The Cincinnati Reds got jostled around by the Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday in Great American Ball Park, their 4-2 loss dropping them back out of playoff position as the New York Mets rallied hard to beat
the Chicago Cubs, 9-7.
Out west, the Arizona Diamondbacks shrugged off a solid start by Shohei Ohtani and eventually dispatched the Los Angeles Dodgers in the wee hours of the morning, their win vaulting them into a tie with the Reds at 80-77 in the National League Wild Card chase. Both the Snakes and Reds sit 1 game back of the Mets (81-76) as of Wednesday morning.
The Reds will lean heavily on Hunter Greene in tonight’s 6:40 PM ET contest against Paul Skenes and the Pirates, a daunting task if ever there were one.
The Mets and Cubs will be on ESPN’s national broadcast tonight starting at 8:05 PM ET, where rookie Jonah Tong will start for New York opposite Matthew Boyd of Chicago.
Arizona will once again play host to the Dodgers late, with Blake Snell and Ryne Nelson on the bump for the respective ball clubs beginning at 9:40 PM ET. LA holds a slim 1.5 game lead over the San Diego Padres in the still-undecided NL West, putting added focus on the Friars afternoon contest against the NL Central champion Milwaukee Brewers. That game is slated for a 4:10 PM ET start (on MLB Network) and will feature Dylan Cease starting for San Diego opposite Milwaukee’s Chad Patrick.
Over in the American League, the Cleveland Guardians continued their incredible close to the season while dovetailing it with the collapse of the Detroit Tigers. Cleveland, who at one point had 0.0% odds of making the postseason in late August (per FanGraphs), reeled in Detroit with a 5-2 win over their division rivals on Tuesday, putting the two clubs level atop the AL Central at 85-72. Cleveland, though, secured the tiebreaker over Detroit with the victory in the season series and now technically sits atop the division, with Detroit now clinging to the final AL Wild Card spot just 1 game clear of the Houston Astros (and 1 game back of the Boston Red Sox for the second Wild Card spot).
The Tigers and Guardians play at 6:40 PM ET tonight in Cleveland, with Jack Flaherty and Tanner Bibee doing the starting pitching.
Boston, who defeated the Toronto Blue Jays north of the border last night, will look to do so again this evening at 7:07 PM ET with ace Garrett Crochet starting opposite future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer. Toronto, for the record, is still just a game ahead of the New York Yankees in the AL East race, and the Yanks will host the bumbling Chicago White Sox tonight at 7:05 PM ET with ace Max Fried starting.
