The National League
The Kevin Towers Barry M. Bloom of MLB.com: "Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson all but said on Tuesday that rookie Paul Goldschmidt is going to be his regular first baseman the rest of the way with a possible spot start for Lyle Overbay. The decision came after Goldschmidt went 3-for-6 with a double, homer and three RBIs in the last two games."
The Frank Wren
David O'Brien of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "The Braves sent minor-league reliever Eliecer Cardenas to the Pittsburgh Pirates to as the player to be named to complete an Aug. 31 trade that brought outfielder Matt Diaz to Atlanta."
The Randy Bush
Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times: "Welcome to Chicago baseball 2011, where misery loves company on both sides of town, and the best news is it's almost over. One more week of life support, and the suffering ends."
The Walt Jocketty
Mark Sheldon of MLB.com: "The Reds, who are considering making Aroldis Chapman a rotation candidate for 2012, are contemplating having the left-hander pitch winter ball in the off-season."
The Dan O'Dowd
Jim Armstrong of The Denver Post: "Aaron Cook has spent the better part of a decade surviving Coors Field, but he still can't get enough of the place."
The Michael Hill
Clark Spender of The Miami Herald: "Though he has not said so formally, [Javier] Vazquez has given every indication that this will be his final season. He will make two more starts -- Wednesday against the Braves and next Tuesday -- before heading home to Puerto Rico."
The Ed Wade
Chip Bailey of Ultimate Astros: "It's a commonly known myth that snakes travel in pairs. Unfortunately, the same is true about 100-loss seasons. And there's very little myth about it."
The Ned Colletti
Dylan Hernandez of The Los Angeles Times: "Matt Kemp, whose priorities were questioned by club officials as recently as a year ago, was voted by his teammates as the winner of the Roy Campanella Award as the Dodgers' most inspirational player."
The Doug Melvin
Charles F. Gardner of The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "Casey McGehee admits it. The Milwaukee Brewers third baseman has been frustrated with his performance this season, and at times he has pressed too hard to rectify the situation."
The Sandy Alderson
MetsBlog: "According to David Lennon in a report for Newsday, 'Jose Reyes and Ruben Tejada have developed a mentor-pupil type relationship,' especially now that they share the same agent."
The Ruben Amaro Jr.
David Murphy of The Philadelphia Daily News: "[Charlie] Manuel sounded confident that he would have room in his playoff bullpen for Kyle Kendrick, who had another solid start [Tuesday]."
The Neal Huntington
BucsDugout: "Pedro Alvarez will ditch winter ball. Great. He's under no obligation to play, of course, but one would hope that a player who missed much of the season with an injury and was terrible when he did play would be very motivated to keep competing. It's possible that he feels that he can improve more quickly some other way, but if that's the case, I'd love to know what it is."
The John Mozeliak
Viva El Birdos: "That's 85 wins with 8 games to go, just a single victory shy of the 2010 and 2008 editions' win totals. The 2009 team won 91 games; if the Cards managed somehow to go 7-1 it would be their highest win total since 2005. That's right. The Cardinals have only won 90 games once since 2005."
The Jed Hoyer
GasLampBall: "We also bumped into Padres Senior VP of Brand Development Laura "The Brandmaker" Broderick. We interrogated her about the rumored uniform changes coming next season. The only thing that she'd say was that they were going to "make the uniforms more uniform". I think that means that we won't be seeing any drastic changes, they'll just be using the same fonts and color scheme across all the uniforms."
The Brian Sabean
Grant Brisbee of The McCovey Chronicles: "There really isn't any rhyme or reason to this Clayton Kershaw/Tim Lincecum thing. Kershaw has been better than Lincecum this year, but it's not like the difference between Justin Verlander and Brad Penny. They've both been fantastic. Kershaw has an ERA just over 1.00 against the Giants this year; Lincecum's is just under 2.00 against the Dodgers."
The Mike Rizzo
Adam Kilgore of The Washington Post: "After Drew Storen closed the first game of Tuesday's doubleheader, even though he had thrown 24 pitches, he did not apply ice to his elbow and shoulder. Manager Davey Johnson had asked him if he could pitch again at night if the Nationals took a lead with three outs left. Storen told him he could."
