Nats ended the season winning their 8th in a row and Parra may have won himself a spot on the postseason roster, going 7-for-9 with 11 RBIs in the last three games.

I have to think somebody somewhere got some Yoohoo out of that.

After 50 games, not quite a third of the season, the National were 19-31.

The last team to win as many as 93 games after being 12 games under .500?

The Boston Braves in 1914.

36,764 went through the turnstiles in DC to watch.

A nice crowd for sure on the season's last day with nothing at stake. But the disastrous start took its toll. Average attendance this year 27,899, compared to 31,230 the year before.

Did he storm to the AL MVP in the last week (slashing .368/.538/.789)?

We'll see, but he did enough to win the WAR.

WAR Leaders (Baseball-Reference)

In his first AB since suffering a stress fracture in July...

Yesterday's Biggest Play

Batter: Dominic Smith (NYM)

Pitcher: Grant Dayton (ATL)

Situation: Bottom 11th, 2 out, 1-0 count, Runners On 1st and 2nd

Score:  ATL 6, NYM 4

Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep RF)
3 runs scored on the play, and NYM went from a 9% win probability to a 7-6 walk-off win.

View the full game Boxscore at Baseball-Reference.com

Yeah, congratulations, Funny Man.

Great calls by all of you in the Guide here. He was roundabout getting here though.

Houser was heroic, even if Flaherty rendered the effort moot.

Top five Game Scores on the last day of the season:

Pitchers:

Lance Lynn* (TEX): 7.1 IP, 1 ER, 2 H, 10 K, 1 BB, 79 GmSc

Jack Flaherty* (STL): 7.0 IP, 0 ER, 2 H, 6 K, 1 BB, 78 GmSc

Tyler Mahle (CIN): 5.0 IP, 0 ER, 3 H, 5 K, 0 BB, 66 GmSc

Joe Ross (WSN): 6.0 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 8 K, 2 BB, 66 GmSc

Adrian Houser (MIL): 4.0 IP, 0 ER, 1 H, 5 K, 1 BB, 64 GmSc

View All of Yesterday's Pitchers at Baseball-Reference.com

* - pictured above

There's something very, very fitting about the last 2-homer club of the regular season.

I said regular season.

Yesterday's Top Performers

Batters:

Brad Miller* (PHI): 4-5, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 2 R

Matt Thaiss* (LAA): 3-4, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 2 R

Adeiny Hechavarria (ATL): 3-5, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 2 R

View All of Yesterday's Batters at Baseball-Reference.com

Finished the season with 3 two-HR games in his last eight starts.

$7 earning in 5x5 in 118 ABs.  With a .268 BABIP.

FA again this winter ... someone's gotta pick him up again, right?

Congratulations, andypro.  Winning is a feeling that never gets old.

CHAMPIONSHIP! Yea, for me (12 team NL only)

Back in April I talked about doing a Labadini in my league that counts holds, but the way the auction went, I went totally the other way (cheap starters). Here's the lineup I posted at that time:

C - Molina
COR - Rizzo, Suarez, Desmond
MID - Cesar H, Wong, Iglesis
OF - Puig, Cain, McCutch, Adam Jones, Heyward
UT - Panik
BN- Quinn

SP - Castillo, Wheeler, Desclafani, Matz, Caleb Smith, Eflin, Cueto
RP - Yates and Stammen

The key to victory: 17 of my 22 original roster spots never changed all season. That's freakin' amazing. And while the teams that finished 2nd and 3rd traded like crazy to try to catch me, I made one trade - Wong for K Marte in August (wong keeper, marte not).

I also resisted about 357 offers for Hiura and Gore and managed to win and still keep them both.I don't know how to post an image, but I finished with 97 points and 2nd and 3rd were at 90 and 89.5 - my per category performance is very similar to the Yeasts in the PCL

And yea, I might be risking a rotator cuff injury patting myself on the back, it's been a long time since I won a real money 12 team league, so I'd like it recorded here for all eternity.

Doubt NL 1 ended up in a tie, Holgate Pumps third.

How do you post an image?

Congrats to the Brubakers!

