For Paul DeJong, it’s all about calm clarity and process. The St. Louis Cardinals rookie believes in coming to the plate with a plan, but also with a clear mind. He feels that if he can stand in the batter’s box and just let things happen — simply recognize and react to pitches — the results will be there.

Three-plus months into his big-league career, the results are very much there. Since debuting with the Cardinals in late May, the 24-year-old infielder has slashed a heady .287/.321/.533. His right-handed stroke has produced 100 hits, 43 of which have gone for extra bases. His 21 home runs are tops on the team.

He reached St. Louis in short order. A fourth-round pick in 2015 out of Illinois State University — DeJong has a degree in biochemistry — he had barely over 1,000 minor-league plate appearances to his credit when he got called up. Based on his performance thus far, that was enough to prepare him to handle big-league pitching.

DeJong talked about his cerebral-yet-simple approach when the Cardinals visited Fenway Park in mid-August.

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DeJong on hitting with a clear mind: “I’ve made a lot of jumps as a hitter, going from the college level to the big leagues in two years. As much as anything, I’ve tried to slow things down as much as I can. When I get into problems is when I get sped up.

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Tonight, the Indians will attempt to win their 20th consecutive game, one shy of the Major League record. They are playing the Tigers, who weren’t good before they got rid of their best players, and are especially not good right now. That not-good Tigers team will throw Matt Boyd, while the Indians will counter with Corey Kluber. Accordingly, our game odds have the Indians at 72% to win today’s contest.

Kluber, of course, is one of the main reasons the Indians haven’t lost since August 23rd. Cleveland has a few of the very best players in the game, and along with Kluber, the team’s core includes Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez, Carlos Carrasco, Carlos Santana, and Edwin Encarnacion, all of whom are performing at a high level. But the Indians had all these guys early in the season too, and for the most part, these guys were performing well before August 23rd too.

It might be stating the obvious, but you only win 19 in a row when you’re getting contributions from up and down the roster. So today, while waiting for Kluber to run through the Tigers depleted, let’s take a minute to talk about the other guys who have made the Indians unbeatable.

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Francisco Lindor is again one of the best players in the game. Following last night’s strong performance, he’s posted an even 5.0 WAR this year, the third straight in which he’s reached the four-win threshold.

The combination of youth and remaining years of team control certainly make him one of the most valuable assets in the game. He’s a significant reason why the Indians enter today with a franchise-record 19 consecutive wins. He’s slashed .365/.434/.770 during the streak.

But he’s arrived here in an unusual way. He’s a very different player than in the past. The 5-foot-11, 190-pound shortstop is tied with Bryce Harper for 26th on the sport’s home-run leaderboard with 29. He’s joined the air-ball revolution. He’s a slugger, but his defense is at career-worst levels in his age-23 season.

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The Pirates, last year, finished under .500. The Pirates, this year, will almost certainly finish under .500 again. There’s been no shortage of bad breaks, bouts of misfortune no one could’ve seen coming, but the shine, you could say, is off the apple. Late last week, Travis wrote about a disconnect between how fans seem to feel about the team, and how they arguably ought to. In the slightly bigger picture, the Pirates have been a tremendous success, yet there’s no making up for lousy results in the present.

The Pirates are a team in need of a jolt. That doesn’t mean they ought to rebuild. Nor does it mean they ought to play in the upper tier of free agency. What the Pirates could really use is the emergence of a bright young talent from their own internal system. Nothing’s more valuable than a young and homegrown star, and there’s a player now for the fan base to dream on. Spoiler alert: It’s Tyler Glasnow again. This time, though, he could be ready to deliver.

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The baseball season is currently about seven-eighths complete. Typically, around this time, the MVP races in both leagues start to become somewhat clear, with two or three players distinguishing themselves from the crowd. In the American League, that’s more or less the case. Jose Altuve, Aaron Judge, and Mike Trout possess the highest WAR marks among batters by some distance. Boston’s Chris Sale, meanwhile, will almost certainly provoke philosophical debates about a pitcher’s worthiness for the distinction of MVP.

