The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. Originally written for the 2015 election at SI.com, it has been expanded and updated. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, use the tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.

Though blessed with as much talent to crush a baseball as nearly anyone in his era, Carlos Delgado had a hard time getting the attention that his performance might have merited. Almost certainly, that owed something to the record numbers of balls flying out of the park during his heyday, with a proliferation of 30- or 40-homer seasons. That he spent the bulk of his prime in Toronto, arriving just after the Blue Jays’ back-to-back world championships but unable to aid in replicating that accomplishment, didn’t help either; not until late in his career would he reach the postseason.

Beyond that, Delgado didn’t fit the mold of what the public has come to expect from professional athletes. The controversies in which he was engulfed weren’t the garden-variety ones of so many other jocks — money, respect, performance-enhancing drugs, off-field lifestyle. No, they were bigger. In an age when most athletes shirk political stances because they can narrow their public appeal and impact their personal brands, Delgado was unafraid to protest against what he felt was wrong, even if his stance was unpopular. He spoke out against the United States Navy using part of his native Puerto Rico for bombing practice, and publicly opposed the war in Iraq. He took a stand by taking a seat (to borrow a headline from The New York Times), refusing to go through the motions during the post-9/11 ritual of “God Bless America” — an action that prefigured San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality against people of color in 2016. Delgado was the conscientious slugger.

Deglado’s outspokenness and activism stemmed from his admiration for Hall of Famer and Puerto Rican hero Roberto Clemente. He died six months after Delgado was born, but his legacy of humanitarianism and fighting for social justice left a deep impression on Delgado. He wore Clemente’s no. 21 briefly with the Blue Jays and later with the Mets, and thanks to his charitable endeavors — which included raising money for homeless, underprivileged and handicapped Puerto Rican children, and sponsoring college scholarships through his Extra Bases Foundation, Delgado won the 2006 Roberto Clemente Award.

Conscience and good numbers won’t get you much closer to Cooperstown than good numbers alone will, however. Delgado once appeared to be within reach of 500 home runs — a milestone that might have guaranteed him entry to the Hall given his PED-free reputation — but a 2009 hip injury that led to three surgeries in 18 months proved too much to overcome. While he might have stuck around on a less crowded BBWAA ballot, he landed on one of the most densely packed in the institution’s history, didn’t receive enough support to remain eligible, and had to wait out the remainder of his 10-year term before he could appear on an Era Committee ballot. Even now, his presence rates as a surprise given how rarely such candidates get a second shot. I don’t expect Delgado to get strong support, but it’s a hopeful sign for the process, and in the meantime, the slugger’s exemplary career is worth another look.

Carlos Juan Delgado was born on June 25, 1972 in the coastal city of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. His mother, Carmen Digna Hérnandez, was a medical laboratory assistant, while his father, also named Carlos (“Don Cao”), was a drug and alcohol counselor, “a social worker by heart” who passed along his sense of compassion to his son. Large for his age, young Carlos played catcher in Little League, though other sports, including swimming, track and particularly volleyball, competed for his attention. As a junior at José de Diego High School in Aguadilla, he attracted the attention of scouts from the Blue Jays, Expos, Mets, Rangers, and Reds thanks to his strong arm, left-handed power, high baseball IQ, and advanced approach at the plate. He signed with the Blue Jays as a non-drafted free agent at age 16 in October 1988, two years before Puerto Rico became subject to the amateur draft. He received a bonus of $90,000 but was allowed to finish his studies and graduate on schedule.

Delgado was just 17 when he began his professional career with the Blue Jays’ St. Catharines (Ontario) affiliate in the New York-Penn League. He went homerless while hitting .180/.345/.236 in 31 games, but improved to .281/.382/.417 in 1990 while repeating the level as an 18-year-old, after which a member of the Blue Jays’ player development program told Baseball America, “He’s the No. 1 prospect in our whole organization.”

Delgado showed prodigious power as he climbed through the Jays organization, pounding 18 home runs for the team’s Myrtle Beach affiliate in his first year of full-season ball in 1991, then 30 homers (with a .324/.402/.579 line) at High-A Dunedin in 1992, and another 25 at Double-A Knoxville in 1993; he entered each of the latter two seasons ranked among the game’s top five prospects by Baseball America. He made his major league debut on October 1, 1993, the Jays’ 160th game of the season, taking over from Randy Knorr behind the plate in the sixth inning and drawing a walk off Baltimore’s Todd Frohwirth in his only plate appearance. He was left off the postseason roster, however, and while the Blue Jays beat the Phillies in the World Series to win their second straight title, they didn’t return to the postseason again during Delgado’s 12-season tenure in Toronto.

Satisfied with their tandem of Pat Borders and Knorr behind the plate, the Jays decided to give Delgado a shot in left field midway through spring training in 1994. Delgado — who had only played a few innings in the outfield in winter ball — did so passably enough to get the Opening Day nod against the White Sox. He responded by collecting his first two major league hits, a single off Jack McDowell and a 428-foot moonshot off Dennis Cook that was celebrated in the pages of Sports Illustrated; it was followed by a 445-foot homer off Alex Fernandez the next day, and then another one and another one. But after launching eight home runs in the season’s first 13 games, he fell into an extended slump, homering just once more as his batting line sank to .215/.352/.438 before he was demoted in early June.

Delgado spent the rest of the strike-shortened season and most of the next one at Triple-A Syracuse, hitting a combined .319/.404/.577 with 41 home runs in 176 games, and with the development of his bat far outstripping that of his glove, he hung up the tools of ignorance for good at the end of 1994. However, that offensive dominance had only intermittently translated to the majors. In two stints with the Blue Jays in 1995, he hit just .165/.212/.297, and although most of his defensive innings with Toronto came in left field, it was clear the Jays didn’t see him as a long-term fit on the grass; while in the minors that year, he learned to play first base. Given the extent of the Blue Jays’ struggles — particularly in the latter season, when they went just 56-88 while getting comparatively mediocre production from first baseman John Olerud (112 OPS+) and 38-year-old designated hitter Paul Molitor (101 OPS+), it’s fair to wonder why the team didn’t try to give Delgado a longer look, particularly after the promising start to his 1994 season.

