAME? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY

@ Philadelphia, September 13-15 (2-1)

The September 13th loss was Andretti's sixth of the year and his fourth genuinely poor start in the second half — five and a third innings, three runs, zero strikeouts. Young struck out thirteen Sacramento hitters and the lineup produced nothing. Seven to nothing. The ERA moved to 3.56. The Hot Corner has been tracking this pattern and I will assess it fully in the season summary below.

Espenoza on September 14th responded with seven innings of one-run ball. Lopez drove in two with a sacrifice fly and a solo home run in the ninth. Five to one.

Strickler on September 15th went six innings and allowed three runs while Perez hit a three-run homer in the sixth for the lead. Six to four was the final score. The Philadelphia series finished two-and-one.

@ Boston, September 16-18 (3-0)

Rodriguez returned from the IL and started at shortstop September 16th, with Musco removed from the game in the fourth inning after injuring his throwing arm. This is the Hot Corner's first mention of a new Musco injury and I want to document it: he threw a ball during the game, felt something, and was removed. He returned to action by September 17th. The injury is logged.

Rubalcava on September 16th threw seven innings of one-run ball. MacDonald homered in the first, Lopez in the sixth. Seven to one in what turned out to be Rubalcava's nineteenth win.

St. Clair on September 17th allowed four runs in six and two-thirds innings — back-to-back home runs by Martinez and Goldsberry in the fifth — but Lopez hit a three-run homer in the seventh to retake the lead. Seven to four. Lopez: two home runs in two games, five RBI on the night. He is at twenty-nine home runs for the season.

Andretti on September 18th won his twentieth game with six and a third innings of two-run ball. Lozano homered, Hernandez homered, Perez homered. Seven to two. Andretti at twenty and six. I am filing his twentieth win as the redemptive counterpoint to the Philadelphia loss five days earlier.

vs. San Jose, September 20-22 (3-0)

Strickler on September 20th allowed three runs in five innings with three hit batsmen, left the game with a lead, and Lawson held two scoreless innings for the win. Choi hit two home runs. Six to three. Lawson is six and zero on the year with a 3.44 ERA. He has been one of the quietest excellent stories of this season.

Rubalcava on September 21st threw eight innings of shutout ball, nine strikeouts, zero walks. His ERA after this start: 2.89. Five to nothing. His twentieth win.

Espenoza on September 22nd held seven innings of three-hit shutout ball. Lozano hit two more home runs. Cruz homered. Musco homered. Seven to nothing. Eight consecutive wins for Sacramento Prayers.

vs. Portland, September 23-25 (1-2)

Portland won two of three, which is the only thing worth saying about these games before I say specific things. Andretti lost his seventh game on September 23rd to a pitcher named Ramon Mayorga who was one and zero on the year and threw six and two-thirds innings of one-run ball. Three to one.

September 24th had Perez going four for four with seven RBI — a three-run home run in the eighth, a two-run single in the fifth, four total hits — in a twelve-to-seven win where St. Clair allowed six runs in five innings but the lineup kept scoring. Rodriguez homered twice counting from his return. Rodriguez hit his nineteenth and twentieth home runs in a Sacramento uniform, a detail that will matter when constructing the October lineup.

September 25th was Strickler throwing eight innings of two-hit ball, a game score of seventy-eight, and losing one to nothing on a Perez sacrifice fly in the seventh by a team that was forty-nine and one-hundred-and-eight. The Hot Corner notes that this happened and has no satisfying explanation.

vs. Seattle, September 27-29 (3-0)

The final series of the regular season. Three games, three wins, two of them dramatic.

Rubalcava on September 27th won his twenty-first game with six and two-thirds innings of three-hit ball. Musco homered in the sixth for three runs. Cruz and Lozano homered in the seventh. Nine to seven after the bullpen allowed six late. Rubalcava's ERA: 2.85. It leads all of baseball.

September 28th was Andretti going seven and a third quality innings before Benson entered in the ninth and allowed a Penela home run. Cruz hit a walk-off double in the bottom of the ninth off Reyes. Six to five. Medina won in relief, his third win. And in the process of recording those final outs, Benson felt something in his shoulder and left the field. He is out for the postseason with shoulder inflammation. His season: six saves, 3.74 ERA, sixty-five innings. He will not pitch in October and he will be missed big time in playoffs.

September 29th was the season finale, and it produced the most Sacramento ending imaginable. Espenoza allowed a Strahan grand slam in the fourth and the lineup trailed through five innings. Then Rodriguez hit a three-run homer in the sixth. Then Musco hit a two-run homer in the ninth off Gutierrez to tie it. Then Perez hit a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth. Eight to seven. Gonzalez got the win. The final regular season game ended on a Perez single with the bases loaded.

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THE STORIES THAT DEFINE THIS SEASON

I have written season summaries before. The 1993 team won one hundred and five games and lost in the ALDS. The 1994 team won one hundred and seven games and won the World Series. The 1995 team won one hundred and nine games and won the World Series. This team won one hundred and eight games. These are the numbers of a perennial contender, who is gunning for a third consecutive world title.

Jordan Rubalcava won twenty-one games and leads all of baseball in ERA at 2.85 — This is his age thirty-three season. He has two hundred and fifty-one career wins. He had three October starts in 1994 and 1995 combined. Jordan Rubalcava needs the ball in Game One of every series Sacramento plays. The Hot Corner predicted in spring training that the Rubalcava who pitches from the stretch with runners on base would be markedly improved following offseason mechanical work. What actually happened is that he is the best pitcher in the entire Fictional Baseball League this season.

Brian Strickler led all of baseball in strikeouts with two hundred and thirty-seven — He was seven and three with a 4.74 ERA on May 1st. He is seventeen and ten with a 3.35 ERA on September 29th. The Hot Corner has documented the week-by-week stabilization of this pitcher since May and the specific conclusion is that there are now two distinct Strickler versions — the dominant one and the exploitable one — and the dominant version has appeared in roughly three out of every four starts since June. Two hundred and thirty-seven strikeouts. First in baseball.

Bernardo Andretti won twenty games with five poor starts in the second half — Twenty wins, 3.52 ERA, All-Star selection, the pitcher who beat the Cy Young frontrunner in July and then allowed seven runs in two-thirds of an inning against Charlotte. Both things are true simultaneously and the October question is which pitcher shows up. The Hot Corner will note for posterity that in his last start at Boston, Andretti won his twentieth game by going six and a third innings and allowing two runs. The good version ended the season.

Edwin Musco finished with thirty-one home runs and one hundred and eight RBI — I don't not know how to write this sentence in a way that conveys its full significance. He is thirty-six years old. He has a history of gruesome injuries sustained during long career on his player card. He had three separate injury interruptions this season. He hit thirty-one home runs. For context: the best home run total of Musco's previous career was twenty-three. He is not supposed to do this. And he still somehow did it.