In the National League, however, the picture is much less clear. One could make a convincing argument for Paul Goldschmidt. On the other hand, Giancarlo Stanton might hit over 60 home runs. Anthony Rendon is the current NL WAR leader. Corey Seager is the best position player on the team with the best record. Joey Votto is having a great season even for Joey Votto (and even for a last-place team). Kris Bryant has approximated the offensive numbers from his MVP-winning season last year. And, finally, Nolan Arenado is generally regarded as the best player on a Rockies club that’s likely bound for a play-in game.

This post actually does concern a member of the Rockies. It isn’t Arenado, though. While Arenado is probably the club’s best player, that’s not necessarily the same thing as having authored the club’s best season. Charlie Blackmon earns that distinction, and he’s a deserving MVP candidate.

A brief examination of Blackmon’s stat line reveals some gaudy numbers. He’s got 34 homers, the third-highest total in the NL. His .338 batting average leads the league, as does his total of 128 runs scored. His .404 on-base percentage ranks seventh in the NL; his .617 slugging percentage trails only Stanton’s .644 mark.

Of course, those numbers are all a product of Coors Field to some degree. As a member of the Rockies, Blackmon plays half his games in a ballpark that inflates offensive lines, which naturally invites suspicion regarding the legitimacy of Blackmon’s hitting exploits.

Fortunately, we can account for that. His 147 wRC+ — a mark that adjusts both for league and park — ranks sixth in the NL and indicates that Blackmon has been one of the National League’s best hitters even after acknowledging the influence of Coors.

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Back after an intriguing May 30th start, I wondered if the talented enigma that is Trevor Bauer had found a road map to another level.

Entering that start — by the end of which he’d struck out a career-best 14 against the Oakland A’s — Bauer had an MLB-worst 6.30 ERA. He’d frustrated many in Cleveland with his unconventional training techniques and analytical approach. I documented earlier this year for The Athletic how Bauer is perhaps one of the more misunderstood and interesting players in the game.

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I can tell you the instant Josh Hader made me sit up and take notice. We’re going back a week and a half, to what was, for me, a lazy Friday night. I was watching the Brewers attempt to close out the Nationals, and the Brewers held a 1-0 lead in the top of the eighth. Hader took the mound, in relief of Jimmy Nelson.

Right away, Hader attacked Trea Turner and struck him out on three pitches. It was impressive, but, ehh, Turner will strike out. The next batter was Wilmer Difo, and Hader struck him out on six pitches. It was also impressive, but, ehh, Wilmer Difo. The third batter was Daniel Murphy. Murphy has developed into a power hitter without sacrificing much at all in the way of his making contact. Murphy remains one of the premier bat-to-ball hitters in either league. With two down and the bases empty, Hader went to work.

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Sunday night, the Indians pushed their winning streak to 18 games. The next-longest active winning streak in baseball is five. Since this all began, the Indians, of course, have gone 18-0, and the next-best record in the American League has been 9-7. The goal is to win the World Series, and the Indians will be disappointed if they again come up short, but at a certain point, this will just become their legacy. Somebody wins the World Series every year. The Indians have one of the longest winning streaks that baseball’s ever seen. Doing something like this is more improbable, and it’s a reflection of how well the Indians have been built, from top to bottom.

A truth about baseball is that a winning team is never as good as it looks when it’s winning, and a losing team is never as bad as it looks when it’s losing. The Indians feel like they’re bulletproof, mostly because they’ve been bulletproof for about three weeks. Their odds of winning everything haven’t meaningfully changed. It’s useful to keep the Dodgers in mind. The change in perception has been abrupt, even though it’s more or less the same active roster. Invulnerability isn’t forever, as demonstrated by the reality that everything dies.

The Indians aren’t unbeatable. The chances are still that they won’t win it all. Upon eventual reflection, the team shouldn’t be judged only by how it performed when it didn’t lose a game. One should attempt to consider the whole of the picture. Let’s do that right now. Let’s talk about the Indians’ pitching.

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