The American League
The Andy MacPhail
Dan Connolly of The Baltimore Sun: "There may be no player on the Orioles that gives manager Buck Showalter more pride than Robert Andino. It was at Showalter's suggestion that Andino was promoted last September after being taken off the club's 40-man roster in March 2010. Andino was out of options this year, but he made the team based on a strong spring and an endorsement from Showalter."
The Theo Epstein
Peter Schworm of The Boston Globe: "Like worried Red Sox fans everywhere this month, Tom Chapman has watched in pain as the team became unglued and frittered away seemingly insurmountable leads. But even as a shot at the playoffs increasingly appears to depend on somebody stopping the hard-charging Tampa Bay Rays, he just cannot bring himself to root for the only team in a position to do it."
The Kenny Williams
Jim Margalus of South Side Sox: "It's one thing to be beaten on the scoreboard, as has too often been the case this month. It's another to be beaten up physically, and the Sox have taken their lumps relative to the opposition. The White Sox have racked up 334 HBPs over the last five years, which is the fifth-highest total in baseball."
The Chris Antonetti
The Dave Dombrowski
Cash Kruth of MLB.com: "Right-hander Max Scherzer will get the start, and righty Doug Fister will back him up as Detroit tries to position its rotation for the postseason. The Tigers still has an outside shot at the top seed in the American League."
The Dayton Moore
Clint Scoles of Pine-Tar Press: "For the third time in four years a Royals affiliate has won a title with the Chasers finishing off a three game sweep Friday night with a 11-6 win in Sacramento. Young lefthander Mike Montgomery who struggled most of this season gave Omaha 5 shutout innings while working around 3 singles and 3 walks to earn the victory."
The Tony Reagins
Kevin Baxter of The Los Angeles Times: "There are two ways to look at the Angels' season as they stumble toward the finish line, battling to stay relevant with a week left on the schedule. On one hand, you could argue that the team let a possible playoff berth slip away ... On the other hand, the Angels may be lucky to be where they are."
The Bill Smith
Twinkie Town: "You can stick it to everyone who nattered on about the AL Central being terrible. If there's one thing more insulting than being dismissed as winners of a loser division, it's being the team that had the bad year in the loser division. Tigers success will put that talk to rest in a hurry."
The Brian Cashman
Mike Axila of River Ave Blues: "Over the course of the season, I think we've come to take David Robertson for granted. Well, maybe that's not the right way to put it. I guess it would be more accurate to say that he's one part of the Yankees that we're not concerned about, like at all. At least that's how I feel. Aside from Mariano Rivera, there's no pitcher out in that bullpen that I have more confidence in that D-Rob."
The Billy Beane
John Shea of The San Francisco Chronicle: "Michael Taylor hit his first career home run in Oakland's 7-2 loss Tuesday to the first-place Rangers, whose magic number dropped to four."
The Jack Zduriencik
Geoff Baker of The Seattle Times: "There was one homer hit in a Yankees game that 1961 season that got very little attention, until right now. It happened on Opening Day of that season in a game in which none of the Yankees managed to go deep. The reason we're remembering that homer today, hit by a visiting player at Yankee Stadium, is because it would be one of only two long balls clubbed that year by a guy named Reno Bertoia."
The Andrew Friedman
Roger Mooney of The Tampa Tribune: "All Tampa Bay Rays LHP David Price had to show Tuesday from the line drive that struck him on his right chest Sunday was a small red welt. The soreness is all but gone, and Price said he expects to make his start Friday against the Blue Jays."
The Jon Daniels
The Dallas Morning News: "More possible fodder for upping the ante in regards to retaining left-hander C.J. Wilson, who becomes a free agent at the end of the season: Wilson, who makes his 33rd start of the season at Oakland, has a chance Wednesday to become the first Ranger since Nolan Ryan in 1991 to have 200 strikeouts in a season and a chance to become the first Ranger since Kenny Rogers in 2000 to pitch more than 220 innings in a season."
The Alex Anthopoulos
Gregor Chisholm of MLB.com: "Brett Cecil cut his finger while cleaning a blender in Boston. He was scratched from his start on Friday but threw a side session on Sunday and was given the go-ahead to pitch against Los Angeles."