Still shy of his 24th birthday, Delgado put a claim on a full-time role with the Jays in spring training in 1996, serving as the primary DH and playing a bit of first base. He broke out offensively, homering 25 times while batting .270/.353/.490 for a 112 OPS+, and after Olerud was traded to the Mets in December, Delgado took over the starting first base job in 1997. He clouted 30 homers while hitting .262/.350/.528 with a 127 OPS+, but between shaky defense, the positional penalty from DH duty, and rising offensive levels, those seasons were worth just 3.7 WAR combined.

Thanks to improved performances against left-handed pitching and an increased amount of respect from opposing hurlers, Delgado’s offensive numbers continued to climb. From 1998-2003 he hit a combined .295/.413/.585 for a 155 OPS+ and an average of 40 home runs, 101 walks (17 intentional), and 5.3 WAR per year. He topped the 40-homer plateau three times in that span, with a high of 44 in 1999; he ranked in the AL top 10 in all six seasons and in the top five three times, but never higher than second. He also placed second in the league in slugging percentage twice, first in 2000, the year he put up career-best slash stats (.344/.470/.664) en route to a 181 OPS+ (which ranked third), and then a second time in ’03, when he hit .302/.426 /.593 and led the league with a 161 OPS+ and 145 RBI. During that stretch, he had five games of at least three home runs, matching Sammy Sosa for the major league lead; on September 25, 2003, against the Devil Rays, he became the 13th player ever to homer four times in one game. Even as four-homer games go, that one was something special. His second blast, off Jorge Sosa, was the 300th of his career, and his third and fourth homers led off innings with the Blue Jays down a run; they eventually won 10-8.

Despite that consistent production, the 2000 and ’03 seasons marked the only times that Delgado placed in the league’s top 10 in WAR (sixth in both seasons with 7.3 and 5.9, respectively), earned All-Star honors, or made a dent in the MVP voting; he finished a solid fourth in 2000 and a very close second behind Alex Rodriguez in ’03. Beyond the fact that the Blue Jays finished in third place in the AL East in all six of those seasons from 1998-2003, and that their attendance was middle-of-the-pack, it’s not entirely clear why he flew so far under the radar. For that six-year span, he ranked fourth among first basemen in WAR (31.6), behind Jason Giambi (37.3) and Hall of Famers Todd Helton (35.1) and Jeff Bagwell (32.7). His 155 OPS+ was fourth among that same group, behind Mark McGwire (180), Giambi (165), and Hall of Famer Jim Thome (157), while his 237 homers were third, trailing only Rafael Palmeiro (257) and Thome (248). In the AL, Thome started the 1998 and ’99 All-Star Games, and Giambi did so in 2000 and ’02, with Olerud (2001) and Delgado (2003) sneaking in once apiece. While it’s true that some of the aforementioned first basemen with whom he vied for attention would later be connected to PEDs, it’s also true that stretch was a high-scoring one, with over 5.0 runs scored per team per game and more hitters reaching the 30- and 40-homer plateaus than ever before.

The Blue Jays rewarded Delgado for his production amid an uncertain ownership situation. In December 1999, they signed him to a three-year, $36 million contract, which made him the 10th-highest paid player in the majors in terms of annual salary and included the right to demand a trade after the 2000 World Series — or to become a free agent if that request went unfulfilled. With Delgado completing his career-best season one month after Rogers Communications purchased the Blue Jays in September 2000, the new owners got out in front of his option by reworking his contract into a four-year, $68 million deal that for the moment made his $17 million annual salary the majors’ highest; two months later, Rodriguez’s 10-year, $252 million deal with the Rangers blew it out of the water.

Off the field, Delgado found other ways to stand out, taking it upon himself to carry on the legacy of Clemente by using his platform to speak out for social justice. In April 2001, he joined 10 other Puerto Rican celebrities — singers Jose Feliciano and Ricky Martin, actor Benicio del Toro, boxer Felix Trinidad, and fellow slugger Juan Gonzalez among them — in taking out full-page ads in The New York Times and The Washington Post calling for the United States to cease using Vieques, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico with a population of around 9,400, as a Navy bomb-testing site, which it had done since 1938. The toxic air particles produced by the testing were believed to cause of higher rates of cancer and other serious illnesses in the island population. After a protracted battle that drew the support of more politicians and celebrities, the Navy withdrew from Vieques in May 2003.

Delgado was also the rare athlete to take a stand against the war in Iraq. In an act of simple protest, at the start of the 2004 season, he regularly chose to remain in the dugout during the playing of “God Bless America,” a staple in ballparks since the September 11, 2001 bombings. “I never stay outside for ‘God Bless America,’” he told the Toronto Star in July 2004. “I actually don’t think people have noticed it. I don’t [stand] because I don’t believe it’s right, I don’t believe in the war.” He elaborated on that topic:

“It’s a very terrible thing that happened on Sept. 11,” Delgado said. “It’s [also] a terrible thing that happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. I just feel so sad for the families that lost relatives and loved ones in the war.

“But I think it’s the stupidest war ever,” he said. “Who are you fighting against? You’re just getting ambushed now… You’ve been looking for weapons of mass destruction. Where are they at? You’ve been looking for over a year. Can’t find them. I don’t support that. I don’t support what they do. I think it’s just stupid.”

Delgado’s protest had the backing of the Blue Jays — even teammates who disagreed with his views — but it exposed him to hecklers; I witnessed an incident at Yankee Stadium myself, but was heartened to find fans around me far angrier at the perpetrators than at the player.

On the field, Delgado missed five weeks of the 2004 season due to an oblique strain, and while he finished with 32 home runs, his .269/.372/.535 (129 OPS+) batting line was his worst since 1997. A free agent that winter, he surprised the baseball world by signing a four-year, $52 million deal with the Marlins, one so heavily backloaded that it included just $4 million in the first year. He put up strong offensive numbers (.301/.399/.582, 160 OPS+, 33 homers), but abysmal fielding (-20 Defensive Runs Saved) limited him to 2.8 WAR. Two years removed from their second championship, the Marlins won 83 games, but when they failed to secure public financing for a new ballpark and finished dead last in the league in attendance, owner Jeffrey Loria ordered the roster torn apart. On the same day that the Marlins traded Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell, and Guillermo Mota to the Red Sox for Hanley Ramirez, Aníbal Sánchez, and two other players, they dealt Delgado to the Mets for Mike Jacobs, Yusmeiro Petit, and a third player.

