MLB manager knows he's done if team misses playoffs | Nightengale's Notebook - USA Today

Major League Baseball says it has no plans to remove Mark Walter as Los Angeles Dodgers owner after being under federal fraud investigation by the SEC and the U.S. Attorney's Office, and is now subjected to a class-action lawsuit alleging multiple insurance companies that he owns hid an ongoing federal investigation from customers.

Walter also is telling friends and business associates that he has no interest in selling the Dodgers after already selling the Lakers and shares of Chelsea, the English soccer club he bought in 2022.

– Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo has publicly acknowledged that the club will likely fire him if they miss the postseason for the eighth time in the last nine years on the job. Technically, it would be a simple mutual parting since Lovullo is on the final year of his contract.

“I understand it, it’s the realities of this game," Lovullo said, “and you got to win. That’s what it comes down to. I think we won a lot here. Have we won enough."

– Asking several Hall of Fame players about has impressed them the most this season, and the overwhelming answer is Cincinnati Reds first baseman Sal Stewart, who’s hitting .272 with 32 homers and 110 RBIs.

“What he’s doing for a rookie is incredible," one Hall of Fame slugger said. “I can’t believe when I hear people talking about other guys for the Rookie of the Year award. He should be unanimous. To drive in that many runs as a rookie is so damn impressive."

– The San Diego Padres were on the outside looking in on Sept. 3, sitting one-half game behind the Diamondbacks, 5 ½ games behind the Cubs and six games behind the Phillies.

They entered Saturday in a three-way tie with the Cubs and Phillies, going 12-2 while the three teams they were chasing have gone a combined 18-22.

The Padres believe their best chance of surviving the first round is by gaining home-field advantage at Petco Park where they have won 22 of their past 27 games, and are 47-29 this season.

The Padres’ 35-16 record since July 24 is the best in MLB.

– Freddy Peralta is building his free-agent value back up since joining the Rays. He is 4-0 with a 0.78 ERA in his last four starts after going 5-9 with a 4.99 ERA in 22 starts with the Mets.

“I never give up," Peralta told reporters. “Sometimes it’s hard when you are going through difficult times. This moment right now that I’m living, the last three or four games, is been what I was waiting for. I just want to continue like that until we make it to the World Series.”

– It’s pretty wild considering that the National League’s MVP and the top two AL MVP candidates were all traded early in their minor league careers.

The Dodgers traded 19-year-old outfielder Yordan Alvarez to the Houston Astros on Aug. 1, 2016 for reliever Josh Fields.

The Mets traded Pete Crow-Armstrong, who they had drafted 13 months earlier, on July 30, 2021, to the Chicago Cubs for Javier Báez and Trevor Williams.

The Cleveland Guardians traded 18-year-old third baseman Junior Caminero to the Tampa Bay Rays on Nov. 19, 2021, for minor-league pitcher Tobias Myers.

– Miami Marlins closer Pete Fairbanks says he will be sidelined until mid-summer after he undergoes thoracic outlet surgery that derailed his season, yielding a 6.31 ERA with 19 saves.

– Angels owner Arte Moreno is telling friends that he simply wanted to spend more time with his family, and the $4 billion offer from Stan Kroenke was simply too good to pass up.

– Former All-Stars Matt Williams and Eric Young led their teams, San Francisco and Los Angeles, to the championship round of the inaugural Professional Women’s Baseball League.

– Diamondbacks veteran third baseman Nolan Arenado has been everything they could have imagined and more since they acquired him from the Cardinals in the offseason.

Arenado, who not only became the fifth third baseman since 1969 to produce nine seasons of at least 25 homers and 75 RBIs – joining Mike Schmidt, Adrian Beltre, Aramis Ramirez and Manny Machado – but has been a role model in the clubhouse with his work ethic. The Diamondbacks wanted to place Arenado on the IL a few weeks ago with a left intercostal injury and an inflamed thumb, but he refused, insisting he could still play through the injuries in the pennant race.

– The Chicago White Sox say there is no urgency in signing Munetaka Murakami to a contract extension considering his recent struggles. He’s hitting just .107 with 54 strikeouts in 103 at-bats in his last 29 games.

– MLB must consider re-seeding or eliminate the possibility of division teams playing one another in the first round of the postseason.

It’s ludicrous that the Yankees and Red Sox will play one another in the wild-card round, and then face the Tampa Bay Rays in the next round, knocking off two of the three AL East powers, while one team from the brutally mediocre AL West (Houston or Texas) or AL Central (Chicago White Sox or Cleveland) will advance to the ALCS.

– There were only four players in baseball history who hit 40 homers and stole 40 bases in a season before 2023: Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and Alfonso Soriano.

Now, since MLB implemented rules limiting pickoffs with bigger bases, it may happen for the third time in four seasons if Pete Crow-Armstrong steals three bases the final week, joining Ronald Acuña Jr. (2023) and Shohei Ohtani (2024).

– While Mike Elias’ job is safe as the Orioles president of baseball operations, there continues to be a shuffling of the front office desk.

While Matt Blood, vice president of player and staff development, was let go earlier in the month, now longtime assistant GM Sig Mejdal, who was with Elias in Houston, was demoted and no longer is in charge of the team’s analytics department.

– That was the Chicago Cubs who were wildly celebrating along the railing at Churchill Downs this week when “Act of Parliament,’’ a horse owned by Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman and his family, won the $20,000 maiden claiming race.

The Cubs spent their off day Thursday in Louisville before their weekend series against the Cincinnati Reds.

– No one has had a worse second half than Phillies outfielder Brandon Marsh.

He was voted to start the All-Star team in July, but ever since he’s been one of the worst hitters in the sport, producing a .490 OPS since July 1, the lowest among all 155 qualified hitters. He has just one home run since July 21, one extra-base hit in the last 29 days, and has produced just 50 total bases since July 1.

It’s the lowest second half OPS by a Phillies player since Steve Jeltz (.368) in 1988, according to The Athletic.

– Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts is putting on another finishing kick.

A year ago, Betts hit .317 with an .892 OPS over his final 47 games.

This year, after batting .223 with a .682 OPS in early August, he huit .325 with a 1.007 OPS, including five home runs and 20 RBIs from Aug. 19-Sept. 14.

– Remember when Padres outfielder Fernando Tatis ended April with a .177 batting average and .564 OPS, failing to hit a home run until May 30?

Well, in that span, only Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong has a higher WAR than Tatis’ 4.3.

Since the All-Star break, Tatis is hitting .300 with an .983 OPS with 18 homers, 44 RBI, and 47 runs scored.

– Phillies DH Kyle Schwarber and White Sox shortstop Colson Montgomery are on the verge of making dubious baseball history. Schwarber and Montgomery each had 216 strikeouts entering Sunday, endangering Mark Reynolds’ all-time record of 223 strikeouts in 2009.

“Guys who strike out a lot," Montgomery told reporters, “you see them, but what do they also do? They hit a lot of homers and drive a lot of guys in.”

Montgomery has 31 homers and 87 RBIs.

Schwarber has 45 homers and 95 RBIs.

– Congratulations to Dodgers president Stan Kasten, the only man in baseball history who has presided over two teams that reached the postseason in 14 consecutive years, also accomplishing the feat with Atlanta from 1991-2005. He certainly deserves Hall of Fame consideration for executives.

“The thing I’m probably most proud of is the consistency of winning over the long term,” manager Dave Roberts said in their clubhouse celebration. “Any team, any organization can win in a given year where things line up, but to do it every single year when you’re expected to do this says something about the entire organization.”

– The Phillies badly need starter Jesus Luzardo to return from his shoulder injury if they’re going to make a deep October run.

Luzardo had been pitching better than anyone in baseball, yielding a 1.66 ERA since July 1, with the Philies going 17-2 since late May with Luzardo on the mound.

– No one loves hitting more at Wrigley Field than Atlanta second baseman Ozzie Albies. He’s batting .376 with eight homers and 18 RBIs at Wrigley Field, the second highest-batting average among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances in the park’s history. Only Hall of Famer Eddie Murray (.395) had a higher batting average at Wrigley.

– Yes, that was 52-year-old Ichiro Suzuki throwing a 127-pitch, 17-strikeout shutout last week in the annual All-Star Game against the best high-school girls in Japan.

– The Padres left-field platoon now consists of Samad Taylor, who signed a minor-league contract in January, and Dustin Harris, who was DFA’d three times since April, and signed a minor-league contract with the Padres in July.

– Wish of a Lifetime from AARP continues to do special things for senior citizens and veterans.

This week, they are granting 92-year-old Jerome Stack’s wish of seeing the San Francisco Giants in person for the first time since 2013, putting him and his son in a suite, after being diagnosed with kidney, prostate and skin cancers, while also having heart problems.

Stack, who was a real-estate broker, played in 1959 for the Class C Fresno Giants, and finished second in the league to future Dodgers All-Star Willie Davis with a .331 batting average.

Last month, Wish of a Lifetime granted the wish of a 67-year-old woman, diagnosed with Stage IV neuroendocrine cancer, to be on the St. Louis Cardinals’ grounds crew for a day.

– The best news of the week was seeing Athletics prospect Ryan Lasko, an outfielder for the Athletics’ Class AA Midland team, discharged from an impatient rehab facility after being paralyzed in a collision with a teammate on June 30.

Lasko, who suffered a spinal fracture, is paralyzed from the chest down, but has regained some feeling in his legs.

“It’s gone by quick, but it’s also been the longest two months of my life,” Lasko told the Associated Press. “They keep telling me that it’s only the beginning, so that’s where I’m trying to learn to have patience, because I expected it would happen overnight, and that’s really not how it works whatsoever. But I’m learning, slowly, it’s a very slow process with everything.”