A great finish to a great season!

See y'all in 2020!

PS. Congrats to Carter and his Lords for sneaking into the money!  The Redux will need to redux next year ... 

The batting average column after games today:

Burn Bags .2639

Fine Tooners .2634

Moose Factory .2628

Jerry's Kids .2619

Palukas .2616

The final standings:

Fine Tooners 75.5

Moose Factory 74.0

In our league today, an owner went to the last day with 998.33 innings.  He needed 1,000 to avoid various penalties.

He got 1.67.

I wonder if it's ever been done before.   This result also controlled 3rd and 4th.

He was in a good position to get the win yesterday, coming into the game with the Yankees trailing the Rangers 3-1 in the fifth.

With a line out, a walk, a pick-off, a walk, a hit batter and a ground out, he got out of the inning without giving up a run.

Then he came out for the sixth.

Infield single, single, walk, walk.

Incredibly, he then recorded a strikeout. On a 3-2 pitch.

Did I watch this action?

Of course not. I'm a masochist but I have my limits.

I'm reading the ESPN play by play. (I couldn't even watch the condensed game today.)

Boone then came to the mound and took the ball from Cessa. Gave it to Nestor Cortes Jr. A lefty whose sole purpose in the world, right then, was to get Rougned Odor out.

Odor hit the 2-1 pitch, an 88 mph four-seam fastball -- the third in a row, the first clocked at 90 and missing, the second at 89 and missing -- 440 feet over the fence in center.

The win I talk about on September 5?

That went to me. That was the plan.

There are four categories that could lead Lynch to come back win today, but obviously, it's a longshot (RBI x 2, W, SB). 3 Mob wins and 2 uncontested SBs is the straightest path. Help from friends would involve people catching Yeasts in RBIs, but either way, it's been a great run.

Actually, for me, this wasn't nice. Not at all.

I could live with the home run -- the Tooners had home runs to spare -- but I didn't like the hit and I really didn't like that it cleared the bases of all three runners that Luis Cessa left on.

It's not over in the American Dreams. Things could still break my way on the last day. But if they don't, this was the single most damaging blow. 

The hit gives the Tooners a batting average lead that has to be taken to the fourth decimal. The three earned runs dropped me a point in ERA.

I trail by 2 1/2 points.

Did the Angels actually want to help Verlander or were they just in a hurry to go home?

Milestone Watch: Justin Verlander

Justin Verlander just barely missed cracking Yesterday's Top Performers section, allowing 3 earned runs in 6 innings of work. However, those 6 innings were also stocked with 12 strikeouts, which brought him to 300 strikeouts for the season and 3,000 strikeouts for his career. He is the 18th pitcher in MLB history to record 3,000 strikeouts in their career. Here's a look at the next pitchers on the all-time strikeouts leaderboard that Verlander could pass next season.

See the full leaderboard at Baseball-Reference.com

Verlander joins his teammate Gerrit Cole in the 300-strikeout club this season. As remarked upon in this newsletter when Cole reached that milestone, Cole and Verlander join Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling in 2002 as the only pairs of teammates to reach 300 strikeouts in the same season. You can see the full list of 300-strikeout seasons in MLB history at Baseball-Reference.com's Pitching Season Finder.

One final footnote to mention here is that Verlander recorded 12 strikeouts last night on just 80 pitches. Dating back to 1988, when we first have mostly complete pitch data, Verlander is just the 4th pitcher in our database to record that many strikeouts in an outing of 80 pitches or less. Here's a look at the group Verlander joins.

See the full list at Baseball-Reference.com's Pitching Game Finder

I'm sure in many leagues this was a REALLY BIG play.

Yesterday's Biggest Play

Batter: Christian Walker (ARI)

Pitcher: David Bednar (SDP)

Situation: Bottom 7th, 2 out, 1-1 count, Bases Loaded

Score:  SDP 5, ARI 2

Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep LF-CF)
4 runs scored on the play, and ARI's win probability increased 57% points, to 75%
ARI went on to win the game, 6-5

View the full game Boxscore at Baseball-Reference.com