Upon acquiring Delgado, the Mets made clear that they expected him to fall in line when it came to “God Bless America,” with chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon telling reporters, “[Majority owner] Fred [Wipon] has asked and I’ve asked him to respect what the country wants to do.” While manager Willie Randolph voiced support for Delgado’s right to voice his opinion, general manager Omar Minaya steered clear of doing so. Wrote Newsday’s Wallace Matthews:

“Even if you disagree with his politics, Delgado’s willingness to break out of the mold corporate America loves to jam us in set him apart from the thousands of interchangeable young men who thrive athletically and financially in our sports-crazed culture… But no. One of the few pro athletes who had the guts to say no is now a yes man. And the silencing of his voice, whether you agree with it or not, is not a victory for democracy but a defeat.”

“I don’t want my personal opinions to distract the team,” Delgado said during spring training in 2006, “but, just because I abide by the rules, does not mean my opinion has changed.”

Beyond the politics, Delgado was a hit. Sandwiched between fellow Puerto Rican Carlos Beltrán and David Wright in the middle of the lineup, he clubbed 38 homers, his highest total since 2003, and hit .265/.361/.548 for a 131 OPS+. On August 22, he went yard twice off the Cardinals’ Jeff Weaver; the second shot, a grand slam, was Delgado’s 400th career home run.

The Mets won 97 games, giving the 34-year-old slugger his first taste of the postseason, and he rose to the occasion, batting a combined .351/.442/.757 with four home runs and 11 RBI in 43 plate appearances. Delgado homered and drove in the go-ahead run in the Division Series opener against the Dodgers, setting off a three-game sweep, and while his two long balls in Game 2 of the NLCS against the Cardinals went for naught, he drove in five runs with a double and a homer in a Game 4 rout. The Cardinals drew warier of pitching to him, walking him three times in a tight Game 7 that remained deadlocked into the ninth inning. Yadier Molina’s solo homer off Aaron Heilman put the Cardinals ahead, and while the Mets loaded the bases against Adam Wainwright, Beltrán struck out looking to end the game while Delgado waited on deck.

Thus began a three-year string of near-misses for the Mets; they would be eliminated on the final day of the regular season to wind up outside the playoff picture in each of the next two years. Though his overall numbers took a dip, Delgado hit .321/.383/.566 with four homers in September 2007; unfortunately, he also missed 14 games due to a right hip flexor strain, and the Mets’ 6-8 record in his absence contributed to their falling a game short of the NL East title. The hip would continue to cause problems. Delgado missed time in the spring of 2008 and started slowly (.198/.297/.323 in April), but he picked up steam as the year went on and put up another monster September (.340/.400/.649 with eight homers) to finish with 38 home runs. But again, the Mets fell a buck short.

Delgado’s strong finish left him just 31 homers from 500, and it appeared he still had something left in the tank heading into his age-37 season. The Mets picked up his $12 million option for 2009, but things soon unraveled. Though he started well, after playing just 26 games, Delgado needed surgery to repair a torn right hip labrum in late May, and couldn’t make it back before season’s end. After undergoing microfracture surgery in the same hip in December, he attempted a comeback with the Red Sox in late 2010, but played in just five minor league games before pain and problems with his other hip proved too much to surmount. He announced his retirement in April 2011. “There comes a moment when you have to have the dignity and the sense to recognize that something is not functioning,” he said at the time. “You can’t swim against the current.”

…

Though he doesn’t have a whole lot to point to in terms of All-Star appearances (just two), awards, league leads, postseason performances, black ink, and major milestones, Delgado scores 110 (“a good possibility”) on the Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor, which attempts to quantify such accomplishments as those which aren’t reflected by WAR. Notably, that score is nestled between Hall of Famers Willie McCovey (111) and Willie Stargell (107), and 10 points head of McGriff.

Had Delgado reached 500 home runs — a shortfall that owes as much to his being trapped in Triple-A in 1994–95 as to his having played his final major league game before his 37th birthday — he might have had a fighting chance at Cooperstown, if for no other reason than his PED-free reputation. Seven of the 10 players who reached the 500-homer plateau between 1999 and 2009 were linked to PED usage at some point in their careers, including fellow Contemporary Era candidates Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield, and current BBWAA candidates Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez. Likewise, seven of the players who rank among the top 12 in home runs from 1996–2008 — a span during which Delgado’s total of 457 ranked sixth in the majors — were linked to PEDs. Among players outside the Hall who were never suspended for PED use or alleged to have used by the Mitchell Report or other credible sources, only Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera hit more homers than Delgado, and neither has yet to come up for election by the writers.

Beyond the home runs, Delgado’s career .546 slugging percentage and 138 OPS+ are both impressive, but they still rank a modest 18th among players with at least 5,000 plate appearances between 1993 and 2009; a lot of guys from that time were pulverizing the ball. Among players with at least 7,000 plate appearances — the cutoff I generally use for full careers when considering Hall candidates — Delgado’s 138 OPS+ ranks 60th all time, two points below Cabrera, Rodriguez, Sheffield, and Hall of Famers Vladimir Guerrero and Duke Snider, and one point below Giambi, Reggie Jackson, Norm Cash, and Bob Johnson. He’s four points ahead of McGriff, and five ahead of Helton and another Hall of Fame first baseman, Orlando Cepeda.

Including those homers, Delgado had a knack for timing. Three times (2000, ’03, and ’05), he led his league in WPA. Statistically, his big problem is that beyond his bat, he doesn’t score well in terms of advanced metrics. His subpar baserunning (-26 runs) and defense (-65 runs) cut into his value; he finished with just three seasons above 5.0 WAR, and six above 3.0. His 44.4 career WAR is 21.6 wins below the standard of enshrined first basemen and ranks 40th at the position; while that’s better than fellow Contemporary Era candidate Don Mattingly (42.4), Delgado is ahead of just three Hall of Fame first basemen, namely Gil Hodges (43.8), Jim Bottomley (36.0), and George “High Pockets” Kelly (25.4). Likewise, Delgado’s 34.5 peak WAR ranks 40th, 0.1 below Cepeda and ahead of only four enshrined first basemen. At 39.4, he ranks 38th among first basemen in JAWS, well below McGriff (44.3) but ahead of Mattingly (39.1) and three Hall of Fame first basemen: Hodges (38.7), Bottomley (32.9), and Kelly (24.8).

