Outside the Confines: Closing out the summer

The summer is almost over. I know this not only because my daughter has returned to school, but more importantly, I know this because I’m seeing pumpkin-spice and pumpkin-flavored products on grocery store shelves. I had a nice pumpkin ale today. I’m ready for it to start cooling off.

We’re starting today with a closer you’re probably already familiar with.

• Justin Choi writes about the dilemma that the Dodgers face with closer Craig Kimbrel. Kimbrel has not been good this year, but the underlying numbers — stuff, velocity, location, etc., have been as good as ever. He should be getting much better results than he has been getting.
• A roundtable discussion about whether the Dodgers should remove Kimbrel from closing duties.
• Fabian Ardaya writes that the Dodgers are being patient with Kimbrel because they can afford to be patient, but they won’t be patient once the playoffs start. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• The reason why the Dodgers can be patient is that they have an 84-36 record. Mike Petriello notes that LA has been playing .644 baseball since the 2017 season, which is a mark that is better than any other team over a span that long since the Yankees of the mid-fifties.
• The Padres can’t afford to be so patient. They’ve announced that closer Josh Hader has been given “a break” from closing duties.
• The Yankees have been struggling and their once 15-game lead in the division is now down to eight. Still a solid lead, but it’s going in the wrong direction. Zach Crizer looks at what the Yankees should and should not be worried about.
• Joon Lee reports that the Yankees players are looking for someone or something to give them a “spark.”
• Chris Kirschner writes that the Yankees explanations for their struggles are growing thin. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• The Yankees did win on Sunday over the Blue Jays, salvaging one game of the four-game series. They also retired Paul O’Neill’s number 21 before that game.
• There was some barking back and forth between Toronto and New York after Blue Jays starter Alek Manoah hit Aaron Judge with a pitch.
• The Red Sox and Orioles played the annual Little League game in Williamsport last night. The two teams enjoyed the festivities with the kids, which included sliding down the hills on cardboard.
• Here’s more on the two teams enjoying Little League.
• It was announced that the Phillies and Nationals will play next year’s Little League Classic.
• R.J. Anderson has three things that went wrong with the Rangers season that led to the firing of longtime general manager Jon Daniels.
• Levi Weaver believes that whether or not Daniels deserved to get fired, the Rangers handled it poorly and that Daniels deserved more respect. (The Athletic sub. req.) Weaver thinks the team could have waited to fire Daniels until after the season. Or at least have told him that he was going to get canned before Daniels fired manager Chris Woodward earlier in the week.
• This is a really fascinating article that I wish more of you could read. With the specific case of the Detroit Tigers in mind, Bradford Doolittle examines how and when exactly can you tell when a team’s rebuilding effort has failed? (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• R.J. Anderson ranks the three best and worst rebuilding efforts at the moment. The Cubs are on neither list, in case you were wondering.
• Cardinals DH Albert Pujols is sitting on 692 home runs in what he has announced is his final season. Pujols tells Bob Nightengale he’s retiring at the end of the year whether or not he gets to 700 home runs.
• Sticking with the Cardinals, manager Oliver Marmol recalls the scariest day of his life 30 years ago this week when he and his family survived Hurricane Andrew. Marmol believes that incident still has been a major influence on his life.
• Braves outfielder Marcell Ozuna was booed in his first game back from a DUI arrest.
• Sad news as former Tigers and Phillies player John Wockenfuss has died at age 73. Our sympathies go out to his friends and family.
• Scary news as former pitcher Bill “Spaceman” Lee collapsed as he was warming up in the bullpen for a Savannah Bananas game. Lee, 75, did get up and leave the field on his own power and was taken to a local hospital for observation.
• Astros DH Yordan Álvarez was hospitalized after experiencing shortness of breath after an in-game fireworks celebration.
• Ben Clemens calls Guardians pitcher Trevor Stephan “the best reliever you’ve never heard of.”
• White Sox manager Tony La Russa intentionally walked a batter on a 1-2 count again.
• Former Rays, Cubs and Angels manager Joe Maddon is enjoying his time off from baseball. He still wants to manage, but he says he won’t just take any job.
• Will Leitch lists the top potential free agent from each MLB team.
• The Sugar Land Space Cowboys (Triple-A) scored 17 runs in one inning against the Oklahoma City Dodgers on Friday.
• Of bigger interest in the minors, MLB test-drove some rules changes, including a challenge Automatic Ball-Strike system (aka “robot umps”) during the Charlotte Knights and Syracuse Mets game on Saturday.
• Paul Casella has the story of how Nate Fisher went from working at a Nebraska bank last year to pitching for the Mets this weekend.
• Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon got charged with an error when a ball went right through his glove on Sunday.
• And finally, Tonya Simpson has the story of the disappearance and theft (kidnapping?) of Dillon T. Pickle, the much-beloved mascot of the college wooden-bat league Portland Pickles.

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