Baseball

All of the pitching luxuries the Detroit Tigers seemed to have four weeks ago have systematically evaporated and been replaced by the first stages of panic.

San Francisco Giants pitcher Yusmeiro Petit set a major league record during Thursday's outing against the Colorado Rockies by retiring a 46th consecutive batter, per the Giants' official Twitter account.

With only 29 games remaining in the regular season, the Pittsburgh Pirates trail the San Francisco Giants by just 2.0 games for the second wild-card spot.  

Currently, the organization cannot be thinking about the future, as it has a chance to win right now.  

UPDATE: August 29 at 8:17 p.m. ET

According to ESPN, Montero will not play again this season after this incident.

---End of Update---

UPDATE: August 29 at 3:08 p.m. ET

Mariners cross-checker Butch Baccala (the scout involved in this strange incident) denies provoking or taunting Montero on Thursday night.

It’s not a stretch to say the Pittsburgh Pirates’ weak September schedule could propel them into the playoffs if the team takes care of business against a trio of last-place teams.

MLB roster expansions are nearly upon us, and the Boston Red Sox certainly have no shortage of intriguing players they can call up once the calendar turns to September 1.

This is already a team loaded with young talent, to be sure.

While injuries and bullpen woes have been staples of the Cincinnati Reds' 2014 campaign, offense has been similarly woeful. We can't say for certain whether it's related to injuries to crucial players or not. Is Jay Bruce suffering his worst professional season in seven years because of the shift or because he had a knee surgery in May?

We have officially hit crunch time in the 2014 MLB season, as the month of August comes to a close and teams have roughly 30 games left to secure a spot in the postseason.

In the National League, seven teams still boast a winning record, and the Miami Marlins and Cincinnati Reds are hanging on the fringe of contention as well.

This is exactly how Bud Selig and Major League Baseball drew it up three years ago.

With the second wild-card spot, the number of viable postseason competitors increases and more teams remain in the hunt for longer. As the summer concludes and October quickly approaches, the drama spikes.

Each team now has 30 games or fewer to do one of a few things: catch their respective division leader and avoid the play-in game, hang on to their wild-card hold or chase down that second and final spot.

SAN FRANCISCO — One night after Madison Bumgarner lit up AT&T Park by taking a perfect game into the eighth inning, Tim Hudson was electric. Stretch-run energy buzzed through the Giants clubhouse in that old, familiar way.