The bottom line is I don’t see any strong statistical justification for voting for Delgado. BBWAA voters didn’t see any either, giving him just 3.8% of the vote, but that comes with a caveat, as he was on a ballot that featured 16 players with a JAWS of at least 50.0 (one shy of the post-1966 record set the previous year) and 14 future Hall of Famers, including the elected Craig Biggio, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and John Smoltz.

That said, I’m glad Delgado is up for a vote. The history of players who have gone one-and-done on BBWAA ballots and then gotten second chances on Era Committee ballots is a short one. Aside from Ted Simmons, who made three such ballots and was finally elected on the 2020 Modern Baseball ballot, Joe Carter, Will Clark, and Lou Whitaker are the only ones who have gotten placement prior to Delgado, with Carter and Clark getting two chances on a couple of weak Today’s Game ballots. I’m all for giving such candidates another look, and hope this means that Whitaker, Jim Edmonds and Johan Santana (both of whom will be eligible for the first time on the 2029 Contemporary Baseball ballot, if the system remains as is), and others get their day, as well.

While Delgado may not have the numbers to merit a plaque in the Hall of Fame, he has left behind an impressive legacy: that of a top-flight athlete willing to take a stand on things that mattered far from the playing field. We could always use more of those.

The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. Originally written for the 2013 election at SI.com, it has been expanded and updated. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, use the tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.

Don Mattingly was the golden child of the Great Yankees Dark Age. He debuted in September 1982, the year after the team finished a stretch of four World Series appearances in six seasons, and retired in 1995 after finally reaching the postseason — a year too early for the franchise’s run of six pennants and four titles in eight years under Joe Torre.

A lefty-swinging first baseman with a sweet stroke, “Donnie Baseball” was both an outstanding hitter and a slick fielder at his peak. He made six straight All-Star teams from 1984 to ’89 and won a batting title, an MVP award, and nine Gold Gloves. Along the way, he battled with owner George Steinbrenner even while becoming the standard bearer of the pinstripes, the team captain, and something of a cultural icon. Alas, a back injury sapped his power, not only shortening his peak, but also bringing his career to a premature end at age 34. At its root, the problem was that Mattingly was so driven to succeed that he overworked himself in the batting cage.

“Donnie was one of the hardest workers I had ever seen and played with. He would go in the cage before batting practice and take batting practice. And after batting practice was over, he’d take batting practice,” former teammate Ron Guidry said for a 2022 MLB Network documentary, Donnie Baseball (for which this scribe was also interviewed).

“I should have learned quicker to not to beat my body up, and if I did less, I could perform better,” said Mattingly for the same documentary.

Mattingly debuted on the 2001 Hall of Fame ballot, the last one before I began my own annual reviews, but it was quickly clear that he didn’t have the raw numbers or the support of enough voters to gain entry to Cooperstown. After receiving 28.2% his first time around, he dipped to 20.3% in 2002, spent most of the remainder of his 15-year run in the teens, and was in single digits by the end. What’s more, in two appearances on the Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot in 2018 and ’20, he failed to reach the threshold to have his actual share reported; in the latter year, he and 2026 ballot-mate Dale Murphy received no more than three of 16 votes (18.8%). Yet on the 2023 Contemporary Baseball ballot, up against the PED-linked Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Rafael Palmeiro — the first two of whom are on this year’s ballot as well — Mattingly shot to 50%, the highest share of anyone besides Fred McGriff, the lone player elected by that panel.

Prior to that vote, I wrote that Mattingly’s best hope for a Hall of Fame berth involved building on his early managerial success, though even in that department he had a long way to go. Since then, his managerial career — three division titles in five seasons with the Dodgers, and seven mostly fruitless seasons with the Marlins interrupted by a playoff appearance and NL Manager of the Year honors in 2020 — has stalled out. He stepped down after the 2022 season and spent the past three years serving as the Blue Jays’ bench coach under John Schneider. After finally reaching the World Series for the first time in his professional career this year, he stepped down earlier this week. Given how often his candidacy (and that of Murphy) has been recycled while statistically stronger candidates from this pool such as Dwight Evans and Lou Whitaker have been bypassed for ballot appearances, it’s apparent that the Hall would like to harness the wholesome charm of his career while sticking it to PED-linked players such as Bonds and Clemens. To these eyes, Mattingly’s numbers aren’t nearly strong enough to justify that.

Mattingly was born on April 20, 1961 in Evansville, Indiana, the youngest of five children of Bill (a mailman) and Mary Mattingly. He honed his baseball skills at a young age, playing Whiffle ball in the backyard with his brothers and other kids three or four years older. It was in that yard that he learned to hit to the opposite field, because anyone who hit the tree hanging over the field on the first base side was out, while hitting the family garage in left field was a home run. “I think about it now being a dad, how many times that Whiffle ball hit that metal of the house. I wonder what my mom and dad were thinking,” he said in a 2002 Yankeeography episode on him for the YES Network.

In addition to his ability to go oppo, Mattingly was ambidextrous. In Little League, he switch-pitched occasionally, throwing three innings righty and three more lefty. At Reitz Memorial High School, he was a three-sport star, starting at quarterback and point guard while splitting time between the outfield and pitching. He helped Reitz Memorial to a 59-game winning streak that included a state championship in his junior year, earning him a spot in Sports Illustrated’s July 16, 1979 “Faces in the Crowd” feature.

By the time of the 1979 draft, Mattingly had committed to attend Indiana State University on a scholarship, but the Yankees chose him in the 19th round, and he surprised his family by deciding to sign for a $23,000 bonus. He began his professional career at Low-A Oneonta, where he hit .349/.444/.488; the next year, he batted .358/.422/.498 with nine home runs and 105 RBI at A-level Greensboro. While his lack of speed and power concerned the Yankees to the point that they considered moving him to second base because of his ability to throw right-handed, he topped .300 at every stop in the minors with good plate discipline and outstanding contact skills, even if he never exceeded 10 homers.

