Record: 59-45 (19-6 for the month)
1st place AL East, tied with Baltimore (would also be first wild card)
Now that's more like it. After a couple of bad months that got folks wondering if this team was a real contender they went out and had a great July as not even the All-Star break stalled their momentum. Here's an enjoyable look at the month's games:
Started with a 6-game win streak and barely cooled down from there. It wasn't all wine and roses though. We lost lefty reliever
Magdiel Cotto, who tore his UCL so badly that his career was adjudged to be over, and then we lost starter
Campbell Ellis to a torn rotator cuff late in the month so his season is done. To replace these guys we went out and made a couple of moves. First we acquired a bonafide closer to replace our bullpen-by-committee:
Correa is one of the game's better closers, rated 80/65/55, having already saved 29 games for Cincinnati this year with a 1.34 ERA and 2.0 WAR and he led the league with 41 saves in 2030. He's a free agent at year's end and the going-nowhere Reds were eager to deal him. In return they get Olsen, an OK but not great pitching prospect, and our former closer Vera who pitched his way out of the job for us and whom the Reds are now trying as a low-stamina starter.
Then we claimed pitcher
Jose Garces off waivers from Pittsburgh. Garces is an interesting case - he's making $15.6M and is arb-eligible, rated 3.5 stars, and is rated 65/55/65 as a reliever and 55/55/65 as a 45-stamina starter. A couple years ago he was part of Pittsburgh's 2030 World Series-winning team, earning 3.7 WAR in only 21 starts before suffering a damaged elbow ligament that sidelined him for most of 2031. This year with Pittsburgh he's been brutal (2-10, 8.55 ERA) but is the victim of a .421 BABIP although the 12 homers allowed in 53 IP didn't help either. Anyway, he's a gamble who should pitch better and right now we'll use him in long relief, taking over for
Chang-hyeok Kim who moved back to the rotation to replace Ellis and if he pitches well enough there he may get a shot at starting. Or he's a bust and we eat some money.
As you can see the standings are pretty compressed around MLB with nobody playing .600 ball so if the Rays keep it up they could potentially grab a playoff bye should they get the better of Baltimore.
As one would expect coming off a 19-6 month the team stats are much improved in several areas, most notably the on-base numbers and a big improvement in the starting pitching which was near the bottom a month ago. Hopefully the Ellis injury doesn't hurt too much as Kim is a bit shaky in the rotation which is why Ellis replaced him earlier this year. Tried trading for a starter but prices were too high. Still 7 games off our Pythagorean record but unless we start winning a lot of close ones those lost games are just something we'll have to overcome.
Quite simply almost everyone raked in July with Paino really leading the charge. Even slow starters Basallo and Schmidt heated up as the month went on with only Schrier having a rough time of it at the plate, although he came through with his only homer of the month on the 31st to win a game against the Yankees so maybe it'll a portent of a hot August for him.
More goodness here. The bullpen was lights-out and Correa has been great since arriving with the lone exception an extra-inning loss in which the ghost runner scored. Vodnik has looked like he did when he closed for us back in 2029 and even Crochet started becoming reliable. The starters were pretty good too even if Teodo and Lambert struggled a bit. In fact one of them was so good the league took notice:
Going to skip the farm report since there's nothing new of note to report there.