MLB trends: Raisen Iglesias’ great game, Bowden Francis’ second chance and a messy Red Sox

September is just around the corner, which means the postseason races (and prize races) are really heating up and everything will be decided in less than five weeks. The marathon of the regular season is now becoming a race to the end. With that in mind, here are three MLB trends to know now as we enter the stretch run.

Iglesias’s hidden ideal game

I think we can all agree that Emmanuel Class has been the best closer – really the best reliever – in baseball this season. He has been out of this world great. Mason Miller has been great as well and has the spark of a new toy (and a 104 mph fastball). Kirby Yates has been great. Jeff Hoffman, AJ Puk, Ryan Walker, we could say more. There are so many great relievers out there.

By my count, Braves closer Raisel Iglesias has been the second-best reliever in baseball this season. He had a 1.39 ERA and a 0.60 WHIP — 0.60 WHIP! — coming into Tuesday’s game, and he’s struck out 50 batters against just seven unearned walks. Only Klass has been better than him in terms of win probability. Iglesias has gotten a lot of high-leverage outs for Atlanta.

Last Friday, Iglesias threw scoreless ninth and tenth innings in the eventual walk-off win over the Nationals. He hit Jacob Young with a pitch in the tenth inning, which is notable because it broke Iglesias’ streak of 38 consecutive batters retired. It’s a hidden perfect game! It’s 27 straight retired and 11 more retired in 12 appearances from July 30 to August 23.

Of course, an actual perfect game is much more spectacular than a reliever striking out 27 batters, but still, it’s really, really cool. In fact Striking out 38 batters in a row is hard. According to MLB.com, Iglesias’ streak is the longest by a Braves pitcher in the Expansion Era (since 1961), and it’s the longest by any pitcher since Yusmeiro Petit set the all-time record in 2024.

Here is a list of the longest consecutive retiring batters in baseball history:

1. Yusmeiro Petit, 2014 Giants: 46
2. Mark Buehrle, 2009 White Sox: 45
3. Bobby Jenks, 2007 White Sox: 41
4. Jim Barr, 1972 Giants: 41
5. Tom Browning, 1988 Reds: 40

Buehrle and Browning’s perfect games were part of their streaks. As for Iglesias, he outdueled Young, retired the second batter on a pop up, then turned a 1-6-3 double play to escape the inning. As of Tuesday, Iglesias had retired 40 of the last 41 batters he had faced, and he hadn’t given up a hit to any of the last 43 batters he had faced. He has been dominating.

The Braves have struggled with injuries this year and their offensive game has suffered, so the margin for error for the pitching staff has shrunk. The back of the bullpen — Joe Jimenez, Pierce Johnson, Dylan Lee, etc. — has been pretty solid, though, and Iglesias has been nearly automatic in the ninth inning. He’s holding leads and has been nearly flawless over the past month.

Francis earns spot in Blue Jays rotation

Thanks to a strong spring training and Alec Manoah’s shoulder injury, right-hander Bowden Francis began 2024 in the Blue Jays’ rotation, and it didn’t go well. He gave up 12 runs and four homers in 8 1/3 innings in his first two games, then a forearm injury knocked him out from late April to early June. When he returned, Francis initially worked as a low-leverage reliever.

Toronto had a poor season, so the Blue Jays sold up at the trade deadline, and opened up a rotation spot by sending Yusei Kikuchi to the Astros. This gave the 28-year-old Francis another chance at a starting job, and he was brilliant. Last Saturday he took a no-hitter into the ninth inning against the Angelsand struck out a career-high 12 batters in eight innings.

Francis has given up a total of four runs in four starts since rejoining the rotation, and he’s pitched at least seven innings in each of his last three starts. In those three starts, he’s given up two runs on five hits (!) and three walks while striking out 27 in 22 innings. That equates to a .070/.120/.169 batting line. Even in a three-start sample, that’s incredible.