Alejandro Lopez stole seventy bases and hit twenty-nine home runs — His career high in steals was sixty-nine entering this year. A twenty-nine homer, seventy-steal season in the same year is a combination that, as far as the Hot Corner can research, has never been approached in this franchise's history. When healthy and on base, Lopez is one of the most dangerous offensive players in this league.

Benson is out for October and the bullpen must now account for his absence — He appeared in sixty-eight games and had twenty-three holds entering the final series. He was the bridge between the starters and Medina on nights when the game was close but not yet save territory. The remaining options — Lawson, Gonzalez, Prieto, Ryan, Scott — are capable, but Benson was the most reliable setup arm in the unit. The Hot Corner notes this not as a crisis but as the kind of real-world roster problem that October tends to expose.

Rodriguez's return and October readiness is the critical unknown — Twenty home runs, fifty-four RBI in limited availability this year. He returned from the hip impingement and went four for eight with two home runs and four RBI in his final four starts. His body held. The October lineup with Rodriguez at third base is significantly more dangerous than the October lineup with Bonilla or Blake rotating through. Jimmy Aces has managed his at-bats carefully. The hope is that the hip holds.

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AROUND THE LEAGUE — AND THE BRACKET

The playoff field:

American League: Sacramento has the bye. The Wild Card round is Baltimore versus Detroit, Houston versus Philadelphia, and Brooklyn versus Columbus. The Hot Corner's most likely ALDS matchup for Sacramento is the winner of Detroit-Baltimore, with the ALCS against Columbus. The specific number that defines the October landscape: Columbus won ninety-eight games this year and has Mike Flores in its rotation. Flores held Sacramento to fewer than four runs across his four starts against this lineup in 1996. That problem has not been solved.

National League: San Antonio has the bye. El Paso versus Albuquerque, Salt Lake City versus Long Beach, Tucson versus Phoenix. The NL bracket will produce an opponent for the World Series. The Hot Corner is watching San Antonio, which won ninety-four games and has never won a championship in franchise history.

Manuel Hernandez finished with seventy home runs and one hundred and eighty-one RBI. The Hot Corner has run out of words. Jorge Jaime of Baltimore set the all-time hits record with two hundred and twenty-six. The regular season produced two individual offensive seasons that will be discussed for as long as this league operates.

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THE INBOX — Final Regular Season Edition

From Lionel Teixeira of Sacramento's College Greens neighborhood, a man who translates legal documents from Portuguese into English and has developed such intimate familiarity with fine print that his friends no longer invite him to sign birthday cards, who asks: "Is this the best Sacramento team ever?"

Lionel, the 1995 team won one hundred and nine games and a World Series. The 1994 team won one hundred and seven and a World Series. This team won one hundred and eight and has not yet played a postseason game. The best Sacramento team ever is determined by what happens in October, not September. The Hot Corner's position: this rotation is the best in franchise history. Whether the team is the best in franchise history depends on games still to be played.

From Sunita Krishnamurthy of Roseville, an emergency room nurse who has worked nights for fourteen years and who says she has learned more about human nature from a waiting room at two in the morning than from any other source, who asks: "How worried are we about Benson?"

Sunita, genuinely concerned but not panicked. Benson was the bridge arm — the pitcher Aces called in the seventh with a one-run lead when Medina wasn't yet appropriate. Without him, Lawson and Gonzalez fill that role. Lawson is six and zero and has been dominant. Gonzalez has sixteen holds and a 3.20 ERA. The configuration is thinner but not toothless. The specific scenario I am watching for: a seven-inning start from Andretti or Espenoza where the bullpen needs four outs from a non-Medina arm. That is where Benson's absence will be felt most acutely.

From Theo Wachowski of Sacramento's Pocket neighborhood, a retired cartographer who spent thirty years drawing maps of places he never visited and who now spends his time visiting the places he drew, who asks: "Walk me into October. Where are we and what matters?"

Theo, here is where we are. The rotation sets up as Rubalcava-Strickler-Andretti-Espenoza for a four-game series, which is the deepest and most capable four-starter configuration this franchise has fielded. The lineup has Cruz, Musco, Perez, Lopez, Rodriguez, Lozano, Choi, and Florez. The bullpen has Medina and Lawson and Gonzalez. What matters is whether Andretti's two-start rough patches in September have been genuinely resolved or were merely delayed. What matters is whether Musco's shoulder stays intact through the first three rounds. What matters, more than anything else, is whether anyone has figured out what Flores is doing to this lineup and whether the coaching staff has a counter.

The Hot Corner does not have a prediction. The Hot Corner has been covering this team for four years, watched it win two consecutive championships, watched it build what may be the best rotation in franchise history, and still does not know what October will bring.

That is why they play the games.

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The Wild Card round begins October 1st. Sacramento waits. The rotation is in place. The lineup is set. Benson will be missed and Musco will be pushed and Rodriguez will be managed carefully and Rubalcava will take the ball in Game One wherever the Prayers play.

One hundred and eight wins. Twenty-fifth division title. The sixteenth championship is the only thing left to talk about.

The Hot Corner will be here for all of it. Thanks for the questions, the loyalty, and the four years of coming along for this ride. Now let's go win another one.

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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.

[liberty-ca]

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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October 1 – October 3, 1996 | American League Division Series Preview | Sacramento Prayers vs Detroit Preachers

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THE BRACKET IS SET AND THE PREACHERS ARE NOT WHO ANYONE EXPECTED TO BE HERE

Bobby Gonzalez threw eight innings against Baltimore on October 1st, struck out eight, allowed three runs, and won. Detroit advances. Sacramento, having waited through the Wild Card round on a bye, now knows its opponent.

The Preachers finished ninety-seven and sixty-five. They went sixty-three and thirty-seven over the last four months of the season. That kind of sustained second-half performance does not happen accidentally and the Hot Corner is not going to pretend this is a simple matchup because the Prayers have a better record. The relevant competitive fact is that Detroit has the second-best ERA in the American League and the second-best record and a starter going into Game Three with a 3.15 ERA. This is a real series.

Sacramento has a real rotation answer.

Game One at Cathedral Stadium is Friday, October 4th. Jordan Rubalcava takes the ball. He is twenty-one and seven with a 2.85 ERA and he leads all of baseball. That is where this starts.

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THE MATCHUP — WHAT THE NUMBERS TELL US

The Sacramento rotation versus the Detroit lineup

Detroit hits .279 as a team, sixth in the American League. Their best hitters are Rubio at .312 with twenty-three home runs and one hundred and nine RBI, Gonzales at .316, and Alfonso who the Hot Corner notes is hitting .500 over his last five games with three home runs. A three-game hot streak before the postseason is the kind of thing that earns a footnote in a preview article and a prominent place in a game recap.

