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

Rowdy Tellez makes a loud first impression

The Blue Jays could have had something really exciting going on at the tail end of this season if they had called up Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Unfortunately, they decided to keep him down in the minors, and while it's begrudgingly understandable why they did, it's still a bummer. With that being said, Rowdy Tellez arrived on the scene in Toronto in a loud and, well, rowdy manner and has already taken things by storm.

He debuted on Sept. 5 as a pinch-hitter and promptly hit a double. Tellez enjoyed hitting doubles so much that he hit three more when he made his first career start the next day and then added two more on the day after that. On Sept. 8, he did not hit a double — he had a single and a home run, instead. When you add it all up, the rookie had eight hits in his first 20 plate appearances, with seven of those being for extra bases.

Tellez did all of this work at the plate while dealing with the fresh pain of losing his mother back on Aug. 19. As such, things got emotional whenever Tellez mashed at the plate, and rightfully so. It's difficult to imagine being able to perform at such a high level when it's your first time there and you're dealing with something as sad as what he experienced. While it's hard to say whether or not this is just a hot start or the sign of a new star, it's safe to say that this guy can handle the rigors of MLB.

The NL Central is giving us an amazing race

Once again, we're here to talk about the Brewers and the Cubs because their divisional race is not lacking in drama and intrigue. After Milwaukee took two out of three at Miller Park last week, the two clubs met again at Wrigley Field for the final time during this regular season. Once again, it was the Brewers who were able to win the series and inch ever-so-closer to the top of the heap in the NL Central.

While the Brewers have been lurking in the Cubs' shadow for what feels like the entire season, this is really the first time it feels like Milwaukee could actually overtake Chicago. And it's happening at an incredibly opportune time for the Brewers and a very, very bad time for Chicago. Plus, the Brewers really have to be feeling good when they have stuff like this wacky triple from Curtis Granderson going for them.

Elsewhere in the NL Central, the Cardinals are still alive. While they're a few games back in the division, St. Louis still has a tiny bit of breathing room for the second and final wild card spot in the NL. It's looking likely that the Central could send three teams to October, and I don't think anybody from the East and West would be chomping at the bit to face off with any of these squads, just based on how hard they're battling each other at the moment.

Brewers win beanball battle by actually playing baseball

We're going to stick with the Brewers here because they had baseball karma go so far in their favor that it was truly amazing. Over the weekend, Madison Bumgarner made the start for the Giants on the road against Milwaukee, and he found himself in a confrontation with Ryan Braun. After there was a misunderstanding over a wayward pitch, Bumgarner made sure there was no confusion when he hit him with the next one.

The HBP loaded up the bases for Jonathan Schoop, who punished a beanball in the best way possible — he hit a massive grand slam to put the Brewers in front and teach a valuable lesson to everybody watching and participating. And that lesson is that beanballing is dumb and you shouldn't do it, lest you end up like Bumgarner and you have to watch an entire team celebrate after you purposefully loaded the bases to show how "tough" you are.

Three Down

The Giants have embarked on a miserable losing streak

I'm not going to say that it was all going so well for the Giants because it really wasn't. Back on Aug. 31, the Giants were an even 68-68, and while they were clear outsiders in the crowded race for the NL West title, they held onto the thought of playing for a winning season. They likely would have barely finished above .500 based on how they've played all this year, but that would have been a decent consolation prize for what's been an underwhelming season.

Then on Sept. 1, the Giants lost 2-1 to the Mets in extra innings. They still have yet to win a game this month. Their loss on Wednesday to Atlanta was a historical one in the Bay Area, as their 11th straight defeat meant that the 2018 Giants now had the longest losing streak in the San Francisco part of Giants history. To put this in recent perspective, the Baltimore Orioles seem like a legitimate threat to lose more than 110 games this year. Their longest losing streak so far this season has been nine games.

And to put this into even deeper perspective (which is what SB Nation's Grant Brisbee did), even that horrific Detroit Tigers team from 2003 that lost 119 games didn't lose 11 in a row. But this year's Giants team did, and now it's gone from trying to end the season on a positive note of at least finishing at or above .500 to basically playing out the string with an offense that has truly become woeful. The "Even-Year Magic" is long gone.

Flamethrowers can't help Philadelphia right now

Now it's time to talk about the weather, which is a pretty big deal at the moment. While Philadelphia may not be dealing with a hurricane, it still had some adverse weather to deal with earlier this week. Since the Phillies are currently still alive in a race, they want to make sure they can get these games in and avoid a doubleheader like the plague.

As such, both the Phillies and even Nationals players like Bryce Harper got in on trying to keep the field dry on Monday. The Phillies grounds crew tried to make up for not leaving a tarp on the field over some rainy weekend weather by breaking out flamethrowers. Yes, you read that correctly — the groundskeepers tried to use flamethrowers to treat the field. Baseball will never cease to surprise me.

Anyway, it didn't work and the teams were forced to play a doubleheader after all, which was calamitous for the Phillies, as they lost both games on their way to being swept by the Nationals. Meanwhile, the Braves swept the aforementioned Giants, and the NL East race took a major swing in Atlanta's direction. Their grounds crew may have flamethrowers, but the Phillies are anything but hot right now.

Are they really going to play a hurricane game?

By the end of this week, the Nationals will probably be sick of having to monitor the Doppler radar. Weather played a huge role in their weekend series against the Cubs, it forced a doubleheader in their series against the Phillies and now the Nationals and Cubs may have to finish that weekend series with the looming threat of Hurricane Florence bearing down on the Mid-Atlantic.

It's MLB's handling of the Nationals-Cubs series that has a lot of people confused as to what's really going on in the league offices right now. The game that was scheduled for this past Friday shouldn't have even been attempted to be played, but MLB made the teams try it and what we got was a game being called at nearly midnight and a doubleheader scheduled for the next day.

The Cubs burned Jon Lester for 1 1/2 innings on Friday and had to resort to a bullpen game during the first half of the doubleheader. They lost both games and they left Washington with gritted teeth after Sunday's game was rescheduled to Thursday. Despite the Cubs pleading for the game to be moved to a different date, as of right now MLB is still going to try to get this game in while a hurricane is arriving on the scene. If that game actually gets played on Thursday, it will be astonishing.