Mattingly was called up for a cup of coffee in September 1982, making his debut on September 8 as a defensive replacement in left field. He made one start and six appearances off the bench, mainly in left, and went 2-for-12, though it took him until October 1 to collect his first hit, a single off Red Sox righty Steve Crawford. While he broke camp with the Yankees the following spring, he played in just four games — starting two of them, one in right field and one at first — before being sent back to Triple-A Columbus; Ken Griffey was New York’s primary first baseman that season. Recalled in late June after Bobby Murcer retired, Mattingly split his time between the outfield (48 games, including one in center) and first base (42 games), batting a thin .283/.333/.409 (107 OPS+) with four home runs, the first of which he hit off Red Sox lefty John Tudor to Fenway Park’s short right field on June 24. He even made one appearance as a lefty-throwing second baseman during the August 18 completion of the infamous George Brett “Pine Tar Game.”

While manager Yogi Berra initially planned to use Mattingly to back up first base and both outfield corners in 1984, he won the starting first base job in spring training and emerged as a bona fide star, thanks in part to the help of hitting coach Lou Piniella, who taught him to keep his weight back and to apply backspin to the ball. From a 2021 interview with colleague David Laurila:

“More than anything, Lou Piniella had a huge impact on me going from a guy that was hitting doubles to a guy that was hitting doubles and homers. It was really nothing more than basically learning how to backspin the ball. I’d been more of a top-hand guy that hit a lot of topspin balls in the gap; I thought I hit them really well, they just didn’t go out. I’d always be kind of surprised, because I felt like I crushed it. Then I learned to use the bottom hand, and shorten my route, which unleashed more power.”

Mattingly hit .343/.381/.537 with 23 home runs and 110 RBI, leading the league in batting average, hits (207), and doubles (44), ranking second in OPS+ (156) and fifth in WAR (6.3), and beginning his All-Star run. He matched that year’s 156 OPS+ in 1985, accompanying it with 35 homers, a league-high 145 RBI, and 6.4 WAR (fifth in the AL) en route to the AL MVP award. The Yankees won 97 games that year, their most ever during his 14-year career, but they finished two games behind the Blue Jays in the AL East standings.

Mattingly was even better offensively in 1986, leading the league in hits (238), doubles (53), slugging percentage (.573) and OPS+ (161), and placing second in batting average (.352, just behind Wade Boggs’ .357), third in WAR (7.2, behind Boggs and Jesse Barfield), and fifth in on-base percentage. His numbers took a dip the following year when he missed nearly three weeks due to a back injury that was rumored to have been sustained while wrestling teammate Bob Shirley in the clubhouse; Mattingly denied that was the cause, saying that he believed he suffered the injury fielding grounders during batting practice. Though he was diagnosed with two protruding discs, he actually hit better after returning (.336/.371/.601 with 24 homers) than before (.311/.390/.485 with six homers). His overall numbers that year, though they were down, were still impressive, as he batted .327/.378/.559 (146 OPS+) with 30 homers, 115 RBI, and 5.1 WAR. That post-injury stretch included his tying a major league record by hitting home runs in eight consecutive games on July 8–18, interrupted by the All-Star break.

Though Mattingly was not quite as productive from 1987 to ’89 (.313/.360/.498 for a 136 OPS+ and an average of 4.3 WAR) as he’d been in the three years prior (.340/.382/.560, 158 OPS+, and an average of 6.7 WAR), he remained an All-Star-caliber player, but that still wasn’t enough to help the Yankees get over the hump. They won an average of 91 games from 1983 to ’87, with the aforementioned peak of 97, but always finished at least two games out of first place in AL East, and generally more than that. As the team slipped to 85–76 in 1988, Mattingly caught flak from Steinbrenner over his relatively high salary — he’d signed a three-year, $6.7 million contract the previous offseason — and inability to produce a championship singlehandedly. The Boss called him “the most unproductive .300 hitter in baseball,” a ridiculous notion given that over his first four full seasons, Mattingly’s .560 slugging percentage and 483 RBI — the industry’s shorthand for productivity during that era — had both led the majors.

Mattingly didn’t take the criticism lying down, telling reporters, “There’s no respect. They give you money and that’s it. That’s as far as it goes. They think money is respect. Call us babies, call us whatever you want. If you don’t treat me with respect, I don’t want to work for you.” He added, “It’s hard to come to the ballpark when you’re not having any fun… This is the first season I’ve had to fight myself to play the game every day.”

Mattingly continued his All-Star-level play through 1989, but back troubles limited him to a total of 41 home runs in ’88–89. For the 1984–89 period, the six full seasons of his prime, he hit a combined .327/.372/.530 for a 147 OPS+, averaging 27 homers and 5.5 WAR; in that timespan, only Boggs, Rickey Henderson, Cal Ripken Jr., Ozzie Smith, Alan Trammell, and Tim Raines were more valuable.

Unfortunately, Mattingly’s career began going downhill just as he signed a five-year, $19.3 million extension in April 1990. He hit just 14 homers and slugged .370 in 1990–91, missing seven weeks of the former season due to further back troubles. In the spring of 1991, he was named team captain, filling what had been a void for two seasons following Guidry’s retirement. Even so, he was famously benched for one game in August and fined $250 because his hair was long enough to touch his collar, violating a team rule. At that point, he told reporters that he had quietly asked general manager Gene Michael, who at this point was running the organization in the absence of the suspended Steinbrenner, for a trade in June, but was rebuffed. Upon being benched, a defiant Mattingly said, “Maybe I don’t belong in the organization anymore,” called Michael’s enforcement of the hair policy “petty,” and added, “He wants an organization that will be puppets for him and do what he wants.”

Contrary to popular assumption, the hair incident didn’t occur until after a similar situation was lampooned on The Simpsons’ baseball-themed “Homer At the Bat” episode in which Mattingly guest-starred:

In Donnie Baseball, Mattingly admitted that he’d never seen the full episode and had only viewed the clip once or twice — an offense right up there with McGriff’s admission that he’d never seen the Tom Emanski’s Baseball Defensive Drills video commercial that gained him such notoriety.

Mattingly escaped his two-year funk but was never again a true offensive force, hitting .292/.345/.422 for a 110 OPS+ with an average of 11 home runs and 1.9 WAR from 1992 to ’95. However, he did stick around long enough to experience the beginning of the Yankees’ competitive revival, first with an AL-best 70–43 record in the strike-shortened 1994 season and then a Wild Card berth via a 79–65 record in ’95. In a bittersweet coda, he hit .417/.440/.708 in a losing cause during the 1995 Division Series against Piniella’s Mariners, his lone taste of postseason play during his final days as a player.