What the Detroit lineup faces in this series: Rubalcava in Game One, who has a 0.83 ERA over his last three starts. Strickler in Game Two, who leads all of baseball in strikeouts with two hundred and thirty-seven. Andretti in Game Three, who won twenty games and whose last start produced six and a third solid innings. Espenoza in Game Four if necessary, who has a 2.33 ERA over his last three starts.

The specific number I want to isolate: Detroit struck out nine hundred and thirty-five times this season, third-lowest in the American League. They put the ball in play. Against a rotation that leads the league in strikeouts and opponents average, this creates an interesting tension. The question is whether the Rubalcava changeup and the Strickler fastball can produce whiffs against a lineup built to make contact. The Hot Corner's view: yes, but it will require better command than either starter has demonstrated in their rougher outings.

The Detroit rotation versus the Sacramento lineup

Gonzalez goes in Game Four if necessary with a 3.65 ERA and twenty-two wins — the most in baseball. Galarza goes in Game Three with a 3.15 ERA and sixteen wins and a three-start hot streak producing a 1.60 ERA. These are real pitchers. The Prayers scored eight hundred and ninety runs this year, sixth in the American League, which is not the kind of offensive number that inspires fear. What the Sacramento offense does is steal bases and hit home runs — two hundred and thirty-seven home runs, second in the league, and two hundred and sixty-six steals, first by a distance. Detroit allowed one hundred and forty home runs this year, second-fewest in the league. The Prayers will need to manufacture runs with speed and situational hitting against a staff that suppresses the long ball.

Kilbourne starts Game One for Detroit at ten and twelve with a 4.59 ERA. This is not a mistake — the Detroit rotation sets up so that Galarza and Gonzalez pitch Games Three and Four on the road, where Detroit's rotation has been dominant this year. Detroit went fifty-two and twenty-nine away from home. The specific strategic choice of using Kilbourne in Game One is logical from a schedule-optimization standpoint and slightly puzzling from a quality standpoint. Rubalcava versus Kilbourne on Friday night at Cathedral Stadium is the best possible Game One matchup Sacramento could have drawn.

Bullpen and roster considerations

Benson is out. The Hot Corner documented this in the final regular season article. Medina has forty-four saves and a 1.97 ERA. Lawson is six and zero. Gonzalez has sixteen holds. The unit is capable but thinner than it was in August.

Detroit's bullpen ERA is 4.60, sixth in the American League, which is the specific vulnerability the Sacramento lineup needs to target. If the Prayers can work deep into games and force Detroit's secondary arms, the stolen base game and situational hitting become more impactful.

Rodriguez at third base is healthy enough to start. The Hot Corner watched his last four games carefully. He hit two home runs and looked fluid at third. The hip held. He is in the lineup.

Musco's shoulder injury from September 16th has not recurred in the box scores. He is in the lineup. Thirty-one home runs. One hundred and eight RBI. Playing.

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THE SERIES PROJECTION

The Hot Corner does not make predictions. What I do is identify the factors that will determine the outcome.

Factor one: whether Andretti in Game Three on the road is the twenty-win version or the Charlotte version — Two stretches of genuinely poor starts in the second half, mixed with dominant outings in between. Galarza starts Game Three for Detroit with a 3.15 ERA and has been the best version of himself over his last five starts. This is the game where the series could turn toward Detroit if Andretti is not right.

Factor two: Galarza's history against this lineup — The Hot Corner went back through the regular season. Sacramento scored five runs against Galarza in their one meeting, a five-to-eight loss in July where Rodriguez had a bases-clearing double. He is an excellent pitcher at his current level and the Prayers have seen him once. One exposure is not a scouting report.

Factor three: whether Gonzalez becomes the first pitcher to start Game Four of a Division Series after throwing eight postseason innings three days earlier — The schedule shows Gonzalez on standard rest for Game Four. His wildcard performance on eight innings of work is factored into whatever he brings to the mound at Detroit on October 8th. The Hot Corner notes this not as a disqualification but as a legitimate wear consideration.

Factor four: Medina holding late-game leads without Benson as the bridge — Four times this year Medina was involved in blown saves. Three occurred in situations where the setup chain was compromised. The Game Two and Game Four late innings — if Sacramento leads entering the seventh — will stress-test the depleted bullpen in the highest-stakes environment of the year.

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AROUND THE BRACKET

Columbus defeated Brooklyn seven to five in the Wild Card and will play Houston in the other ALDS. The Hot Corner wants to note that Columbus went one hundred and three and fifty-nine this year and is the best team in the American League that Sacramento did not want to face in the first round. Houston beat Philadelphia five to one on Velasquez's seven and a third innings and now faces a Columbus team that won the AL Central by six games over Detroit.

The ALCS most likely bracket is Sacramento versus either Columbus or Houston. The Hot Corner has spent all year documenting the Columbus problem — specifically Flores, who held Sacramento to fewer than four runs across four regular season starts. That problem has not been solved. The assumption entering this postseason is that Sacramento and Columbus are the two best teams in the American League and that if they meet in the ALCS it will be the best series the league produces in October.

In the National League: San Antonio hosts Albuquerque. Phoenix plays Salt Lake City. The NL bracket will produce an opponent the Hot Corner will analyze when the time comes.

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THE INBOX — ALDS Edition

From Marcus Weybridge of Sacramento's Arden Arcade neighborhood, a structural engineer who designed parking garages for twenty years and who says you learn everything you need to know about load-bearing capacity from watching an October bullpen situation, who asks: "Game One — how confident are you?"

Marcus, very confident in Rubalcava. Less confident in the final two outs of games where the margin is one. Rubalcava against Kilbourne at Cathedral Stadium with thirty-three regular season wins between those two pitchers is about as favorable an opening-game matchup as the Prayers could construct. The outcome I am watching for: seven Rubalcava innings and a clean Medina ninth without needing to test the Lawson-Gonzalez bridge. That version of the bullpen is fine. It is the three-inning version that concerns me.

From Valentina Ostrowski of Elk Grove, a professional organizer who has helped four hundred and twelve households find places for things they no longer need and who has concluded that most people's problems are fundamentally about clutter, who asks: "Is this five-game series going the distance?"

Valentina, if the rotation holds and Andretti is right at Detroit, it ends in four. If Andretti struggles in Game Three and Detroit gets momentum on the road, it goes five. The schedule shows Kilbourne again in Game Five, which is the same favorable matchup the Prayers had in Game One. A five-game series favors Sacramento's rotation depth. The scenario I am most worried about is dropping both road games and needing a decisive Game Five, not because of the opponent but because a five-game series compresses the margin for error in ways a four-game sweep does not.

From Franklin Osei of Sacramento's Curtis Park neighborhood, a jazz trumpeter who plays three nights a week at a club on J Street and who has learned from experience that the difference between a good performance and a great one is how you handle the moment when everything goes slightly wrong, who asks: "Who wins the series?"

