THE HOT CORNER
Baseball coverage from the inside — Sacramento Prayers and the FBL
By Claude Playball | Baseball Insider & Analyst | Host, "Hot Corner" Podcast
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September 1 – September 17, 1997 | One Hundred and Four Wins | The Division Is Clinched, and the ALCS Bracket Is Taking Shape
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MUSCO HAS A CONCUSSION AND FLOREZ RETURNS IN TWO DAYS. THE ALCS STARTS IN TWO WEEKS AND THE ROSTER IS BEING REBUILT IN REAL TIME.
The Sacramento Prayers have clinched the American League West Division for the third consecutive season. The magic number column in the standings now reads the word "Clinched" and the I want to acknowledge what that means before we discuss anything else. One hundred and four wins through September 17th. A .707 winning percentage. Twenty-nine games ahead of San Jose in the division. The best record in the American League by thirteen games over Columbus. Whatever challenges the final two weeks of the regular season produce — and the injury report suggests they will produce several — they arrive against the backdrop of what is already the second-best season in franchise history, behind only the hundred-and-seven-win championship year of 1994.
Now the complications. Edwin Musco returned from his torn meniscus on August 29th, started to find his rhythm across the first week of September, and was hit by a pitch on September 10th that caused a concussion. The injury report vaguely says "day-to-day" with unknown timeline. Berrios has a fractured finger from a September 7th hit-by-pitch, five weeks on IL projected, likely gone for the postseason. Adams is on the IL again with a strained groin. Florez's fractured ulna is two days from return, which is the most significant positive development in the injury log since Musco's initial return. The roster entering October is being assembled from parts that have been breaking and healing in rapid alternation since August 12th.
And Jimenez lost his first game since July 3rd. The undefeated streak — six wins and zero losses across two months, a 1.42 ERA that represented the most sustained individual pitching excellence the Hot Corner documented all year from the fifth rotation spot — ended on September 14th when Pedro Hernandez of Seattle threw seven and a third innings of shutout ball and Strahan hit a solo home run in the fifth that was the game's only run. The winning pitcher, Hernandez, entered the game with a 3-18 record. The streak is over. The Hot Corner will describe what this means for October in the analysis section below.
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DID YOU CATCH THOSE GAMES? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY
@ Portland, September 1-3 (3-0)
Espenoza went eight and a third innings on September 1st and allowed zero runs. Berrios hit two home runs — his fifth and sixth of the season, in a game where he went two for four and scored twice. Lopez and Choi both homered in the first inning. The lineup produced six runs against Marin, who has now allowed three home runs to Sacramento in this start and three to them in the June 29th start. The offense against Marin is worth noting: eight of the Prayers' runs against him in 1997 have come on homers, which is the specific counter to his sinker-heavy profile. Six to zero, Sacramento.
September 2nd gave us the bad version of Jimenez returning after previous three weeks of excellence: five earned runs in one and a third innings, six hits, four walks before the Portland fifth. Fallback arrived without warning, as it always does with this pitcher. Vic Cruz entered and held Portland for three and a third innings of one-run ball, which represents the most competent extended relief appearance from Cruz since before the All-Star break. Lawson held two and a third innings scoreless. Choi went three for five with three RBI. Perez hit a two-run double in the seventh. The offense scored eight runs to bail out the pitching. Eight to six, Sacramento.
September 3rd was Strickler going eight innings against Portland and allowing two runs — a Bonilla home run in the fifth, which is the only meaningful offensive contribution a forty-three-loss team produced in the game — and Lozano hitting a two-run homer in the eighth to break a one-to-one tie. Benson saved his twelfth. Three to two. The streak reached five.
@ San Jose, September 5-7 (1-2)
September 5th produced the most operationally frustrating loss of the final month. Sacramento held a nine-to-eight lead entering the bottom of the tenth inning with Gonzalez on the mound. Boldrini hit a two-run homer. Ten to nine, San Jose. Perez had gone three for four with a double, a homer, and four RBI in a game where the lineup scored nine runs off St. Clair and the bullpen simply could not protect the lead across extra innings. The specific sequence in the tenth: Benson allowed three doubles and exited, Gonzalez took the inherited runners and Boldrini hit the second pitch he saw over the fence. Two separate blown save contributors in the same inning. A nine-run performance wasted by an extra-inning collapse.