After eight years away from the game, Mattingly returned as a coach for the Yankees in 2004 under Torre. When Torre and the Yankees parted ways after the 2007 season, he was a finalist to take the reins, but general manager Brian Cashman instead chose Joe Girardi, with the backing of Steinbrenner and his sons, Hank and Hal. The spurned Mattingly followed Torre to the Dodgers, spending one season as hitting coach and two as bench coach before taking over as manager himself. Though he guided the Dodgers to a .551 winning percentage in five years and won three straight NL West titles from 2013 to ’15, the team lost three out of four postseason series on his watch. He left the Dodgers after a 92-win 2015 season, which allowed president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, who had taken over the previous year, to get a fresh start with a new manager, Dave Roberts. Things have worked out just fine on that front; the Dodgers couldn’t get over the NLCS hump during the Torre and Mattingly years, but they’ve since been to the World Series five times, winning three, including the past two.

Mattingly in turn became manager of the Marlins and spent seven years at the helm before deciding to leave; perpetually stuck in rebuilding mode, Miami won at just a .430 clip on his watch, and lost 93 or more games four times. Mattingly did pilot the team into the postseason for just the third time in franchise history during the COVID-shortened 2020 season, when the Marlins went 31–29 and then swept the Cubs in the Wild Card Series before bowing to the Braves in the Division Series. For four of those seasons (2017–21), he worked under CEO Derek Jeter, with whom he had briefly played in 1995 and later coached. For his career, Mattingly is 889–950 (.483) as a manager.

…

Because he retired at age 34, Mattingly wound up with rather light career totals, both traditional and advanced, giving himself an outside shot at Cooperstown. In the post-1960 expansion era, only one position player has retired at 34 and reached the Hall of Fame: Ron Santo, whose election came 37 years after his retirement, via the 2012 Veterans Committee ballot (and, alas, posthumously). Of the position players whose final year was at age 35, Johnny Bench and Kirby Puckett were first-ballot Hall of Famers thanks in large part to their connections to multiple championship teams, but Richie Ashburn and Bill Mazeroski had to wait decades for election by the VC. A contemporary of Mattingly’s, Ryne Sandberg, retired at 34 but, after sitting out one season, returned to play two more and was then elected by the writers in 2005.

In terms of advanced statistics, Mattingly’s 42.4 career WAR is 23.6 WAR below the standard and ranks 45th in career WAR among first basemen, below all but two of the 25 enshrined non-Negro Leaguers, Jim Bottomley and High Pockets Kelly. He’s over 10 wins below McGriff (52.6), below a couple of Yankees first basemen who have followed in his wake but made no dent in the Hall voting, namely Jason Giambi and Mark Teixeira (both 50.5), and he’s nearly two wins below first-time Era Committee candidate Carlos Delgado (44.4). Mattingly’s 35.8 peak WAR is 6.2 wins below the standard and ranks 34th at the position, below 20 of the 25 enshrinees, and his 39.1 JAWS ranks 40th, one spot above the recently elected Gil Hodges and ahead of only two of the other 25. He’s seven spots below McGriff (44.3 JAWS) and even further behind Mark McGwire, Keith Hernandez, John Olerud, and Will Clark, all of whom were bypassed for this ballot.

Mattingly received 28.2% of the BBWAA vote in his debut, but within two years, his support dwindled to less than half that; over his final 13 years on the ballot, he cracked 15% just twice, and fell below 10% three times. He was one of three candidates grandfathered into the Hall’s 2014 decision to truncate candidacies from 15 years to 10; he was heading into his 15th and final year of eligibility at the time and received just 9.1% of the vote, a gain of 0.9 points from the year before. Trammell, who was in his 14th year at that point, received 25.1% but surged to 40.9% the next year, and was elected by the Modern Baseball Era Committee two years later. Lee Smith, who was in his 13th year, inched upwards from 30.2% that year to 34.2% in his final year, and was elected on the 2019 Today’s Game ballot.

Three years ago, I wrote that it seemed highly unlikely that Mattingly would follow that pair into Cooperstown. After he received 50% of the vote on the 2023 ballot, and after Dave Parker was elected last year despite a JAWS of just 38.7, I’m a bit less sure of that given the Hall’s knack for engineering voting panels that appear to tilt toward (or away from) certain candidates. Parker at least had the traditional stats reflecting a complete career (2,712 hit, 339 homers). Murphy, who’s also on this ballot, has a hit total in line with Mattingly’s (2,111) in about 1,300 more plate appearances, not to mention nearly twice the home runs (398) and higher career/peak/JAWS (46.5/41.2/43.9) from a career largely spent at up-the-middle positions. For as much respect as I have for Mattingly, I simply don’t see any justification to vote for him on this ballot. I know that sounds harsh, but his peak was too short, and his career too incomplete, for him to be a sensible pick. Yes, he might have made it to the Hall of Fame had he remained healthy, but the line for players about whom that can be said stretches from Yankee Stadium to Cooperstown — and if he’s going to get elected thanks in part to his managerial career à la Torre, he’s got an uphill battle at this point.

The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. Originally written for the 2013 election at SI.com, it has been expanded and updated. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, use the tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.

It took four position changes — from catcher to first base, then left field, right field, and finally center field — and parts of five major league seasons for the Braves to figure out where the 6-foot-4 Dale Murphy fit. Once they did, they had themselves a franchise centerpiece, a wholesome, milk-drinking superstar whom Sports Illustrated profiled for its July 4, 1983 cover story by proclaiming, “Murphy’s Law is Nice Guys Finish First.”

The title was a reference to the slugger helping the Braves to an NL West title the previous year, their lone playoff appearance during the 1970-90 stretch. “Here’s a guy who doesn’t drink, smoke, chew or cuss,” wrote Steve Wulf. “Here’s a guy who has time for everyone, a guy who’s slow to anger and eager to please, a guy whose agent’s name is Church. His favorite movie is Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. He’s a wonderful ballplayer.” Let the record show that Wulf did unearth some dirt on Murphy, noting that he once got a speeding ticket for doing 35 in a 25-mph zone… while running late to speak to a church group.