Franklin, Sacramento in four. I believe that. The rotation is simply too deep and the home field advantage in Games One and Two is simply too real. Rubalcava against Kilbourne at Cathedral Stadium to open the postseason is a situation this franchise has earned. What I do not believe is that it will be easy, that Galarza will be anything less than excellent in Game Three, or that Gonzalez's presence in Game Four is a formality. Detroit went sixty-three and thirty-seven over the last four months of the season. They are here because they deserve to be.

Rubalcava gets the ball Friday. That is where it starts.

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Game One is Friday, October 4th at Cathedral Stadium. Rubalcava versus Kilbourne. First pitch at 7:05.

The Hot Corner will be in the building.

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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.

[liberty-ca]

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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October 4 – October 8, 1996 | American League Division Series Recap | Sacramento Advances 3-1 | ALCS Preview: Sacramento vs Columbus

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CHOI, MUSCO, PEREZ SHINE BRIGHT IN DIVISION SERIES. THE ALCS STARTS THURSDAY.

The Sacramento Prayers are in the American League Championship Series for the third consecutive year. They got there the hard way — down one-nothing after Game One, Rubalcava knocked around in ways the Hot Corner did not see coming, Andretti allowing six runs in five and two-thirds innings of Game Two, a thirty-one-year-old catcher hitting a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth to tie the series, then winning Games Three and Four on the road against a ninety-seven-win team with the season on the line.

Twenty-one years old Ha-joon Choi was named series MVP. He hit .500 in the series with three home runs and five RBI. In July he walked off Columbus Heaven with a pinch-hit three-run homer to extend a win streak, and in October he carried his club in ALDS.

The Columbus Heaven are waiting at Cathedral Stadium on Thursday. They won one hundred and three games in the regular season, and most importantly — they have Rich Flores in their rotation.

Rich Flores is a serious problem for Sacramento, and this problem has not been yet resolved. The Prayers need an answer to this problem by Friday night, as it is expected that Flores will be starting for Columbus in Game Two of the series.

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DID YOU CATCH THAT SERIES?

Game One — October 4, Cathedral Stadium — Detroit wins 5-2

Rubalcava allowed three home runs in seven and a third innings. Rubio homered in the second. Rodriguez homered in the second. Tattersall homered in the sixth off Rubalcava's fastball. The man who led all of baseball in ERA this year allowed four runs to a lineup he had faced only once in the regular season. Sacramento scored two — Choi's solo shot in the seventh being the only extra-base hit with consequence. Kilbourne held seven innings and Lopez closed it. Five to two, Detroit.

Lets say this honestly — a very disappointing outcome, desided in large by three home runs allowed by the best pitcher in baseball this year, two of them in the same inning. Postseason games produce outcomes the regular season does not predict, and this was one of them. The Prayers went home down in the series with Andretti going in Game Two and Galarza — the third-best ERA in the entire league — on the other side.

Game Two — October 5, Cathedral Stadium — Sacramento wins 7-6

Andretti allowed six runs in five and two-thirds innings. Galarza allowed four runs in six and a third. And then Stewart Tattersall hit a three-run home run in the top of the sixth inning off Andretti with two outs and two on to make it six to four, Detroit, and the Cathedral Stadium crowd went quiet.

Rodriguez hit a two-run homer off Galarza in the second. Choi hit a solo shot in the fourth. The Prayers were down two entering the eighth. Mollohan doubled to cut it to one. Then the ninth: Scott held two and a third innings scoreless. Then Medina came in and Musco came to the plate with one out and one on and two strikes and hit a home run to right field.

Edwin Musco with a walk-off in postseason at the age of thirty-six! Seven to six, Sacramento!

The Hot Corner will also note that Cruz injured his throwing arm in Game Two and played through it in Games Three and Four, which is the kind of footnote that earns larger print if the ALCS goes the wrong direction.

Game Three — October 7, Detroit Fields — Sacramento wins 8-7

Strickler allowed nine hits and six runs in five innings at Detroit in forty-six-degree weather. He also took the win. This is how events unfolded: Perez hit a three-run home run in the first inning off Kubweza on a first-pitch changeup, Florez hit a two-run homer in the third, and the Prayers were up eight to one before Strickler allowed the momentum to shift back toward Detroit. The Preachers scored four in the fifth off Strickler and the game became eight to five and then eight to seven and St. Clair held two and two-thirds innings and Medina sealed it. Eight to seven.

Perez was two for five with four RBI. Florez was three for four with two RBI. At the moment the series most needed offense, two players who were not on this roster in July provided it. Florez arrived at the July 31st deadline. He is hitting .545 in this ALDS.

Game Four — October 8, Detroit Fields — Sacramento wins 7-3

Espenoza went seven innings and allowed one run. He scattered seven hits, walked one, and produced a postseason line of 1.29 ERA in the series. The lineup scored early and often — Choi doubled in the first, homered in the third, cruised into the series MVP announcement afterward at five-for-ten with three home runs. Lopez homered in the sixth. Lozano cleared the bases with a two-run double in the fifth when the game was being decided.

Detroit's bullpen completely lost the strike zone in the fifth inning: Vasquez faced three Sacramento batters, and allowed three runs. Kilbourne entered and held three and two-thirds but the damage was done.

Gonzalez was injured while throwing the first pitch of the game and did not return. The twenty-two-game winner who threw eight innings in the Wild Card round exited before recording an out. Keegan was also injured while pitching. Seven to three, Sacramento. ALCS.

The Hot Corner should also note: Musco was ejected in the ninth inning for arguing a strike call. He is going to the ALCS with an ejection and knee soreness from Perez on the runway and a throwing-arm situation that the training staff is managing. This is the third year of documenting Musco in October. The drama around him is a constant factor.

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THE STORIES THAT DEFINED THE SERIES

Choi at twenty-one years old is the ALDS MVP and the question now is whether that carries into the ALCS — He was in the minors two years ago. He walked off Columbus in July. He hit .500 against a legitimate postseason team with three home runs. I've been following his development all year and the specific thing that stands out in the ALDS is not just the production but the composure — he batted .500 in a four-game postseason series without appearing to be overwhelmed by it. That is not a given for a twenty-one-year-old.

Musco's walk-off home run in Game Two saved the series — Down one game, down two runs in the ninth, with Andretti having allowed six runs and the road lineup card set up unfavorably for Game Three. The walk-off happened at the specific moment of maximum series jeopardy. Without it the Prayers go to Detroit down two games to none needing to win three straight against Galarza, Gonzalez, and Kilbourne. With it, the series was tied.

Andretti's second-half and postseason patterns remain the honest unresolved concern — His postseason ERA across Games Two is 9.53. His regular season ERA is 3.52. The gap between those two numbers is not a function of one bad outing — it is a pattern. The Hot Corner is watching this carefully as the rotation sets for the ALCS. Rubalcava pitches Game One. Whoever pitches Game Two faces Flores two days later. Whether Andretti is in the lineup for Game Two or Game Three of the ALCS is the most significant rotation decision Aces will make before Thursday.