September 6th: Andretti went six and a third innings of shutout ball — his best start in a month — and the offense generated three hits against Rosario across nine innings. Rosario of San Jose, entering the game at five and eight with a 7.28 ERA, threw nine innings of two-hit shutout ball. In the tenth, Benson allowed a Vasquez double and then Gonzalez entered and Montemayor hit a grand slam. Six to two, San Jose. The Hot Corner has now counted thirteen starters this season who have shut Sacramento down. Rosario is the thirteenth entry. Benson has his fifth blown save.
September 7th: Espenoza went six innings, allowed three runs, won his fifteenth game. Cruz went two for four with a grand slam in the seventh — his sixteenth homer — and drove in five runs. Prieto held the final three innings without allowing a run. Nine to three. The Cruz grand slam deserves its own sentence: with the bases loaded and the game in hand, he hit the ball where it needed to go, which is what good players do in non-pressure situations and what great players do when the moment demands something specific. Rodriguez doubled his RBI total from this game alone.
Then the specific note from September 7th: Berrios was hit by a pitch and fractured a finger. He is expected to miss five weeks, and almost sure will not play in the postseason. Alo Rodriguez was injured in a collision at a base. His status for September 8th was listed as uncertain, but he appeared the following day, so Sacramento has dodged the bullet there.
@ Milwaukee, September 8-9 (2-0)
September 8th at Milwaukee — the best team in the National League, one of the two best teams in baseball by record — was the kind of game the Hot Corner had circled since the schedule was released. Milwaukee is eighty-four and sixty-two entering September 8th. Felts has forty-two home runs. Crotwell is at thirty-three home runs from shortstop. Sanchez is hitting .333 with twenty-seven home runs. This is a legitimate lineup and the test of whether Sacramento's rotation could handle it in a setting that approximates the World Series context was one the Hot Corner wanted documented carefully.
Strickler went six and a third innings against Milwaukee and allowed two runs, both on Hill home runs — solo shots in the fifth and seventh. The lineup scored three times against Ramirez and Benson saved his thirteenth. Three to two, Sacramento. Strickler now has fifteen wins and a 2.21 ERA. I see this performance against a quality lineup as the specific evidence that the rotation is prepared for October.
September 9th was the most offensive game of the second half: seventeen runs, twenty-one hits, five home runs, eight pitchers used across the nine innings. Jimenez went four innings and allowed four runs in a game where the Sacramento lineup scored eight in the first two innings to create enough cushion to absorb any damage. Shinohara hit a three-run homer in the second. Blake hit a two-run homer in the first. Zuniga hit a two-run homer in the second after being recalled when Berrios was placed on the IL. The specific note worth documenting: Zuniga, a twenty-five-year-old catcher received in the Hernandez trade, has now hit three home runs in limited appearances. The Hot Corner does not project from a small sample, but notes that a young catcher hitting at the major league level in September with Florez injured is a valuble roster asset. Seventeen to nine, Sacramento.
vs. El Paso, September 10-11 (1-1)
Rubalcava threw eight innings of one-hit ball on September 10th against El Paso — one hit, eight innings, and the game was won on a Choi double that scored Cruz in the sixth. One to zero, Sacramento. The game was barely noticed because of what happened in the first inning: Musco, appearing as shortstop after Rodriguez started at third, was hit by a pitch and left the game with the concussion and is now listed as day-to-day with unknown timeline.
September 11th: Andretti went five and two-thirds innings against El Paso's Bender, who went eight innings and allowed three runs. Perez homered twice — his twenty-third and twenty-fourth — and Lopez hit his twenty-fourth in the eighth. Four to three, El Paso. Bender at sixteen and ten continues to be the kind of pitcher the Hot Corner is watching in the context of a potential National League postseason opponent. He is not dominant — his ERA is 5.15 — but his pitch sequencing and his ability to manufacture ground ball outs against aggressive swingers is the specific profile that troubles this lineup, and three runs allowed over eight innings against this offense is a competitive result regardless of the ERA.
vs. Seattle, September 12-14 (2-1)
September 12th: The Prayers reached one hundred wins. The specific game that delivered the milestone was a Rodriguez walk-off two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth off Uptagrafft, with the Prayers trailing four to three entering the inning, after Perez had tied the game with a solo homer off Sanchez in the same ninth inning. Two consecutive home runs, a comeback, a walk-off, one hundred wins. I could not have scripted it any way better even if I've tried. Five to four, Sacramento.
September 13th: Strickler went seven innings. Perez hit a three-run homer in the fourth. Esparza saved in one and a third innings. Five to one. The winning streak reached four games.
