The Buzz — Thursday, October 1

Alec Bohm

The take Bohm's 10th-inning HR forces Phillies-Braves Game 3

A .249 hitter with three career postseason home runs saved Philadelphia's season. Bohm's two-out solo shot in the 10th — 357 feet to right off Didier Fuentes — gave the Phillies a 4-3 lead and forced a winner-take-all Game 3 on Thursday. The swing carried more weight than a highlight reel suggests: a down regular season, impending free agency, and a team that was six outs from elimination after trailing 3-1 entering the eighth.

The rally that preceded him mattered as much as the finish. Schwarber and Harper went back-to-back, 447 feet and 418 feet, to erase the deficit, Harper's homer atoning for his own misplay of a fly ball that helped Atlanta take the lead. Bohm said he did not want the season to end. It did not — and now one game Thursday decides whether his Philadelphia career gets another chapter.

Alec Bohm cards on eBay →(paid link)

Cody Bellinger

The take Bellinger's three-run HR and dad first-pitch in Yankees sweep

The ceremonial first pitch from his father, Clay, a 2000 World Series champion with the Yankees, caught by Cody himself — that was the pregame. The game was a 9-2 rout that completed a two-game sweep of Boston and sent New York to the ALDS against Tampa Bay.

The decision that turned the night came in the sixth, when Boston intentionally walked Ben Rice to face Bellinger. He hit the three-run homer off Garrett Whitlock that made it 8-1, capping a four-RBI night. The sweep was decisive enough that it did not need a hero — it needed someone to finish the job, and Bellinger did. The family moment will be what the cameras lead with. The intentional walk will be what Boston replays.

Cody Bellinger cards on eBay →(paid link)

Chase Meidroth

The take Meidroth 3-run HR sealed White Sox Wild Card sweep

A franchise that had not won a postseason series since the 2005 World Series got its clincher from a second baseman with 16 home runs all year. Meidroth's three-run shot off Bryan Abreu in the sixth turned a 4-3 lead into 7-3, and Houston was done. He went 2-for-3 with a walk in the clincher, and his regular season — 16 homers, 63 RBI, .276 in 154 games after arriving in the Garrett Crochet trade — says the moment fit the year he was having.

Chase Meidroth cards on eBay →(paid link)

Gavin Sheets

The take Sheets pinch-hit HR clinches Padres Wild Card sweep

The number that anchors this: 100.8 mph — the hardest pitch any Padre has ever homered on, regular season or postseason. That is the velocity Sheets turned on from Daniel Palencia, not a hanging slider or a mistake pitch. He was a pinch-hitter because his body will not let him be anything else.

A plantar plate tear in his left foot put him in a walking boot for most of September. He went on the IL Aug. 30, was activated Sept. 26, and is limited to DH and pinch-hit duty. Offseason surgery is likely. The swing that turned a 2-1 lead into 4-1 and ended Chicago's season came from a one-swing specialist — a player who cannot play defense and may not be able to do this again next week — turning around elite velocity in the fourth inning.

The Padres won Game 1 on Tuesday, 8-0, and across 18 innings the Cubs — the majors' leading regular-season run scorers — managed one run and eight hits, seven singles. Sheets' homer was insurance on a sweep that belonged to the pitching. It was also the Padres' first pinch-hit postseason home run since 2005 and his first playoff homer since 2021 with the White Sox. San Diego goes to Milwaukee on Saturday, and Sheets goes with them — limited, aching, and carrying the one swing that ended a round.

Gavin Sheets cards on eBay →(paid link)