Murphy won the first of his back-to-back MVP awards in 1982 as well as the first of his five consecutive Gold Gloves, and made his second of seven All-Star teams. He would spend most of the 1980s as one of the game’s best players. Alas, knee problems turned him into a shadow of the player he once was while he was still in his early 30s, and he played his final game in the majors at age 37. Read the rest of this entry »

At the end of perhaps the most thrilling back-and-forth Game 7 in World Series history, with one out in the bottom of the 11th inning and the tying run on third base, Alejandro Kirk hit a chopper to shortstop. Mookie Betts raced over to second base to force out Addison Barger, and while running through the bag, fired a perfect strike into the outstretched glove of Freddie Freeman. The Dodgers’ second game-ending double play in as many nights didn’t just clinch the 2025 World Series, it made them the first team to win back-to-back championships since the 1999–2000 Yankees.

Dating back to their days in Brooklyn, the Dodgers have won nine championships, but this is the first time they’ve done so in consecutive seasons. Twice before, they had returned to the World Series as reigning champions only to lose, first to the Yankees in 1956 and then to the Orioles in ’66. Neither of those attempts to repeat involved surviving multiple playoff rounds before that. This time, the 93-win Dodgers went 13-4 in the postseason, first sweeping the 83-win Reds in the Wild Card Series and then defeating three of the four teams that finished with more wins: the 96-win Phillies (3-1 in the Division Series), 97-win Brewers (4-0 in the League Championship Series), and finally the 94-win Blue Jays (who themselves dispatched the 94-win Yankees in the Division Series). Despite being outpitched, outhit, and outscored in the World Series, the Dodgers outlasted the AL champions, with two of their four wins coming in extra innings, the last of those by deploying three of their four series starters in relief and by pulling off three of the 12 most impactful plays ever in terms of Championship Win Probability Added, namely Miguel Rojas’ game-tying home run in the top of the ninth (12th, +34.9% cWPA), Will Smith’s go-ahead solo shot in the top of the 11th inning (fifth, 41% cWPA), and Betts’ double play (fourth, +46.2% cWPA).

Once upon a time, winning back-to-back titles wasn’t uncommon. From 1903 through 2000 — a span of 96 World Series (none in 1904 or ’94) — 10 teams won two in a row, two won three in a row, one won four in a row, and one won five in a row. That’s 14 teams who won at least two World Series in a row (not double-counting any of them), and 21 times in which the World Series winner was the same as the year before. Here’s a breakdown, divided into (roughly) 20-year increments that fortunately don’t split up any back-to-back championships:

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The champagne and tears have barely dried in the wake of this year’s instant-classic World Series, but election season is already upon us. On Monday, the National Baseball Hall of Fame officially unveiled the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot, an eight-man slate covering players who made their greatest impact on the game from 1980 to the present and whose eligibility on the BBWAA ballot has lapsed. For the second year in a row, the Hall stole its own thunder, as an article in the Winter 2025 volume of its bimonthly Memories and Dreams magazine revealed the identities of the eight candidates prior to the official announcement. The mix includes some — but not all — of the controversial characters who have slipped off the writers’ ballot in recent years, including Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, as well as a couple surprises. This cycle also marks the first application of a new rule that could shape future elections.

Assembled by the Historical Overview Committee, an 11-person group of senior BBWAA members, the ballot includes Bonds, Clemens, and fellow holdovers Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy, as well as newcomers Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Gary Sheffield, and Fernando Valenzuela. As with any Hall election, this one requires 75% from the voters to gain entry. In this case, the panel — whose members won’t be revealed until much closer to election time — will consist of Hall of Famers, executives, and media members/historians, each of whom may tab up to three candidates when they meet on Sunday, December 7, at the Winter Meetings in Orlando. Anyone elected will be inducted alongside those elected by the BBWAA (whose own ballot will be released on November 17) on July 26, 2026 in Cooperstown. In the weeks before that, I’ll cover each candidate’s case in depth here at FanGraphs.

This is the fourth ballot since the Hall of Fame reconfigured its Era Committee system into a triennial format in April 2022, after a bumper crop of six honorees was elected by the Early Baseball and Golden Days Era Committees the previous December. The current format splits the pool of potential candidates into two timeframes: those who made their greatest impact on the game before 1980 (Classic Baseball Era), including Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues Black players, and those who made their greatest impact from 1980 to the present day (Contemporary Baseball Era). The Contemporary group is further split into two ballots, one for players whose eligibility on BBWAA ballots has lapsed (Fred McGriff was elected in December 2022), and one for managers, executives, and umpires (Jim Leyland was elected in December 2023). Non-players from the Classic timeframe are lumped in with players, which doesn’t guarantee representation on the final ballot. Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time all season — indeed, the first time since Game 5 of last year’s Division Series against the Padres — the Dodgers are facing elimination. A win on Friday night in Toronto will continue their season, forcing Game 7 of the World Series, while a loss will end it, making the Blue Jays champions for the first time in 32 years. Since their 18-inning victory in Game 3 late Monday night local time (and Tuesday morning for much of the continental United States and Canada) on Freddie Freeman’s walk-off home run, the Dodgers have looked as though they’re sleepwalking. They were thoroughly outplayed by the Blue Jays in both Games 4 and 5, with rough performances by their starters, relievers, hitters, and fielders. For Game 6, Los Angeles will turn to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, hoping he can continue his tremendous October run and extend the season for one more night.

During the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers rotation absolutely dominated the Brewers, posting a 0.63 ERA and 1.88 FIP in 28 2/3 innings, but in the World Series it’s been a different story, as those starters have been touched for a 4.88 ERA and 4.55 FIP in 31 1/3 innings. To be fair, some of those runs are attributable to manager Dave Roberts’ trying to squeeze a few more outs from Blake Snell in Games 1 and 5 and Shohei Ohtani in Game 4 instead of handing clean innings over to an increasingly erratic bullpen. The damage from those attempts — both starters combined to record only two outs (both by Snell in Game 5) and bequeath seven baserunners, all of whom later scored, to three different relievers — blew those three games wide open. Yamamoto not only has produced the Dodgers’ only quality start of the series, but also the only relief from their relievers, as the 27-year-old righty spun a four-hit complete game on 105 pitches in Game 2, his second time going the distance in as many turns. If that wasn’t bad-ass enough, he warmed up in the top of the 18th inning of Game 3, ready to relieve Will Klein if needed.