Perez has knee soreness and is day-to-day with one week estimated — He hit .438 in the ALDS with a home run and five RBI. The knee injury happened while he was running the bases in Game Four's fifth inning. He finished the game. Perez is listed as day-to-day with one week projected, which means his status for ALCS Games One and Two on October 10th and 11th is genuinely uncertain. MacDonald is available. The lineup without Perez is meaningfully thinner against a Columbus staff.

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THE ALCS OPPONENT — WHAT COLUMBUS BRINGS

The Columbus Heaven won one hundred and three games. They beat Houston three to one in the ALDS. They score runs seemingly at will. They have the second-highest batting average in the American League at .287 and the third-highest OBP.

The specific lineup threat: Aguilar hit .423 with four home runs over his last seven games and is the hottest hitter entering this series. Salcevo is cold — .095 over his last five games — which is the one vulnerability in a lineup that otherwise has no obvious weak spot. Fujimoto finished at forty home runs, Aguilar at forty-two.

The rotation features Montalvo in series opener, he is seventeen and eleven with a 4.20 ERA, which is the most favorable matchup of the ALCS rotation cycle for Sacramento. Game Two features Rich Flores.

Flores. Sixteen and five, 4.20 ERA. The number that matters: across four starts against Sacramento this year he allowed fewer than four combined runs over his final three appearances. The Hot Corner does not have a complete explanation for why this specific pitcher dominates this specific lineup. The scouting observation across multiple game logs is that his offspeed command produces soft contact at a rate that neutralizes the Prayers' pull-heavy swing tendencies. Jimmy Aces has certainly seen what we all have seen. The preparation has presumably been ongoing.

Schlageter is cold — 16.20 ERA over his last two starts. If the series goes deep and Schlageter starts Games Four or Five, that is a specific advantage for the Sacramento lineup.

Columbus's closer Bruce has twelve saves and a 0.00 ERA over his last seventeen games. He is the most dominant late-game arm in this postseason bracket and the specific threat to Sacramento's late-inning run-manufacturing.

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THE INBOX

From Selena Boateng of Sacramento's Tahoe Park neighborhood, a middle school science teacher who has spent nineteen years explaining to twelve-year-olds that observation and hypothesis are not the same thing, who asks: "What do Rubalcava's three allowed home runs in Game One mean for the ALCS?"

Selena, the most honest answer is that it is one game and the same pitcher went twenty-one and seven with a 2.85 ERA this year. The ALDS postseason can produce outcomes the regular season does not predict — Tattersall hit .500 in the series and will probably hit .240 next April. Rubalcava goes in Game One of the ALCS on full rest against a Columbus lineup that is not Tattersall and Rubio and Rodriguez. The regular season evidence on Rubalcava is overwhelming. One Game One does not override it.

From Rashida Coleman of West Sacramento, a physical therapist who specializes in knee rehabilitation and who has, she informs me, been watching the Perez situation with professional concern since the fifth inning of Game Four, who asks: "Is Perez playing Thursday?"

Rashida, the injury is listed as day-to-day with one week estimated, which in October means they will determine readiness on a game-by-game basis. Thursday is two days away. My reading of the timeline is that he will be available but managed carefully, which in practice probably means he plays but does not run aggressively and the team trusts the depth of the lineup around him. The scenario I am watching: if he cannot run, the stolen-base game — which is the Prayers' primary offensive weapon beyond the home run — is significantly constrained.

From Marcos Delgadillo of Elk Grove, a former semi-professional chess player who now teaches the game at a senior center and who says October baseball is the only other context in which he has seen people make genuinely consequential decisions under acute time pressure, who asks: "How do we solve the Flores problem in Game Two?"

Marcos, the Hot Corner has been filing this question all year and I want to be direct: I do not have a clean answer. Flores commands his curveball at a rate that disrupts the Prayers' first-pitch pull approach. The counter that is theoretically available is an opposite-field plate discipline — taking the first pitch, working deeper into counts, using the same patience-first approach that works against conventional hard throwers. Whether the Sacramento lineup can make that adjustment against Flores after having seen his breaking ball four times this year without solving it is the most important unanswered question in this ALCS. I expect Aces to have an answer. I look forward to finding out what it is.

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Game One of the ALCS is Thursday, October 10th at Cathedral Stadium. Jordan Rubalcava takes the ball against Antonio Montalvo. The Columbus Heaven are one hundred and three wins in regular season and one postseason series win already this October.

Perez is day-to-day. Cruz's arm is being managed. Musco avoided one game suspension following the ejection — great piece of news.

Got a question for the mailbag? Find the Hot Corner wherever you get your podcasts.

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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.

[liberty-ca]

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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October 10 – October 17, 1996 | American League Championship Series Final | Columbus Heaven defeats Sacramento Prayers, 4-2 | End of Season

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THE SEASON IS OVER. COLUMBUS GOES TO THE WORLD SERIES.

There are things I want to say about this team, about this season, about three years of covering a franchise that won two consecutive World Series championships and then came within two games of a third. I want to say those things clearly and without the kind of sentimentality that makes bad journalism. I will get there.

First: the specific fact that defines this entire postseason. Rich Flores, Columbus Heaven starting pitcher. Regular season record: sixteen and five, 4.20 ERA. Against Sacramento in the regular season: three starts, fewer than four combined runs allowed in his final three appearances. His record in this year playoffs: three starts, three wins, a 2.74 ERA, six and two-thirds innings in Game Six with the season on the line.

The Hot Corner identified this problem in July. It spent the rest of the year watching for an answer. No answer came. Flores dominated this specific lineup with an offspeed command pattern that produced soft contact against pull-heavy hitters, and in the three most critical games of the season — Games Two, Five, and Six — Sacramento could not produce enough offense to overcome it.

The Columbus Heaven defeated the Sacramento Prayers four games to two. They go to the World Series. Sacramento goes home.

This is the final Hot Corner of the 1996 season.

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DID YOU CATCH THAT SERIES?

Game One — October 10, Cathedral Stadium — Sacramento wins 11-4

Musco hit a three-run home run in the first inning on a Montalvo slider. Then tripled in the third. Then singled twice. Four for five, three RBI, and for one night the Hot Corner believed this was going to be a different kind of ALCS than the numbers predicted. Rubalcava held seven innings and allowed four. The lineup scored eleven. Perez homered. Florez homered. Eleven to four. Sacramento led the series one game to none.

The Hot Corner wants to note the specific thing Musco did in Game One: nine total bases, which is the most any Sacramento player has produced in a single postseason game in the three years this column has existed. Thirty-six years old. Wrecked health. Nine total bases in an ALCS opener.

