When the Kansas City Royals play at Toronto tonight in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, they can tie an Orioles record with a victory. The O's hold the LCS record of 10 straight wins. Kansas City has won nine in a row in the LCS after taking the first two games of the series with Toronto. The Royals win streak dates to 1985. The Orioles recorded three consecutive 3-0 series sweeps in the ALCS in 1969, 1970 and 1971, when it was a best-of five series. Then the O's won Game 1...

Second baseman Chris Bostick is ninth in OPS with 1.500 to begin the first week of Arizona Fall League play. He is fourth in slugging at 1.125. It is a small sample size, but Bostick has crushed two homers and has gone 3-for-8 in two games. He has scored four runs, has four RBIs and has stolen two bases. This hot-hitting run and display of power is a carryover from the end of the season for Bostick, Nationals director of player development Mark Scialabba told me. "Chris Bostick had a really...

Beyond the enormous task of hiring the team's next manager, there are a number of personnel decisions Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo faces as the winter coats come out early in the nation's capital. Chief among the problems that helped the Nationals self-destruct in August and September is the bullpen. After trading away Tyler Clippard - who pitched a scoreless eighth inning for the Mets in their 4-1 National League Championship Series win last night - the Nats lost late-inning...

How much pressure is on the Orioles to re-sign Chris Davis? Probably a lot. Some fans are stirred up that the Orioles won 15 fewer games last year, a season that began without two key free agents from the previous year in Nick Markakis and Nelson Cruz. There is a segment of the fan base that doesn't want to see another key Oriole leave the nest. There have even been fans calling talk shows and writing on blogs like this one, saying they will not to go games if Davis leaves. But the Orioles...

The Royals and Mets are trying to siphon all the drama out of the League Championship Series. Is Jake Arrieta running out of gas or has he just proven to be human? Arrieta threw 229 innings in the regular season and he's added 19 2/3 in the playoffs, including five last night. His previous high was 156 2/3 innings last season. We can't say with any certainty that Arrieta has hit a wall, but opponents finally are hitting him. The Orioles' offseason is less than a month old and they've...

So much for what happened in the regular season holding much meaning now. The Chicago Cubs went 7-0 against the New York Mets during the regular season. But the Mets took the opening game of the National League Championship Series last night and host Game 2 tonight at Citi Field. The Mets won Saturday night 4-2. Matt Harvey went 7 2/3 innings allowing four hits and two runs to get the win. Jeurys Familia got the final four outs for a save. Daniel Murphy and Travis d'Arnaud hit solo homers, and...

When we reflected on the Nationals' top 10 quotes of the first half of the season during the All-Star break, the list was mostly filled with awestruck comments after Bryce Harper homers or sheer euphoria following epic comebacks. Back then the Nationals held a two-game division lead over the Mets. Now as we take inventory of the most significant words uttered during the Nationals' second half collapse, we can't help but notice the theme of the Jonathan Papelbon disturbance littered...

Instructional league has completed in Florida at the Nationals facility. The players now move on to offseason workouts and winter league competition. Focusing on the pitchers at instructional league, the group included the likes of Lucas Giolito, Erick Fedde and Reynaldo Lopez, plus many other of the top prospects in the Nationals system. A couple pitchers that did well during instructs were Taylor Hearn and Koda Glover. The 21-year-old Hearn is a left-hander who pitched at Oklahoma Baptist. He...

It is starting to become more prevalent in baseball. Some fans no doubt will love it and embrace it while others will say, "Enough already." It is Statcast technology. It can now measure and tell us the exit speed of the ball off the bat. It can measure in miles per hour how fast a player runs and in route efficiency how efficient a fielder was in tracking a ball hit to the outfield. It can measure the spin rate of a curveball or slider, or the quickness of someone's first step. It can...

The Royals trailed the Astros 6-2 in the eighth inning of Game 4 of the American League Division Series. They've outscored their opponents 23-5 since that point. Is that good? The Royals won Games 4 and 5 in the ALDS and have taken a 2-0 lead over the Blue Jays in the Championship Series. They're a snowball-type team, getting on these ridiculous rolls in innings and in their season. The Blue Jays have been known to do the same. They may want to get started in Game 3. David Price has lost...