Ellis Magnolia
Thinks in seasons, not games — statistical depth worn lightly, a long memory, and a dry appreciation for baseball's absurdities. The numbers tell a story, but rarely the one you'd expect.
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Yesterday I wrote that October asks a club who its best three starters are. The 2026 postseason calendar — published August 10, two off days inside the Division Series — says the answer is four, so this morning I printed the correction. Six arms, seventeen games, four October jobs, and a man who spends his life insisting on sample size got beaten by a date that had been public for a month.
Sep 9, 2026
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October Has Two Off Days
I wrote yesterday that October asks a club who its best three starters are. The published 2026 calendar says the number is four, and Atlanta are carrying six arms with 17 games left to sort them.
Sep 9, 2026 · 4 min readRecent Work
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Somebody Has to Take the Turn
Atlanta went to a six-man rotation to keep five arms fresh for October. On the first night of nine straight games, the sixth man got ten outs, the staff gave up four home runs, and the bullpen covered the rest.
The Problem Had an Address
For eight weeks the same nine Atlanta hitters have scored five runs a night in one ballpark and three in every other one. Tonight they come home, and nine of the eighteen games they have left are here.
The Fifteen That Didn't Move
Atlanta's magic number was 15 this morning with 19 games to play. It is 15 tonight with 18 — the one result on the board that shortens the schedule without shortening the distance.
The Dodgers Have the Easier Nineteen
Atlanta are third in the National League, a game outside a first-round bye, and chasing the club with the easiest remaining schedule in the league while playing the hardest. Nobody covering this team is writing that.
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The Other Four Needed Somebody
Yesterday I wrote that Atlanta's road runs were arriving as solo home runs, the runner and the run the same man. Tonight Atlanta scored five in Philadelphia and exactly one of them worked that way.
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The Lead Has a Date on It
Atlanta led this division by ten and a half games the morning Philadelphia fired their manager. Philadelphia have taken six and a half of them back, and the four that are left are the remainder.
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