Game Two — October 11, Cathedral Stadium — Columbus wins 8-3

Flores. Seven and a third innings, three runs, zero walks. The Sacramento lineup went nine for thirty-three with one extra-base hit — Musco's fourth-inning double. Andretti was actually excellent for five and a third innings and allowed only one earned run. The collapse happened in the Columbus eighth: Lawson entered with the bases loaded and allowed a two-run double and a sack fly, then Scott allowed three more in the same inning. Eight to three, Columbus. Tied at one game apiece.

The specific game-over moment: Lawson, who was six and zero in the regular season and had been the most reliable setup arm since August, allowed four runs in two-thirds of an inning. The Hot Corner predicted in the ALDS preview that the Benson absence would be most acutely felt in the seventh inning of a close game. Game Two was that scenario.

Game Three — October 13, Columbus Grounds — Columbus wins 8-7

Strickler allowed six runs in three and two-thirds innings in forty-five-degree weather in Columbus. The specific instrument of damage: an Aguilar triple in the fourth with two on, Aguilar scoring, followed by the Columbus sixth-inning run. Then Aguilar again in the seventh with a two-run home run off Prieto that broke a six-to-six tie. The lineup scored seven — Mollohan homered, Perez homered, Florez had a sack fly, Cruz drove in two — and it was not enough. Eight to seven, Columbus. The series shifted to Columbus leading two to one.

This is the moment in the series where the Aguilar problem became visible. He entered the series on a seven-game hot streak at .423 with four home runs. He homered again in Game Three. He would not stop.

Game Four — October 14, Columbus Grounds — Sacramento wins 9-8

Espenoza allowed four home runs in four and a third innings: Aguilar solo in the first, Manzo solo in the second, Aguilar three-run in the fifth with two on, in't Veld solo in the fifth. Columbus led eight to six entering the ninth. Then Cooney blew the save — Musco singled, Rodriguez singled, the inning opened — and Cruz hit a game-winning single with two outs. Nine to eight. Tied at two games apiece after a thirty-two-minute rain delay in the fifth.

The Hot Corner logged Aguilar's two home runs in Game Four as the moment his ALCS performance crossed from notable into genuinely alarming. Six home runs in four games. He is the best player in this series by a wide margin and it is not even close.

Game Five — October 15, Columbus Grounds — Columbus wins 9-4

Rubalcava allowed five runs in four and a third innings. Fujimoto tripled in the first with two on. Caballaro homered immediately after. Aguilar homered in the fifth. Three home runs in the first five innings against the pitcher who led all of baseball in ERA this year with a 2.85. Montalvo held eight innings and gave up two runs. Lozano hit a three-run home run in the ninth that made the final look more respectable than the game felt. Nine to four, Columbus. The series went back to Sacramento with Columbus leading three games to two.

This game is the one the Hot Corner will think about longest. Rubalcava against Montalvo. Twenty-one and seven versus seventeen and eleven. The regular season evidence was overwhelming in Rubalcava's favor and he was gone in the fourth inning. Postseason baseball does not ask for credentials.

Game Six — October 17, Cathedral Stadium — Columbus wins 6-5

Flores. One final time. Six and two-thirds innings, five runs, one home run allowed — Lopez homered in the seventh — and Sacramento could not produce the rally that the home crowd and the trailing score required. Andretti allowed four runs in five innings. Dutch phenom Cor in't Veld tripled in the fifth. The Aguilar solo home run in the sixth put Columbus on top. Bruce closed two innings without a run. Six to five, Columbus.

Alex Aguilar: series MVP, eight home runs, seventeen RBI, .372 batting average. He hit four home runs in the four Columbus wins. He hit thirty-eight home runs during the regular season and needed only six games of October to become the defining player of this ALCS.

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THE HONEST ACCOUNTING

The Hot Corner has covered this franchise for four years. Two division titles before this one. Two World Series championships in 1994 and 1995. One hundred and eight regular season wins in 1996. And now a four-to-two ALCS loss to the best team in the American League.

The Flores problem was real and went unsolved — The Hot Corner documented this starting in July. Flores made five starts against Sacramento in 1996, counting the ALCS. Sacramento scored eleven combined runs across those five starts. Three wins. I can not explain why this specific pitcher at this specific lineup produces this specific outcome. What I can document is that it happened consistently and that it was the definitive factor in the series.

The rotation that was the best in baseball in the regular season did not perform in the ALCS — Regular season ERAs: Rubalcava 2.85, Strickler 3.35, Andretti 3.52, Espenoza 3.35. ALCS ERAs: Rubalcava 5.30, Strickler 10.38, Andretti 5.62, Espenoza 6.35. All four starters performed worse than any projection from the regular season would have predicted. The Aguilar factor explains some of this — he hit eight home runs — but not all of it. Postseason adjustments by the Columbus lineup produced elevated results across the board against pitchers who had been dominant for five months. The Hot Corner can only acknowledge this without a clean explanation.

Aguilar was the best player on the field and he was not supposed to be — The Columbus scouting report entering this series identified Aguilar as dangerous. His regular season numbers were forty-two home runs and a .328 average. He was clearly an elite player. The Hot Corner still did not anticipate eight home runs in six games. That performance exists in a category of individual playoff production that transcends normal analysis.

The twenty-one-year-old in right field hit .250 in the ALCS and held his own — Choi's ALDS performance (.500, three home runs) did not carry over at the same rate against Columbus. He hit .250 across the six games. He is twenty-one years old and played in his first ALCS. The Hot Corner is not going to write this off as a disappointment because a twenty-one-year-old playing six ALCS games at .250 is not a disappointment — it is a foundation.

Musco hit .325 with three home runs and was the best position player on the Sacramento side — Thirty-six years old. One hundred and eight regular season wins. Postseason injuries managed carefully all year. He hit .325 in the ALCS. In October of 1996, Edwin Musco performed at a level that no actuarial analysis of a thirty-six-year-old wrecked shortstop should be able to predict. The Hot Corner documented it all year. It held through October.

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SACRAMENTO SEASON IN ONE FINAL PARAGRAPH

One hundred and eight wins. A first-round bye. A four-game ALDS victory over a ninety-seven-win Detroit team. An ALCS that went six games against the best team in the American League before Sacramento lost in the building where they have won two consecutive championships. The best rotation in baseball. A thirty-six-year-old shortstop with thirty-one home runs. A twenty-one-year-old right fielder with twenty-seven home runs who should not have been in the lineup at all by any reasonable preseason projection. The best ERA in baseball from a pitcher who has two hundred and fifty-two career wins at thirty-three years old. A trade deadline catcher who hit four home runs in the postseason. A second baseman who stolen fifty-five bases and hit .311 while committing twenty-four errors. Great season overall, that just happened to end one series short.

Columbus goes to the World Series. The Hot Corner wishes them nothing but the best.

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THE INBOX — FINAL EDITION

From Kofi Acheampong of Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood, a librarian who has spent twenty-six years helping people find things they did not know they were looking for, who asks: "What do you remember most about 1996?"

