The robots are officially here. Major League Baseball announced yesterday that the automated ball-strike challenge system will be implemented in the 2026 season, complete with a corporate partnership with T-Mobile. (Yes, that’s where we are in late capitalism: rules now have corporate sponsors.) If you’ve been to any AAA games over the past few years, or paid attention during spring training, then you already know how this works. Every team starts each game with two challenges, which are retained
when a challenge is successful. Only the pitcher, batter, or catcher can challenge a call. Should be good news for Roman Anthony and Triston Casas (remember him?) (MLB.com)
It sure would be nice to have Anthony and Casas back in the lineup right now, huh? With the Red Sox struggling to score runs all month, it’s fair to look back at the trade deadline and wonder if Craig Breslow should have done more to shore-up the lineup. Does he think he should have targeted any other bats? “It’s always appropriate to review those types of decisions,” he said. “This offseason, we’re going to be faced with similar decisions whether that’s pursuing players in free agency or making trades. And we want to put ourselves in the best position so that the information we have about players is accurate. So the short answer is yes.” (Tim Healey, Boston Globe)
While he wasn’t a trade deadline acquisition, Breslow did eventually add Nathaniel Lowe to the roster, helping to shore-up the first base position, which had been an issue for most of the season. After some recent struggles, Lowe’s been spending a lot of time in the cage trying to get his swing right. (Christopher Smith, MassLive)
At least Breslow nailed his big offseason pitching acquisition. Garrett Crochet, who leads the league in innings pitched, will likely throw his 200th inning of the season tonight against the Blue Jays, as he rounds out one of best pitching performances of the year. Given that durability was the biggest question mark (only question mark?) about his game coming into the season, this is pretty great to see. (Alex Speier, Boston Globe)
Crochet isn’t the only Red Sox player who saw a big jump in his workload this year. Carlos Narvaez has already caught over 300 more innings than he ever has before. But he says he’s not wearing down: “I feel great. I’m the type of person the more I play, the better I feel.” (Christopher Smith, MassLive)
So Narv will be feeling even better if the Sox get some bonus games via the postseason. They’re not in just yet, but they passed a big test last night. (Rob Bradford, WEEI)
And here’s a useful tool to help you keep track of the various playoff scenarios. (Johnny Flores, Jr., The Athletic)