“I’m just so proud of him right now,” Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. said after Francis’ no-hit bid on Saturday (via MLB.com). “We all know that at the beginning of the season, things weren’t going his way. The last four or five outings, he’s been unbelievable. Today was unbelievable.”

This great four-start stretch comes with a change in pitch mix. Francis has reverted to his loopy low-70s curveball and is now throwing more mid-80s splitters. Hitters have slugged .614 against his curveball this year. The splitter has fared much better (against just a .172 slugging) as hitters have put it on the ground more than 60% of the time.

The curveball and splitter have similar failure rates — hitters have missed about 22% of swings against both pitches this year — though the splitter is seeing an uptick (27% failure in August), and again, it’s very much a ground-ball pitch. Francis is having a great August, and not coincidentally, he’s been throwing fewer hittable curveballs and more high-whiff/high-grounder splitters.

Acquired from the Brewers in the Rowdy Tellez trade a few years ago, Francis was never ranked as a top-30 prospect in his team’s farm system by Baseball America, but he performed throughout the Minors and earned his first big-league call up in 2022. Thanks to a second opportunity in the rotation and a new pitch mix, he has some staying power in Toronto’s rotation.

On Monday at Fenway Park, Danny Jensen became the first player to play for both teams in the same match.You can thank the postponed game on June 26 for that. When the game was postponed, Jansen was in the lineup (and at the plate!) for the Blue Jays. On July 27, he was traded to the Red Sox and when play resumed, he was added to their lineup. So there you go. Two teams, one game.

After the pomp and circumstance of Jansen entering the game for the Red Sox was over, the Blue Jays won the day’s doubleheader, and the Red Sox committed six errors in the two games. They also committed all six errors on Monday, compared to one or two on June 26 before the game was suspended. No, six errors in one day. It was just too ugly.

The six errors committed Monday led to five unearned runs in the two games, or more than the Red Sox allowed in the doubleheader (four). Unearned runs have been a problem for Boston all season. Entering play on Tuesday, the Red Sox had given up 85 unearned runs, 21 more than any other team. Their ERA is 3.96, but they are giving up 4.85 actual runs per nine innings.

The Red Sox are on pace to give up 105 unearned runs and, incredibly, 13.4% of the runs they give up this season are unearned. That’s nearly one in seven. Here are the last five teams that have given up that many unearned runs (excluding 2020):

For whatever reason (better defenders, more generous scoring, etc.), Errors are on the decline league-wideAnd it’s been that way for decades. In 2024, there are 0.53 errors per game. Go back to 2014 and it was 0.60 errors per game. In 2004, it was 0.65 errors per game. Go back 10 years and it was 0.74 errors per game. For some reason, the errors are disappearing.

Mistakes may be down, but unearned runs are down, too. They go hand in hand. It’s hard to believe what the Red Sox are doing in 2024. Despite unearned runs being at such a historically low level, Boston is on pace to give up the most runs since 2008 and the second-most since 1999. It’s been three decades since unearned runs made up such a large percentage of a team’s runs given up.

The Red Sox lead baseball with 98 errors (that’s 12 more than any other team), and while we know errors aren’t the best way to evaluate an individual player’s defense, they do indicate carelessness on a team level. The Red Sox make too many errors defensively. That’s no secret. Watch them any night and you’ll see it. They give up too many extra outs.

The Return of Trevor Story, that could happen sometime this yearThe infield defense will help. Boston’s shortstops rank last among 30 teams with a minus-13 outs above average. They also grade poorly out at second (minus-8) and third (minus-9) bases. Basically, the Red Sox have poor defense in the infield. Story is one person and he can only help so much.

Bad defense hurts in a number of ways. It’s not just extra outs for the other team. You’re forcing your pitcher to throw more pitches (and more high-stress pitches with guys on base), you’re putting more pressure on the bullpen, etc. Losing in the second half means it’s probably too late for the Red Sox to reach the postseason. That gives them plenty of time to improve the defense over the winter.