Liam Hicks sitting against Blue Jays Thursday

Brogdon loses his spot in Cleveland’s bullpen with Shawn Armstrong returning from the injured list for Tuesday’s game against the Red Sox. The 31-year-old has posted a serviceable 5.05 ERA across 16 innings of work for the Guardians this season.

No surprise here with Contreras working his way back from a right hand injury and the Red Sox having already locked up a playoff spot. It’s a frustrating situation for fantasy managers, but there’s very little incentive for Boston to rush Contreras back into a game before the postseason. There’s a chance he’s ready to return at some point during their final series against the Cubs, but that three-game set is going to be a mess with a rare fall Nor’easter rolling in this weekend.

Norby grabs a seat on Colorado’s bench with Adael Amador getting a turn at the keystone. The 26-year-old has been a real bright spot for the Rockies, and a true difference-maker in deeper fantasy leagues, over the last couple weeks, hitting .300 (36-for-120) with three homers, 17 RBI and four steals in 36 games.

It’s a tough break for fantasy managers in extremely deep leagues since Loftin has been red-hot recently, hitting .400 (8-for-20) with one homer, three RBI and one steal over his last seven games. It’ll be Isaac Collins and John Rave getting outfield starts with Jac Caglianone back in right field for the second straight game.

It’s unclear how the Red Sox are going to handle the situation since they’re ostensibly locked into the second Wild Card spot heading into the playoffs next week. Patrick Sandoval was scheduled to start Sunday’s season finale and will presumably get the ball on Saturday instead, weather permitting. Jake Bennett, Payton Tolle and Brayan Bello are also in the mix to pitch as well. It’ll be Matthew Boyd and David Peterson most getting the ball for the Cubs during the twin bill with Justin Steele (elbow) in the mix to return from the injured list this weekend. There are a ton of variables that fantasy managers need to monitor with Boston facing inclement weather from roughly Friday evening through Sunday afternoon.

Morales has four homers in 43 plate appearances since being called up, giving him a .279/.279/.651 line. We’d say he’s still looking for his first walk, but that doesn’t really seem to be the case. Morales split time pretty evenly between first and third in the minors this year, but the Nationals have thus far only used him at first in the majors. It could set up a battle between he, Abimelec Ortiz and Andrés Chaparro at first base for the Nationals in spring.

Lord was the Nationals’ second most valuable pitcher behind MacKenzie Gore while making 19 starts and 29 relief appearances last year. This year, he opened up in the pen and has made only five starts, all of which were short. This is the ninth time this season he’s gotten either nine or 10 outs, but he’s never topped 3 1/3 innings. One more out today probably would have earned him a win; he exited in the fifth before the Nationals scored three runs in the sixth. He’s remained pretty useful, posting a 3.78 ERA in 83 1/3 innings despite missing four weeks with a side issue in July.

Cruz entered a 4-1 game with two on and two outs in the eighth and struck out Spencer Torkelson to end the threat. He then allowed one run on three singles before closing out the ninth. Cruz has a 7.45 ERA and an 8/8 K/BB in 9 2/3 innings since arriving from the Yankees in the Luis García Jr. trade. The stuff is there to make him probably the Nationals’ most intriguing internal closer candidate next year. They should really aim for some outside help, though.

Valdez opened with five scoreless innings today to lower his ERA from 4.06 to 3.94, but he gave up three straight singles to start the sixth, with his one out coming because of a baserunning miscue. He was lifted down 1-0, with his ERA sitting at 3.98. However, the remaining runner came around to score off Tyler Kinley, pushing Valdez’s ERA back up to 4.03 to end the year. He also fell to 10-12. The collapse of his strikeout rate this year seems like a bad sign going forward, but at least he did turn back into a very strong groundball pitcher over the last four months. He might be through as a top-20 fantasy starter, but he should still offer some mixed-league value next year.

Another good game for McGonigle with no one driving him in. He’s scored just once in seven games, even though he has 12 hits and three walks in the span. It looks like he was going to reach the century mark in runs scored as a rookie, but he’s stuck on 95 now with just three games to go.