Carlos Carrasco to continue career in Korea

In his final appearance of the season — and possibly, but far from assuredly, his final appearance with the Marlins — Alcantara locked down his third save of the season. Raise your hand if you predicted that figure. You liar. Alcantara went 13-11 in 2026 with a 153/59 K/BB over 214 innings. The right-hander showed he’s still a strong option, and be it for Miami or a new club, there will be fantasy-relevance, even if he doesn’t miss bats with the best of them.

The Astros will host the White Sox in the Wild Card. Walker has been pretty bad for five months, but he did come through really nicely in the end, homering in four of his final six games. He ends up with a .226/.299/.427 line, 29 homers and 87 RBI. Three years in a row now, he’s finished with 26-29 homers, 84-88 RBI and 72-73 runs scored.

Lambert gave up two singles in the first and then retired the side in order in the second. That proved sufficient for the Astros, who went on to win 9-0 to clinch their postseason berth. Lambert might start one of the three Wild Card games against the White Sox after closing out the regular season 8-10 with a 3.82 ERA in 155 2/3 innings.

Pecko, who started and lost to the Mariners on Wednesday, came out of the pen in the third today and retired nine of the 10 batters he faced, throwing only 34 pitches in the process. That’ll keep him in the mix to pitch in some capacity during the Wild Card series. After debuting in August, he wound up 2-0 with a 3.93 ERA and a 23/14 K/BB over 34 1/3 innings in his five starts and three relief appearances for the Astros.

It’s hard to understand why the Mariners didn’t make the move a couple of months ago to try to shake things up, but at least they will have an upgrade heading into 2027. Of course, the Mariners were very successful in the first year-plus of Wilson’s tenure, but he always seemed to be in a little over his head, as was to be expected given his lack of any managerial experience before getting the job. That became much more difficult to overlook in the midst of a hugely disappointing 2026.

Scherzer got some help from umpire John Bacon as the outing got into the sixth and it looked like he was about to be lifted — and Reds hitters bypassed some pretty obvious challenges — but Scherzer just kept going, only finally getting taken out after a walk to start the eighth. Working on three days’ rest, he threw 114 pitches, his high total since 2020. The walk that ended his outing was his only one to go along with five singles and one double allowed on the day. Scherzer concludes the year 4-9 with a 5.74 ERA. If he wants to come back for another year at age 42, there will certainly be teams willing to have him. If not, he finishes 225-126 with a 3.29 ERA in 3,047 2/3 innings. He’s ninth all-time with 3,557 strikeouts.

The 28-year-old Williamson winds up 5-5 with a 5.30 ERA over 12 outings in his return from Tommy John. He’ll probably have a chance to stick around and complete for a spot next year, but middle relief might be a better home for him than the rotation.

Clement’s downfall from 2025 postseason hero and 2026 AL leading All-Star vote getter to whatever this has been for the last couple of months has been stunning. He hit .150/.186/.200 in September after coming in at .208/.228/.260 in August. Unless he can explain it away due to an injury, the Blue Jays would have a hard time justifying keeping a regular spot open for him next spring. It would make sense to keep him around as a utility guy at a likely $6 million or so in arbitration.