September 14th: Jimenez went seven and two-thirds innings, allowed one run, and lost one to nothing. The one run was a Strahan solo homer in the fifth. The pitcher who allowed it was Jimenez. The opposing pitcher who outdid him was Hernandez, who is three and eighteen. The Prayers generated three hits. The walk-off streak ended. The undefeated streak ended. One to nothing, Seattle.
The Hot Corner logs this game the way it deserves to be logged: without catastrophizing it. Jimenez threw seven and two-thirds innings and struck out eight. His ERA for the loss was approximately 1.17 for the game. He lost because Hernandez was better on September 14th, not because the Jimenez version we have been watching since July has disappeared.
vs. Portland, September 15-17 (3-0)
Three consecutive wins over Portland to close the stretch, and the specific thing the I want to mention from this series is the progression of three starters producing clean work against a team that goes into October as the franchise's division rival: Rubalcava five and two-thirds innings allowing three runs, Andretti six and two-thirds innings allowing two runs, Espenoza seven innings allowing two runs. None of the three games were easy, and each required the bullpen to contribute. Lawson won in relief on September 15th — his record is now five and zero — in a game where Zuniga hit his third homer of the season. Lawson deserves all the flowers he is getting: five wins, zero losses, a 2.58 ERA. The pitcher who has been the most reliable late-game asset after Benson and before whoever closes is not Prieto, is not Esparza, is not Gonzalez. It is Lawson, who has been accumulating wins through the second half in silence.
September 16th: Three Sacramento home runs in the first two innings — Chavarria, Shinohara, and Perez all went deep off Marin — and Andretti won his sixteenth game. Four to two. September 17th: Espenoza seven innings, Lozano hit his twentieth homer in the eighth to break a three-to-three tie, Rodriguez went three for four with two RBI. Seven to three, Sacramento.
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THE STORIES THAT DEFINE THIS STRETCH
One hundred wins is not a number this franchise reaches casually
The 1994 championship team finished at one hundred and seven wins. The 1995 back-to-back champions won one hundred and nine. This team will finish somewhere between one hundred and four and one hundred and ten, depending on the final ten games, and the franchise history situates that number accurately: this is one of the three best Sacramento seasons on record, achieved while managing a torn meniscus, a fractured ulna, two torn rotator cuffs, a strained groin, a fractured finger, and a concussion across the roster.
Strickler and Espenoza are approaching two hundred strikeouts each
Strickler has one hundred and ninety-nine strikeouts entering the final two weeks. Espenoza has one hundred and ninety-six. These are the two and three positions in the league's strikeout ranking, separated by three strikeouts with ten games remaining. I have been mentioning the rotation's dominance in cumulative terms all season; entering the final month, two members of the same staff are within striking distance of two hundred strikeouts simultaneously. The last time that happened in the American League was 1988. This rotation is producing at a genuinely historic level.
Jimenez's undefeated streak ended and what it means is more nuanced than the loss
Six wins and zero losses from July 3rd through September 13th was a run of high-end performances against legitimate opponents. The September 14th loss to Seattle was a one-nothing game where Jimenez struck out eight and allowed one run in seven and two-thirds innings. The Hot Corner's assessment has not changed: the October version of Jimenez, if it resembles the version from July through September, is a genuine postseason asset. The September 2nd start against Portland — five earned runs in one and a third innings — is the other relevant data point from this stretch. What we are going to see in October is the question I cannot answer in advance and will not pretend to even know.
Clawson is a real bullpen addition and Esparza's ERA is 2.02
Clawson was signed as a free agent on September 4th for seventy-nine thousand dollars. In his performances through September 17th, he has held opponents scoreless in six appearances across six and two-thirds innings. His ERA is 1.08. He is thirty-two years old and has been in professional baseball since 1989. Combined with Esparza at 2.02 across his appearances, the bullpen depth behind Benson has been rebuilt — not to Medina's standard, but to a level that is functional and not the structural gap it was in the week after August 12th. The specific configuration entering October: Benson as the primary closer when available, Esparza in middle-late leverage situations, Lawson as the bridge arm, Clawson as the depth option. Prieto's ERA is 3.70. Gonzalez is at 3.42. The Hot Corner ranks this bullpen sixth or seventh in the American League, which is better than it ranked immediately after the Medina injury.
The ALCS bracket is Columbus versus Sacramento
Columbus is ninety-one and fifty-five, which projects to roughly ninety-five wins and first place in the AL Central by a comfortable margin. Detroit is second in the AL Central and the likely wild card at eighty-four and sixty-two. The Hot Corner's ALCS preview: Columbus has Flores, who is now fourteen and six. Sacramento beat Flores on June 18th when Choi hit two home runs. Choi has knee tendinitis. Whether those two facts cancel each other out is the central question of October.
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AROUND THE LEAGUE AS THE REGULAR SEASON WINDS DOWN
Felts and Mele are tied at forty-six home runs, five ahead of Choi at forty-one. The knee tendinitis is the apparent reason Choi's pace has slowed; he has hit zero home runs since August 22nd across nearly a month of games. Whether the knee is managed effectively across the final ten days of the regular season, and whether it is healthy enough for the ALCS, is the most pressing roster question remaining.
Milwaukee is eighty-four and sixty-two in the NL Central, five games ahead of the second-place teams in the NL wild card race. The NL playoff bracket resolves itself between Milwaukee, Albuquerque, Long Beach, and Phoenix — competitive teams with legitimate pitching, but the Hot Corner's October attention, to be entirely honest, is on the American League.
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THE INBOX
From Fernanda Espinoza of Sacramento's Pocket neighborhood, a documentary filmmaker who says the most important skill in her craft is knowing the difference between a scene that completes an arc and one that merely continues it, who asks: "Does the one-hundred-win milestone complete the regular season arc, or is the arc still unresolved?"
Fernanda, the arc is unresolved because the arc runs through October. One hundred wins is a scene that documents this team's sustained excellence across six months — the Choi home runs, the rotation's ERA leaders, the Musco return, the extra-inning walk-offs, the eight-game winning streaks and the four-game losing streaks that revealed specific vulnerabilities — but the scene is not the arc's completion. The arc that started in October 1996 when Rich Flores won three games in the ALCS, the arc that reached its first turning point on June 18th when Choi hit two home runs off that same pitcher, does not resolve until someone wins four games in the ALCS. The hundred wins are evidence. They are not the verdict.
From Theodore Nakamura of Sacramento's Midtown neighborhood, a structural biologist who studies protein folding under stress and who says the most interesting moment is always when the molecule encounters conditions it was not designed for, who asks: "This roster has been under stress for three months. What does it fold into when October arrives?"
Theodore, the stress has produced different outcomes in different components of the roster. The rotation has folded into something stronger than its pre-stress state — Jimenez has added two months of sustained performance to his record, Rubalcava has descended to a 2.89 ERA from an April that suggested a season-long concern, Strickler and Espenoza are approaching the two-hundred-strikeout threshold simultaneously. The bullpen folded differently: Medina's absence removed the most stress-resistant component and what replaced it — Esparza, Lawson, Clawson — is not the equivalent structure but it functions under moderate load. The infield has folded in the way proteins fold after partial stress: Rodriguez at third base is more capable than anyone projected, Musco is back but concussed, Cruz has sixteen errors. The molecule entering October is not the molecule that existed in April. Whether the October conditions reveal new strength or new fragility is what the postseason determines.
From Orla Hennessy of Davis, a geotechnical engineer who studies foundation stability and who says the question she asks about every structure is not whether the foundation is strong but whether it is strong enough for what will be built on top of it, who asks: "Is this team's foundation strong enough for a championship run?"
Orla, the rotation is the foundation, and it is the strongest foundation this franchise has put under a postseason run since 1994. Four starters in the top five of the American League in ERA. Two approaching two hundred strikeouts. Rubalcava with fifteen wins since his flu recovery and a 2.89 ERA. Andretti with sixteen wins. The weight that will be placed on this foundation in October is a five-game series against Columbus with Flores starting Games One and potentially Five. The specific test is not whether the foundation holds under the weight of a full team — it will. The test is whether the bullpen that sits on top of the foundation can transfer the load adequately when the rotation leaves the game in the seventh or eighth inning with a one-run lead. The foundation is strong enough. Whether the structure above it can hold the load is where the Hot Corner's uncertainty lives.
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Charlotte for three games starting September 19th. Nashville series starting September 22nd. Florez returns in two days. Musco is day-to-day with unknown timeline. The regular season ends September 28th. The ALCS begins shortly after.
One hundred and four wins. Twenty-nine games up. The division clinched. Strickler at 2.18 ERA, leading baseball. Choi at forty-one home runs. The rotation ready. The bullpen rebuilt. The close of 1997's regular season is ten days away.
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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.