Report: McCullers being traded to Brewers

Megill entered the ninth inning with a 5-3 lead, but allowed back-to-back hits to start the inning to suddenly find himself with runners on second and third and no outs. The Orioles would then get sacrifice flies from Samuel Basallo and Christian Encarnacion-Strand in back-to-back at-bats to tie the game at 5-5, with Megill going on to strike out Heston Kjerstad to end the inning. Megill wouldn’t return in the 10th inning, but was handed the win after the Brewers took a 6-5 lead on an RBI single by Sal Frelick. Reliever Chad Patrick would come on in the 10th and pitch a perfect inning to secure the win for the Brewers while tallying his sixth save of the season. Friday marked just the third blown save of the season for Megill and was his first since June 5th against the Rockies.

Acuña helped Atlanta secure a playoff spot for the eighth time in the last nine years when he blasted a no-doubter to left field off Astros workhorse reliever AJ Blubaugh in the seventh inning. It was his sixth round-tripper in 16 games since the outset of September. The 28-year-old fantasy superstar is just one home run shy of posting a 20-homer, 20-steal campaign for the first time since his historic 41-homer, 73-steal effort back in 2023. He may never reach those lofty heights again, but he’s proven he can be an impactful power/speed combo threat, even if he doesn’t come close to playing a full season ever again.

Olson capped off a three-hit performance by reaching the lofty 40-homer plateau for the second time in his career when he took Astros reliever Enyel De Los Santos deep in the ninth inning. He last accomplished the feat back in 2023 when he launched a whopping 54 big flies in his second season with Atlanta.

Mahle has been an unexpected revelation since coming over from the Giants at the trade deadline, posting a microscopic 1.28 ERA across eight starts in an Atlanta uniform. The lone tally against him in this one came on an RBI single from Isaac Paredes in the fourth inning as he allowed just four basrunners over six frames. There’s a chance that the Braves shuffle their rotation around for the postseason, but Mahle is in line to take the ball against the Reds for his final regular season outing on Thursday.

Lambert gave up six hits, including a two-run homer to Michael Harris II in the fourth inning, which accounted for all of the damage against him. He struck out six and only issued one walk. He’s allowed three earned runs or fewer in five consecutive starts since being lit up for nine runs by the Angels back on August 20. He’ll wrap up the regular season with a tough road matchup against the Athletics at hitter-friendly Sutter Health Park on Thursday.

The AL leader in RBI added three more to his count on Friday when he blasted a three-run homer off of Dustin May in the bottom of the third inning to tie the game at 3-3 for the Orioles. It would be the only hit of the night for Alonso, whose last three hits have all resulted in homers. The Polar Bear is slashing .241/.333/.655 in his last seven games.

The Tigers faced an early 8-2 deficit after three innings in this one, but they slowly grinded their way back into the game. Lee smacked an RBI double in the eighth inning that pulled them to within two runs at 8-6. He then clobbered an opposite-field, 362-foot, game-tying two-run shot off of Sean Newcomb in the eighth. He has impressed at the dish in his rookie campaign, slashing .264/.320/.432 with 10 homers and 45 RBI in 326 plate appearances.

The 22-year-old phenom smacked an RBI single in the third inning that trimmed the Tigers’ deficit to four runs at 6-2. He then added a bases-clearing triple in the fifth that made it an 8-5 ballgame. He also drew a walk in the game. With the two-hit attack, McGonigle is now slashing .277/.378/.428 with 17 homers, 69 RBI, 12 stolen bases and a 91/92 K/BB ratio in his 672 plate appearances.

It didn’t look like Jansen would be needed as the Tigers faced an early 8-2 deficit in the game, but he was called upon after a five-run rally in the eighth inning flipped the game around. Jansen made it look easy in this one, getting Sam Antonacci on a fly out to left, Randal Grichuk on a fly ball to right and Munetaka Murakami on strikes to end it. The 38-year-old closer is now just three saves away from 500 for his career.