Batter's Box Interactive Magazine: Toronto at Cincinnati, September 1-3

September baseball, kids! The highs are higher, the lows are lower. This is the good stuff.

I think that, for the most part, most players perform in September much the way they do the rest of the time. Some will get hot, some will choose this inopportune moment for a slump - but eventually, everyone should return to their proper level. If I told you that the best AL hitter in the month of September is Aaron Judge - because yes, he is - you wouldn't be very surprised.

But there could be exceptions. There is, in fact, one prominent example that always comes to my mind at this time of year. On the one hand, we have Joe Morgan. Little Joe was one of the greatest players of my lifetime, an inner-circle Hall of Famer, one of the three best second baseman ever to walk the earth. On the other hand, we have Steve Garvey - certainly a good player, but not in Cooperstown, and while he's probably better than some of the Hall's first baseman, I wouldn't want to argue that he belongs there. Joe Morgan was a far greater player.

For the first five months of the season anyway, when Morgan hit .276/.399/.438 (OPS .837) compared to Garvey's .288/.323/.441 (OPS .764). Never mind Morgan's advantages in the field an on the basepaths.

But every year September came around, and every year Little Joe just seemed to wear down a bit while Garvey was choosing this moment to get hot. In his 490 career games in September, Morgan hit .250/.360/.379 (OPS .740), which is still decent production from your second baseman. But Garvey, in his 409 career games in September, was hitting .324/.363/.471 (OPS .834). One man got significantly better, and one got significantly worse. And don't even ask about October, which demonstrates the same effect taken to some wild extreme. In 55 post-season games, Garvey hit .338/.361/.550; in his 50 post-season games, Morgan hit .182/.323/.348.

So I thought I'd go over the AL contenders and see if anything similar could be found. I'm including just the six teams currently in a position to make the post-season, along with three teams still nursing an outside chance: Kansas City, Cleveland, and Texas. (Personally, I think Cleveland and Texas are kaput, el finito, it's all over, pack up the tent. I know, the Rangers are hot right now. But no Eovaldi, no Seager? That's a problem. However, I definitely think the Royals could give someone - like Seattle - a real scare before it's over.)

From those nine teams, I am looking only at those players who have actually played 100 games in September. I want a decent sample to look at. It means that Cal Raleigh doesn't make the cut, but that's show business. We're left with 37 players from the nine contenders, and here's what they've done:

We already knew Aaron Judge was the best hitter in the American League, of course. What we really wanted to know was whose performance changes most when September rolls around. That list looks a little different. Judge moves down to the middle of the pack with people like Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa. These players seem to have no idea what month it is. Perhaps they can't even read a calendar.

****************************

Obviously, the Jays haven't faced the Cincinnati Reds very often. This is just their fifth ever visit to Cincinnati, and yet - one of those treks to south-western Ohio gave us one of the more memorable games of the millennium. I remember it vividly and I wasn't even watching.

It was a Friday night in June 2014. I was downtown in Dundas Square, where St Vincent was doing a free show to promote her eponymous fourth album. Liam Hendriks was the Blue Jays starter, and the Reds beat him senseless. It was 8-0 after two innings, which would have been roughly when I headed for the subway. The baseball might suck, but Annie's guitar playing would surely make up for that.

Well, Annie was great, and she was also really weird. Which was also cool. Still, I found myself distracted by a large video screen across the way. It was showing the baseball game. And the Jays seemed to be creeping back into it. After six, the Jays were trailing 9-5; an inning later they had scored another three runs, and in the eighth inning they tied it up. They had been trailing by eight! It was all over! How did this happen? I had no idea.

Anyway, Cincinnati sent their closer out to work the ninth. It was that same fellow who's now closing games for the Red Sox. And after a couple of hits, a couple of walks, the Jays somehow had an 11-9 lead. Chapman got the hook, and Edwin Encarnacion - in the lineup for a game in Cincinnati for the first time since the Reds traded him away back in 2009 - greeted the new guy with a three run homer. Casey Janssen closed the 14-9 final.

You don't forget a game like that! I'll bet some of you remember it your own selves. And St Vincent was fabulous. A memorable night.

Matchups

Mon 1 Sep - Bassitt (11-7, 4.14) vs Greene (5-4, 2.81)
Tue 2 Sep - Berrios (9-5, 3.95) vs Lodolo (8-7, 3.22)
Wed 3 Sep - Bieber (1-1, 2.38) vs Littell (9-8, 3.63)

Toronto at Cincinnati, September 1-3

Monday, September 01 2025 @ 12:05 PM EDT