Kofi, three things. Musco hitting a walk-off home run in Game Two of the ALDS at thirty-six years old in the ninth inning of a playoff game that was about to end the season. Choi in July, walk-off three-run homer against Columbus to win the streak. Rubalcava getting his two hundred and fiftieth win at Cathedral Stadium on a warm July night with Shinohara hitting a grand slam in the same game. A season is made of hundreds of individual moments and those are the three I will keep.

From Vivienne Hartwell of Davis, a wine importer who tastes things for a living and who says the best bottles are always the ones that needed more time, who asks: "Is this a disappointing end or an impressive run?"

Vivienne, both. The two are not mutually exclusive. One hundred and eight wins is impressive. Losing to the best team in the American League in a six-game ALCS is disappointing. A season that produces both outcomes simultaneously is the specific condition of being a very good team that was not quite good enough in October. Sacramento has experienced this before — 1993, one hundred and five wins, first-round exit. The 1994 and 1995 teams made it past that barrier. The 1996 team could not. The difference, on examination, was a pitcher named Flores who threw approximately forty-six innings against this lineup in 1996 and was essentially unbeatable in all of them.

From Yusuf Demirci of Rancho Cordova, a mechanical engineer who designs things that are supposed to work reliably under stress, who asks: "Does the rotation come back next year?"

Yusuf, the contracts are what they are. Rubalcava is under contract through 1997. Andretti is under contract through 1998. Strickler and Espenoza are under contract. The core comes back. What changes is that everyone in that rotation is one year older, which matters more for some than others. Rubalcava at thirty-four pitching the way he pitched at thirty-three is not guaranteed. What is guaranteed is that this franchise has built something real and that the foundation for a fourth October run exists. Whether the foundation produces another championship depends on October, which is always the variable that the regular season cannot control.

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Thank you for four years. 1993. 1994. 1995. 1996. Two championships, two exits. The Hot Corner will be back in the spring.

Columbus plays San Antonio in the World Series. The 1996 Sacramento Prayers won one hundred and eight games and came within one series of a third consecutive championship.

They were magnificent.

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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California. The Hot Corner will return for the 1997 season.

[liberty-ca]

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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October – November 1996 | Awards Season | 1996-97 Offseason Edition

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RUBALCAVA WINS THE CY YOUNG. CHOI WINS UNANIMOUS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR. AND COLUMBUS SWEPT THE WORLD SERIES.

Columbus Heaven. World Series champions. Four games to zero over San Antonio in the World Series, following the four-to-two ALCS victory over Sacramento that the Hot Corner covered in last month's final regular season edition. The franchise that went one hundred and three and fifty-nine in the regular season is now the best team in baseball with a ring to show for it. The Hot Corner tips its cap and moves on.

Jordan Rubalcava won the American League Cy Young Award with twenty first-place votes out of twenty-eight. Bobby Gonzalez of Detroit finished second with eight. Brian Strickler of Sacramento finished third without a first-place vote. Bernardo Andretti and Mario Espenoza received votes as well. Four Sacramento pitchers on the Cy Young ballot. We have been watching this rotation since April and the voters confirmed what the numbers showed: the best staff in baseball this year wore Sacramento uniforms, and the best individual pitcher on that staff was the thirty-three-year-old from Cabimas, Venezuela, with two hundred and fifty-two career wins.

Ha-joon Choi won the American League Rookie of the Year Award unanimously. Twenty-eight first-place votes. Twenty-eight. He is only twenty-one years old and this is just the beginning of his jorney.

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THE AWARDS, ONE BY ONE

Jordan Rubalcava — AL Cy Young Award

His numbers are remarkable: twenty-one wins and seven loses with 2.85 ERA. Two hundred and thirty-seven innings pitched, one hundred and ninety-two strikeouts. Opponents hit Rubalcava .223. The Hot Corner spent the spring predicting that the offseason mechanical corrections Rubalcava made would stabilize his command and improve his second-half numbers. What actually happened exceeded every reasonable expectation: he led all of baseball in ERA, he won the Cy Young, and he is the best pitcher in the American League at thirty-three years old.

The Gonzalez vote split — eight first-place votes for the Detroit pitcher who won twenty-two games and had a 3.65 ERA — reflects legitimate disagreement about how to weigh wins versus ERA in a season where both candidates were excellent. My personal opinion: Rubalcava's ERA advantage of eighty points and his superior strikeout-to-walk ratio made him the correct selection. The voters agreed by a comfortable margin.

Strickler and Andretti both received votes. That means four Sacramento pitchers appeared on the Cy Young ballot in 1996. I will let that sentence sit without further commentary because it requires none.

Ha-joon Choi — AL Rookie of the Year (Unanimous)

Twenty-seven home runs, eighty-eight RBI, .270 batting average. A walk-off three-run homer against Columbus in July. A series MVP performance in the ALDS. Twenty-eight first-place votes, which is every vote available, from every voter in the American League. The Hot Corner's preseason prospect ranking had Choi as a contributor but not necessarily a full-season starter. He started every meaningful game and the results were not a fluke. His success delivered a supplemental first-round draft pick to the organization due to the Prospect Promotion Incentive, which is the kind of outcome that compounds organizational depth in the right direction.

Dutch sensation In't Veld of Columbus finished second in voting. The Hot Corner notes this without surprise: Choi versus a comparable Columbus outfield prospect was always going to end with Choi winning, given the numbers.

Jorge Jaime — AL MVP

Jaime beat Hernandez sixteen first-place votes to twelve in one of the closer MVP races the league has seen in several years. Hernandez shattered FLB record for home runs with seventy and drove in one hundred and eighty-one. Jaime hit fifty home runs and drove in one hundred and forty-five and set the all-time hits record with two hundred and twenty-six. I don't have a strong opinion about the correct winner between the two — both were historic seasons — except to note that Jaime's position value at first base and his team's playoff performance may have factored into the voting. Sacramento's Gil Cruz received one hundred and three MVP points, which places him in the top six of voting, which is appropriate recognition for a season that included seventeen home runs, fifty-five stolen bases, and a .311 batting average alongside a defensive performance that will generously be described as complicated.

Rubalcava and Strickler also received MVP points. Five Sacramento players in total appeared on the ballot: Cruz, Rubalcava, Strickler, Lopez, and — in last place with one point — Espenoza.

Jose Rodriguez — AL Gold Glove, Third Base

Rodriguez returned from the hip impingement in September, hit two home runs in the ALDS, and now wins the Gold Glove at third base. The Hot Corner documented the September return carefully. The specific validation of the Gold Glove is that the voters recognized what the game logs showed: when Rodriguez is healthy and positioned correctly at third, he is one of the best defensive players at his position in the American League.

Ha-joon Choi — AL Gold Glove, Right Field

Two American League awards for the twenty-one-year-old. The Hot Corner predicted in spring training that Choi's arm and range would make him a defensive contributor at the Major League level. The voters have now formally agreed. Gold Glove in a unanimous Rookie of the Year season is the kind of individual performance that earns franchise cornerstone status. The conversation is no longer about whether Choi belongs. It is about how good he will become.

