Three Up, Three Down: The MLB hot/cold report

I'm not the first to do so, but I'm still going to go ahead and congratulate the Boston Red Sox on winning the AL East this season. Yes, the Yankees are a great team and could end up winning 100 games themselves, but at the same time, this Boston team just appears to be special. The Red Sox proved it on the field over this past weekend when they completed a four-game sweep of the Yankees.

Going into Thursday's action, the Red Sox hold a nine-game lead over the Yankees, which is the second-largest gap between a division leader and second place. The big difference between Cleveland's 10-game lead on Minnesota and what Boston is doing to New York right now is the fact that Minnesota is actually not a good baseball team so it makes sense that the Twins are that deep in the hole. The Yankees have 71 wins right now, third most in baseball, and would have a comfortable lead over every other team if they were in any division outside the AL East and AL Central.

Instead, the Yankees are probably going to head into a battle for their lives in the wild-card game while the Red Sox prepare to cap off what could be a historic regular season with a run in the postseason. It's a shame for New York, but you really have to appreciate what Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr., Chris Sale and even Steve Pearce (who has now played for every franchise in the AL East) have been doing. It's one thing to be good like the Yankees, but it's another to be great like the Red Sox are right now.

Soto and Acuña: These kids are alright

The Nationals and Braves linked up for a four-game series this week, which means that we got to see a glimpse of a youthful team that is clearly on the rise in the form of the Braves cross paths with a Nationals team whose title window appears to be rapidly closing. One thing that both teams have in common is they both have extremely young players who figure to be battling each other for outfield supremacy for the foreseeable future.

The Braves have Ronald Acuña Jr., who has been showing signs of what he's capable of doing once he fully matures into a bona fide star at this level. He's been flourishing in his new role as leadoff hitter for the Braves, and he gave us a display of what he's all about when he hit a homer and also robbed a homer in the same inning.

Meanwhile, Juan Soto at age 19 has been doing just as well as his 20-year-old counterpart Acuña, if not even better. He's been breaking all sorts of age-related records since he got called up and has been a general terror for opposing teams to deal with. During the first game of their doubleheader on Monday, the teenager had two hits and reached base five times — something that hadn't been done by a teen since Robin Yount did it. It turns out, MLB took one of his hits away upon further review, but it was still quite an impressive display from Soto.

Folks, the game is in good hands if kids like these two are busy running around the sandlots.

Oakland A's continue their surge

While the AL West is still firmly in Houston's grip, the wild-card race still has a lot of intrigue to it. The Mariners had been in control of the second wild-card spot, but now that appears to be in doubt. They've gone on a big-time slide lately, and while they're still 65-50, it's a very tenuous time for Seattle.

The M's are now down three games in the race for the final wild-card spot because their slide has coincided with the A's continuing the tear they've been on for a while now. After they beat the Dodgers on Wednesday night, Oakland improved to 68-47, with 34 of those victories coming over the past 45 games.

The best part of Oakland's tear is that the A's have been beating some good teams along the way. They haven't beaten up on a soft schedule or anything like that — they have been taking on all comers of high quality, and they've been beating them. We're still a couple of months away from October and this wild-card race is far from over, but I cannot imagine that the Yankees would look forward to having their season on the line against this Oakland team.

Three Down

It's hard out here for an ump

Hoo boy, this was a bad week for the umps. We had a couple of examples of umpires deciding that they need to be the center of the show on the diamond, and then we had a bizarre moment that just made you feel bad for the umpire who was involved. With that being said, I do not think anybody feels bad for Angel Hernandez after he drew the ire of Anthony Rizzo after his (badly) called strike three ended the game for the Cubs.

Rizzo tore into Hernandez following the game, and Hernandez ended up admitting that it was a bad call. I suppose it's all good until the next bad call comes, and if it happens in October, we may not have an amicable solution then.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned Juan Soto got thrown out of a game on Wednesday night after he implored the home plate umpire to "be better" after his bad call on the previous at-bat. This is just further proof that the teenager should be protected at all costs, since he managed to incur the wrath of an umpire simply by talking down to him. I love it!

Finally, another umpire just had some awful luck come his way — into his ear, to be specific. This wasn't an example of foul language or boos from the crowd. Instead, a moth wandered into this guy's ear. Thankfully, he was able to remove the moth in the dugout with some tweezers, and we have the video to prove it! If you're going to watch the removal, you're braver than most.

Arizona's awful defense allows a Little League home run

On Tuesday night when Phillies second baseman Cesar Hernandez squared up his bat to lay down a bunt against the Diamondbacks, I don't think he ever imagined that he'd end up scoring on the same exact play. Well, it happened, and he was basically a passenger on the wild ride that the Diamondbacks and their defense took him on as they escorted him back to home plate after turning a bunt into a Little League home run.

The adventure started when Hernandez's speed forced Jake Diekman into making a throw under duress. The throw skipped past Paul Goldschmidt and into the foul territory and the outfield. By the time Steven Souza fielded it, Hernandez was thinking about third base. Then Souza's throw ended up going way outside. That allowed Hernandez to score and add on to what was eventually a win for Philadelphia.

MLB is the highest level of baseball there is, but every now and then we get a reminder that these guys are all very imperfect humans. Arizona's defense on this play was a prime example of it.

Astros make a joke of 'zero tolerance'

The Astros courted controversy when they made the active decision to go out and acquire Roberto Osuna around the trade deadline. This was extremely controversial since word leaked out that the Blue Jays had internally decided that 75-game suspension or not, Osuna was done pitching for them. Meanwhile, the Astros decided that their "zero tolerance" policy apparently didn't apply to what players had done outside of their organization.

It didn't help that Astros GM Jeff Luhnow didn't exactly go about defending that policy in the best way possible following the trade. If there's "zero tolerance" for domestic abusers in your organization, then why go out and trade for a guy who is still actively dealing with a case that caused his suspension in the first place? To their small credit, the Astros noted that Osuna won't receive another chance if he does get into another situation, but if the legal proceedings go against Osuna, that would make the organization look even worse since the Astros went out and got him while the case was still going on.

The best way to show "zero tolerance" would have been to just leave him alone and keep him in Toronto. The Jays were clearly ready to show "zero tolerance" in their organization. Instead, it appears Houston is one of those organizations that puts on a nice face but will still do anything to win — even if it means breaking one of its own morality clauses just so the team can improve its chances of winning another title.