As you’ve probably seen by now, Yamamoto’s three-hit complete game in Game 2 of the NLCS was the first by a postseason starter since the Astros’ Justin Verlander went the distance against the Yankees in Game 2 of the 2017 ALCS. Yamamoto is just the sixth starter with multiple complete games in a single postseason during the Wild Card era, and the first in 24 years to go back-to-back at least once. Read the rest of this entry »

When Bo Bichette sprained the posterior collateral ligament of his left knee on September 6 in a home plate collision with Yankees catcher Austin Wells, both the ramifications of his injury and the upcoming World Series were mere abstractions. Bichette remained in that game, postgame X-rays ruled out a fracture, and at the time a cut on his left shin appeared to be the worst of the damage he sustained. While the Blue Jays were not only atop the AL East at the time but also positioned as the league’s top seed, the team — as you’ve heard a million times by now — hadn’t played in a World Series since 1993, and hadn’t won a postseason game since 2016.

Seven weeks later, Toronto is matched up against the defending champion Dodgers, and after missing the final three weeks of the regular season and the Blue Jays’ first two playoff series, the 27-year-old Bichette has been shoehorned into the lineup, albeit under significant limitations. An experiment with him playing second base for the first time in six years has largely worked, and on Tuesday night, Bichette — slotted as the designated hitter with George Springer sidelined by “right side discomfort” following a violent swing in Game 3 — contributed a key hit in a 6-2 victory that helped the Jays rebound from their 18-inning loss the night before and even the World Series at two games apiece.

Bichette’s hit came during Toronto’s four-run seventh inning. Leading 2-1 thanks to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s third-inning homer off Shohei Ohtani, the Jays opened the seventh with a single by Daulton Varsho and a double by Ernie Clement, spelling the end of the two-way superstar’s night on the mound. Lefty Anthony Banda took over for Ohtani, allowed an RBI single to Andrés Giménez, collected a pair of outs that nonetheless brought home Clement with the Blue Jays’ fourth run, and intentionally walked Guerrero. To the chagrin of every Dodgers fan, manager Dave Roberts then called upon right-hander Blake Treinen, who entered having allowed 14 earned runs in 11 2/3 innings over the past seven weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

12:01

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Hope you’ve all recovered from last night’s epic World Series game

12:02

Jay Jaffe: I stayed up for the whole thing here on the East Coast, though i will admit that by the time the bottom of the 18 rolled around, I was under a blanket listening to the game with my eyes mostly closed. I did open them as soon as the pitch of Joe Davis’ voice rose, in time to see Freeman’s homer clear the fence

12:04

Jay Jaffe: Which is better than I fared during the last 18-inning World Series game in 2018. For that one I met Mike Petriello and some of his MLB.com colleagues at the late great Pacific Standard (sigh), watched Walker Buehler shove, went home after the 10th or 11th inning, hung on til around the 14th, and then woke up to Max Muncy’s on-field postgame interview and pieced together what had transpired, which was still in the TiVo spool.

12:06

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, yesterday I wrote about the contributions of catchers Alejandro Kirk and Will Smith to their teams’ respective offenses through the first two games, and both had contributions last night as well, though Freddie Freeman was thrown out by a country mile on Smith’s lone hit. Kirk’s 3-run homer was huge at the time. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/big-nights-for-the-backstops-through-the-f…

12:06

Jay Jaffe: let’s get to the questions…

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Cal Raleigh’s tremendous season ended with the elimination of the Mariners from the ALCS, but that hasn’t meant the disappearance of high-impact hitting from catchers during the postseason. So far in the World Series, both the Blue Jays’ Alejandro Kirk and the Dodgers’ Will Smith have been central to their teams’ respective offensive attacks, building on their stellar contributions during the regular season.

Neither Kirk nor Smith had seasons on the level of Raleigh, but the same is true for nearly every other catcher in AL/NL history. That said, the two starting backstops in this World Series each made their respective All-Star teams and ranked second and third in the majors in catcher WAR behind Raleigh’s 9.1. The 26-year-old Kirk hit .282/.348/.421 (116 wRC+) while clubbing a career-high 15 home runs, and he also posted the majors’ second-highest marks in Statcast Fielding Run Value (21) and our own framing metric (11.3 runs), with the latter fueling his career-high 4.7 WAR. The 30-year-old Smith spent much of the season vying for the NL batting title, finishing at .296/.404/.497 with 17 homers and a 153 wRC+, his highest over a full season and the second-best mark on the team behind Shohei Ohtani. Despite subpar defense (-8 FRV and -6.8 FRM) and just 10 plate appearances in September, he produced a solid 4.1 WAR.

The Dodgers couldn’t get Kirk out on Friday night in Toronto, as he not only went 3-for-3 but also drew a first-inning walk that helped set the tone for the Blue Jays, even though it didn’t lead to a run. Facing Blake Snell with two outs and runners on the corners, Kirk got ahead 3-1, then fouled off four straight pitches before finally laying off a curveball in the dirt. His tenacious plate appearance lasted nine pitches; by the time Snell retired Daulton Varsho on a fly ball to end the threat, the two-time Cy Young winner had thrown 29 pitches.

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When the World Series opens on Friday night at the Rogers Centre, Blake Snell will take the ball for the Dodgers against the Blue Jays, hoping to replicate the success he’s had thus far in October. After an injury-shortened regular season, the two-time Cy Young winner has thoroughly dominated opposing hitters through his first three postseason starts, putting together one of the most impressive October runs in recent memory.

Runs — remember those? — have been hard to come by during Snell’s starts this postseason. He surrendered two during the seventh inning in the Wild Card Series opener against the Reds after holding them scoreless on one hit and one walk (against nine strikeouts) through the first six frames. Since then, he’s logged 14 consecutive scoreless innings, six against the Phillies in Game 2 of the Division Series and then eight against the Brewers in Game 1 of the Championship Series. He allowed just one hit in each of those last two starts, and while he walked four Phillies (and again struck out nine), he didn’t walk a single Brewer while punching out 10.

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