​

The Windup Newsletter ⚾ | This is The Athletic’s MLB newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Windup directly in your inbox.

🚨🚨GAME 7 ALERT🚨🚨: The ALCS is on the brink. Plus the Giants seem close to hiring a manager, and we ask: Was Shohei Ohtani’s NLCS Game 4 the greatest performance in baseball sports history? I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal. Welcome to The Windup!

All the Way: ALCS goes to 7 games

In Game 4, the Blue Jays’ backs were against the wall, down two games to one on the road. They got their Max Scherzer moment.

In Game 5, the Mariners’ backs were against the wall, having lost two straight at home. They got the Eugenio Suárez “Grand salami.”

Last night in Game 6, it was Toronto’s turn again. Facing elimination, the team got the Trey Yesavage game: Blue Jays 6, Mariners 2.

Yesavage, who turned 22 in July, started this season in Low-A Dunedin, then spent 2025 checking off minor-league destinations like Baseball Anthony Bourdain: Vancouver, New Hampshire, Buffalo …

Then, less than two weeks before the end of the regular season, he made his big-league debut, and the rookie has been a massive part of Toronto’s postseason success. In the ALDS, he struck out 11 in 5 1/3 no-hit innings against the Yankees. Then after a bumpy start in Game 2 of the ALCS (five runs, four innings), he kept the Blue Jays’ season alive last night, going 5 2/3 innings, allowing two runs on six hits and three walks, striking out seven.

Not bad for a guy with 14 big-league innings in the regular season, even if it did take three consecutive inning-ending double plays to make it all work.

Meanwhile, the Mariners looked … sloppy. They made a season-high three errors on the night, and never could quite capitalize when they had runners on.

The walls have converged as far as they can. Game 7 is tonight at 8:08 p.m. ET on Fox/FS1 (stream on Fubo — try for free). It’ll be George Kirby for the Mariners and Shane Bieber for the Blue Jays.

More Mariners: Etsy witches? Rally shoes? Long-suffering Mariners fans find help anywhere they can.

Ken’s Notebook: Vlad Jr. proving his value

TORONTO — I can almost guarantee that when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. signed his 14-year, $500 million extension with the Toronto Blue Jays, executives from virtually every team in baseball snickered. Rolled their eyes. Said something to the effect of “the Blue Jays will regret that deal.”

Teams are beholden to their computer models, forever calculating players’ values based on projected future performance. It’s understandable. Good businesses are careful with their investments. Contracts as long as Guerrero’s are not without risk. But here’s the thing: While some of the return Guerrero provides is unquantifiable, his impact — on his team, his city and an entire country — is undeniable.

Guerrero, 26, hit his sixth homer of the postseason last night to help the Jays force Game 7 of the ALCS. He is now tied with Jose Bautista and Joe Carter for the most postseason homers in franchise history. And he has done it in a single, magical October.

More here.

🐐: We have to talk about that Ohtani performance

I know, we’ve had a weekend to process the impossible. But we can’t not talk about … that?!

Six innings, two hits, three walks, 10 strikeouts, 3-for-3 with a walk and three home runs.

That night, I had a very basic thought: Was Shohei Ohtani’s NLCS Game 4 the greatest single-game performance in baseball postseason history? 

Yes, obviously. Don Larsen pitched a perfect game in the 1956 World Series, but he went 0-for-2 with a sac bunt. There have been 13 three-homer postseason games, but even Babe Ruth didn’t pitch in either of his. (Total side note: Both came in complete games by Waite Hoyt.)

So here are two better questions:

Was this the greatest single-game performance in baseball history, regular or postseason?

In 1942, pitcher Jim Tobin of the Boston Braves hit three home runs in a game against the Chicago Cubs. He also pitched a complete game (because it was 1942). But he allowed five runs on five hits, striking out none.

There have been 21 four-homer games, but only two in which the hitter went 6-for-6 with 19 total bases: Shawn Green for the Dodgers in 2002 and A’s rookie Nick Kurtz earlier this year. Most importantly for our purposes, neither pitched.

Rick Wise once hit two home runs while throwing a no-hitter. That has to be close? Maybe it’s recency bias, but I still lean Ohtani. Jayson Stark agrees.

Was this the greatest single-game performance in sports history?

This is mostly rhetorical, but here are a few of the many, many candidates just from North American pro sports:

  • Michael Jordan’s flu game (38 points in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals). Still, though it was legendary, did he accomplish anything that no one else could have even attempted?
  • Tiger Woods won the 2008 US Open with a fracture in his tibia and while recovering from knee surgery.
  • Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in an NBA game in 1962.
  • Hockey Hall of Famer Peter Forsberg authored this impossible comeback in 1999, but he didn’t do it while playing goalie (and Dominik Hasek didn’t score during this masterpiece).

For me, the two closest contenders in that category are NFL games, since most football players only excel on one side of the ball, similar to baseball:

Ernie Nevers (who, unrelated, pitched for the St. Louis Browns from 1926-28) scored six touchdowns for the Cardinals (who played in Chicago at the time) against their cross-town rivals, the Bears, in 1929. Only Alvin Kamara (Saints, 2020) has matched that record. But Nevers also kicked four extra points, scoring all 40 of the Cardinals’ points that day. That record still stands.

Buuuut Nevers didn’t play defense. Maybe a better comp is Deion Sanders’ “Monday Night Football” performance with the Dallas Cowboys in 1998, in which he scored on a punt return, an interception and a reception against the Giants?

Maybe. But here’s one more factor: Not only did Ohtani’s night send his team to the World Series, but it was against the team with the most wins in the sport this year (the Bears were a lousy 4-9-2 in 1929, and the Giants were 8-8 in 1998).

Cross-sport comparisons are hard. But sheesh. Ohtani’s outing might be the best, impressive enough to be compared to some of the greatest Olympics performances. What tops your list?

Big Deals: Giants find their man?

At time of writing, the deal isn’t yet official. But multiple reports — including this one by The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly — suggest the Giants are close to hiring Tony Vitello, head baseball coach at the University of Tennessee.

As Baggarly reports, it’s extremely rare for big-league clubs to hire from the college ranks. But Vitello has transformed the Tennessee program from an afterthought to one that has gone to the College World Series three times in the last five seasons.

In a more in-depth column here, Baggarly breaks down the factors that will inform Vitello’s decision. Notably, he’s making $3 million per year and is signed through 2029 at Tennessee. Turning a program around is both lucrative and stable — a lot more stable than big-league-manager job security, even if the Giants are willing to pay him enough to make it worth the move.

But if Giants president Buster Posey is looking for a big personality, they don’t get much bigger than Vitello. And the Giants have some experience with that energy. Rookie Drew Gilbert (a Tennessee alum) was a spark plug for the team this year.

Handshakes and High Fives

If the Tigers are willing to trade Tarik Skubal this offseason, the Mets would certainly have interest.

After Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez suggested Brian Cashman was making in-game decisions for Aaron Boone, Cashman flatly denied that, calling it a “sad throwaway comment for people to make that don’t really know.”

Here’s where the civil trial between the Angels and the family of Tyler Skaggs sits after one week.

Two weeks after a traffic accident in Venezuela, former Yankees and Mariners catcher Jesús Montero died at 35 years old.

Most-clicked Friday: Pat Murphy’s 10-year-old son’s incredible meeting with the media.

📫 Love The Windup? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters.