Outside The Confines: So what happened OTHER than that no-hitter?

Of course, the biggest news out of the weekend for Cubs fans was Alec Mills throwing the 16th no-hitter in Cubs history. It was also the first time both Chicago teams recorded a no-hitter in the same season. That’s never happened before.

Outside The Confines, however, focuses outside the Cubs specifically (unless it’s related to Fergie Jenkins, then you guys just have to humor me), so let’s take a look at the other happenings across baseball, including a big milestone for Albert Pujols, who collected his 660th home run, to tie for fifth of all time with Willie Mays.

• Jayson Stark takes a deep dive into a family secret of former MLB pitcher Richard Dotson. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Matt Martell breaks down the top ten likely contenders for the World Series this season.
• Over at FanGraphs, Dan Szymborski assess how the “lite” rebuild for the Rangers is working out so far.
• Baseball has a slew of fun young stars, led by Fernando Tatis Jr., and Sam Miller looks at the 100 players who are the most fun to watch in baseball right now.
• Is it too early to think about the hottest free agents of the offseason? Never, according to Jim Bowden. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• ESPN is loving top 100 lists, because Kiley McDaniel brings us a list of the top 100 prospects to make their major league debut in 2020.
• Here’s a fun and weird little baseball tidbit for you.

• Buster Olney brings us the heart-wrenching story of A.J. Pollock’s daughter being born prematurely in the middle of a pandemic.
• Will Laws and Nick Selbe wonder what happened to former powerhouse teams like the Yankees and Astros this season.
• Jay Jaffe’s memorial piece to Lou Brock is absolutely worth a read.
• Dan Hayes offers up the best MLB photos of the week, and the header image is a real doozy. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Want to know the magic numbers and playoff odds for every team in contention? ESPN has you covered.
• A few weeks back we mentioned Vin Scully was auctioning off some of his memorabilia. Tom Verducci gives us the story of why Scully is getting rid of some iconic items.
• This Albert Pujols guy is pretty good, eh?

• Nick Selbe looks at Pujols’ incredible achievement.
• Tim Graham brings us an insightful Q&A with knuckleballer R.A. Dickey. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• If you think this season’s fires will be a rare case of bad air quality, Dan Murphy and Tracy Wholf have a piece that suggests this is the beginning of a long term problem.
• Rude.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Make it so.