Edwin Medina — Third in AL Mariano Rivera Award Voting

Vela of Houston won the award with twenty-seven first-place votes. Bruce of Columbus finished second. Medina finished third without a first-place vote. His season: forty-four saves, 1.97 ERA across the regular season. The Hot Corner's honest assessment of the voting: Vela had an extraordinary season and the award was correctly his. Medina finishing third on the ballot with those numbers is appropriate recognition for a closer who was not flashy but was genuinely excellent for six months.

THE SACRAMENTO INDIVIDUAL SEASON IN FULL

For the record, because the Hot Corner intends to document this season completely before moving forward to 1997:

Jordan Rubalcava: 21-7, 2.85 ERA, 237 IP, 192 K. AL Cy Young. AL MVP votes. Second in baseball wins behind Gonzalez. First in baseball ERA.

Brian Strickler: 17-9, 3.35 ERA, 237 K — led all of baseball. Third in Cy Young voting.

Bernardo Andretti: 20-7, 3.52 ERA, 171 K. Twenty wins. Cy Young votes.

Mario Espenoza: 15-9, 3.35 ERA, 169 K. Cy Young votes. ALCS Game Four win.

Danny St. Clair: 11-7, 4.25 ERA. A five-starter rotation all year without a weak link.

Edwin Musco: 31 HR, 108 RBI, .289 average, 36 years old.

Alejandro Lopez: 29 HR, 70 SB. The stolen base total is the highest in Sacramento franchise history.

Ha-joon Choi: 27 HR, 88 RBI, .270 average. Unanimous AL Rookie of the Year. AL Gold Glove RF.

Gil Cruz: .311 average, 22 HR, 55 SB. AL MVP votes.

David Perez: .308 average, 23 HR, 104 RBI.

Daniel Lozano: 27 HR, 91 RBI, .270 average. The pleasant surprise the Hot Corner documented from the day he arrived.

Jose Rodriguez: 20 HR in limited availability. AL Gold Glove 3B.

Hector Florez: Acquired July 31st. Hit .346 in the regular season. Hit .400 in the postseason.

Edwin Medina: 44 saves, 1.97 ERA. Third in AL Mariano Rivera Award voting.

Steve Lawson: 6-0, undefeated. The quietest excellent story of this season.

Sacramento Prayers in 1996: One hundred and eight wins. Division champions. ALDS winners. ALCS participants for the third consecutive year.

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LOOKING TOWARD 1997

Alejandro Navarro is the fourth-ranked prospect in all of baseball. He is eighteen years old and plays shortstop. Musco is under contract but thirty-seven next year and the throwing arm has been managed carefully for two seasons. The Hot Corner is noting the Navarro ranking without drawing conclusions, but the conclusions are available for anyone who wants to draw them.

Outfielder Francisco Hernandez exercised his player option. He will be back for one more year in Sacramento Prayers uniform.

Rodriguez won a salary arbitration case — the team awarded him one hundred and eighty-seven thousand two hundred against his demand of two hundred and twenty-five thousand. He is twenty-seven, healthy after the hip impingement, a Gold Glove winner, and under contract for one more year. The Hot Corner notes that his twenty home runs in limited availability this year represent the clearest evidence yet that the breakout the column predicted in the spring of 1995 is genuine and durable.

Choi is twenty-one. Cruz is twenty-nine. Musco is thirty-seven. Lopez is twenty-eight. Rubalcava is thirty-three. Strickler is a year older. Andretti is a year older and his postseason pattern — four appearances, three starts that produced high ERAs — is the one unresolved question the Hot Corner carries from 1996 into 1997 preparation.

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THE INBOX — Awards Edition

From Patience Abara of Sacramento's Natomas neighborhood, a pediatric occupational therapist who has been naming her assessment categories after Sacramento Prayers players since 2014 and who recently informed me that she has added a category called "Choi Protocol" for particularly surprising developmental leaps, who asks: "Does Rubalcava's Cy Young change how we think about his contract situation?"

Patience, he is under contract through 1997 at eight hundred thousand dollars, which is the most favorable contract on a championship-caliber roster. The Cy Young does not change the contract — it confirms that the team is getting elite production at a price point that would not exist in a market environment. What it does is raise the conversation about what happens after 1997, when Rubalcava will be thirty-four and eligible to test free agency or renegotiate depending on how the organization approaches it. The Hot Corner will document that conversation when it becomes relevant. For now: twenty-one wins, 2.85 ERA, the Cy Young. Thirty-three years old. One year left on the deal.

From Odessa Fontaine of Sacramento's Fruitridge Vista neighborhood, a retired marine biologist who maintains a saltwater aquarium with forty-seven fish named after Sacramento Prayers players and who says she is currently deciding whether to add a second tank for the Columbus roster, who asks: "Is there a version of 1997 where we beat Columbus?"

Odessa, yes. It requires two things. First, an answer to Flores — not just a game plan but demonstrated plate discipline that produces different contact patterns against his breaking ball. Second, Andretti in October performing closer to his regular season level. Both of those are achievable. Neither of them is guaranteed. The core is intact: Rubalcava, Strickler, Andretti, Espenoza, Choi, Cruz, Musco for as long as Musco holds up, Lopez, Perez, Rodriguez. The foundation is as strong as any in the American League. The ceiling is another World Series run. What sits between the foundation and the ceiling is the same thing that sat between it in 1996: Columbus, Flores, and the specific competitive problem of facing an opponent who has solved this lineup.

From Darius Okwuosa of Sacramento's Tahoe Park neighborhood, a structural engineer who spent all of 1996 watching Cruz commit errors and the team win one hundred and eight games anyway, who asks: "What is the offseason priority?"

Darius, two priorities. The first is Cruz's defensive health — twenty-four errors is not sustainable in an October lineup against a team that makes contact and puts the ball in play. Whether the errors were mechanical, focus-related, or a symptom of the shoulder problem that recurred at various points this year is something the coaching staff needs to diagnose and address. The second is depth at first base behind Perez, whose knee soreness in the postseason is worth monitoring. MacDonald was excellent in the postseason role. The question is whether Perez enters 1997 fully healthy or whether the organization needs to carry additional insurance. Beyond those two: the rotation comes back whole, Navarro is three years away, and the team that won one hundred and eight games needs fewer dramatic additions than it needs specific targeted corrections.

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Columbus is the world champion. Rubalcava has the Cy Young. Choi has the Rookie of the Year. Rodriguez has the Gold Glove. Choi has the Gold Glove. The 1996 Sacramento Prayers produced individual award seasons that will appear in the franchise record books for as long as the organization exists.

The Hot Corner will return for 1997. The conversation about Flores starts now.

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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California. The Hot Corner returns for the 1997 season.