MOBILE VERSION
Jewish Box Score
Weekly Roundup: September 2-8
Fried’s max-sterpieces
Top Stories
- LHP Max Fried (Yankees) earned 2 wins last week. In a 7-1 victory over the Astros in Houston on September 2, New York’s ace yielded one earned run over 7 innings on 4 hits, 3 walks, a hit batter, and 5 strikeouts. And on September 7, Fried again gave up one earned run over 7 innings, this time a 4-3 squeaker over the 1st place Blue Jays that brought 2nd-place New York within 2 games of the division lead. At 16-5 this season, Fried is one win short of his 2019 all-time high, when he finished 17-6 (9/10/2025)
- You think LHP Max Fried’s left arm is precious? Well, check out his mitt. Fried, who earned three consecutive Gold Glove awards while with the Braves (2020-22) — and delivered a characteristically athletic double play on September 2 — may have a shot at winning the award in his first season with the Yankees. As pointed out by JBN reader Ethel H., the 6’4″ stringbean ranks #1 in the Majors in defensive runs saved — RHP Dean Kremer (Orioles) is tied for #9 — as well as #1 in assists and in range factor per 9 innings. A possible mark against him? Fried has three errors so far, versus zero in 2024. If Fried does earn a Gold Glove, he will be only the fourth pitcher in MLB history to win the award in both leagues (9/10/2025)
MLB News
- Another week, another indelible set of memories for CF Harrison Bader (Phillies). On September 4, the charismatic 31-year-old doubled and scored a run in the top of the 9th inning to give 1st-place Philadelphia a 2-0 lead over the Brewers — and then helped preserve the lead in the bottom of the inning by robbing Andruw Monasterio of a home run. But things got positively weird in a 9-3 victory over Miami the following day, when Bader crushed a 410-foot solo HR to left field in the top of the 4th inning. It’s what happened in the stands afterward that captured the attention of tens of millions of viewers around the world, along with commentary from the likes of the Washington Post: an argument between two fans over Bader’s home-run ball. From the perspective of Jewish Baseball News, the one-sided vitriol aimed at the female fan, who berated the male fan after he grabbed the ball for his son, smacks of anti-women bigotry. After all, the ball landed at the woman’s feet, and the man dashed from roughly a dozen seats away to seize it. Regardless, Bader helped make things right after the game when he handed the boy a signed bat (9/10/2025)
- The Phillies have good reason to be happy about CF Harrison Bader, whom they acquired from Minnesota in a July 31 trade. In 32 games with Philadelphia through September 8, Bader hit .320 (32-for-100) with 3 HRs, 10 extra-base hits, a .389 OBP, and .889 OPS. The University of Florida alum also is at or near multiple personal records for full season. His 16 HRs tie the career high he set in 2021, his 51 RBIs match his 2024 high, and he is on pace to set career highs in average, OBP, and OPS (9/10/2025)
- JBN reader Ethel H. has dubbed DH Joc Pederson (Rangers) and 1B Spencer Horwitz (Pirates) the Boys of the Second Half of Summer. Up until the 2025 All-Star Game, Pederson was hitting .131 (16-for-122) — the third-worst batting average among all MLB hitters with at least 100 plate appearances — with 2 HRs, 6 RBIs, and a .507 OPS. From the All-Star Game through September 8, the slugger hit a comparatively robust .240 (23-for-96) with 6 HRs, 15 RBIs, and a .767 OPS. Horwitz’s bat has traveled a similar upward trajectory. During the first half of the season, he hit .232 (38-for-164) with 2 HRs, 16 RBIs, a .298 OBP, and .628 OPS. Since then, he has hit .287 with 5 HRs, 23 RBIs, a .371 OBP, and .824 OPS — all while reducing his strikeout rate from 22.7% to 14.7% (9/10/2025)
- Thanks to call-ups earlier this month, the Phillies now have three Jewish players on their 28-man roster: CF Harrison Bader, RHP Max Lazar, and C Garrett Stubbs. A trio of teammates — and even more — is not unprecedented. The 2012 Red Sox, for example, simultaneously featured Craig Breslow, Adam Stern, and Ryan Kalish on their roster, according to Jewish Baseball Museum editor Bob Wechsler. Bob also reminds us that the 1941 New York Giants fielded a record four Jews in a single game (9/10/2025)
- RHP Dean Kremer (Orioles) tossed 3 no-hit innings and struck out 4 batters in a 2-1, walk-off win over the Dodgers on September 5 but left the game early due to discomfort in his throwing arm. Kremer led off the game by striking out superstar Shohei Ohtani, who swung and missed on a 92.9-mph four-seam fastball for strike three — and gave the 29-year-old pitcher something to tell his grandchildren. Kremer reportedly underwent an MRI after the game and will skip his next start (9/10/2025)
- 3B Alex Bregman (Red Sox) hit a go-ahead single in the bottom of the 8th inning on September 2 to break up a 7-7 tie and give Boston all the runs it needed to secure an 11-7 win over the Guardians. And in a 7-0 win over Oakland on September 8, Bregman went 2-for-4 with an RBI single — and was robbed of a home run — to outshine A’s 2B Zack Gelof, who went 0-for-3 (9/10/2025)
Minor-League Bulletin
- It was the Battle of the Jewish Catchers on September 6 when Andy Yerzy of the Memphis Redbirds (Cardinals/AAA) faced off against CJ Stubbs of the Rochester Red Wings (Nationals/AAA). Yerzy got the fireworks started in the 2nd inning with a 2-run HR that drove in 3B Noah Mendlinger and put Memphis up 3-0. Stubbs, not to be outdone, hit a solo HR in the 5th inning to narrow the score to 5-1 and then a 2-run HR in the 9th inning to bring it to 5-3, but Memphis prevailed 5-3. When the same two teams met three days earlier, RHP Zack Weiss (Cardinals/AAA) upped the Jewish total to 4 players. Weiss threw an inning of relief to batterymate Yerzy, and the first batter he faced was Stubbs, whom he retired on 3 pitches. But Stubbs and Mendlinger got the last laugh as Rochester held on for a 5-4 win (9/10/2025)
- Three Jewish pitchers for the Yankees’ Triple-A team, appearing sequentially, combined for 3.1 scoreless innings in a 7-4 loss to the Red Sox affiliate on September 5. RHP Scott Effross yielded 2 hits over 1.1 innings, RHP Jake Bird gave up a walk, hit a batter, and struck out another one in a one-inning appearance, and RHP Harrison Cohen completed the trifecta with a perfect inning and one strikeout (9/10/2025)
- Speaking of 2B Noah Mendlinger (Cardinals/AAA): through September 7, the 25-year-old had a .400 OBP across 2 leagues, tied for #4 among all minor-league hitters with a 1.36 walk-to-strikeout ratio, and ranked #8 with a 9.1% strikeout rate. Those rankings were among all minor-league batters who had come to the plate at least 400 times (9/10/2025)
- RF RJ Schreck (Blue Jays/AAA) got off to a fast start this month, hitting .333 (5-for-15) with his career-high 18th home run, 2 walks, 7 RBIs, a stolen base, and a .417 OBP from September 2-8. It was a little painful, though, as Schreck was hit by a pitch three times (9/10/2025)
- 1B Matt Mervis (Diamondbacks/AAA) hit a 401-foot home run and 2-run double in an 8-1 win over the Mariners’ affiliate on September 7. If you take the stats from his 42-game stint with the Marlins earlier this season and add to those his stats during play with Miami’s and Arizona’s Triple-A teams, Mervis — still just 27 years old — has tallied 24 HRs in 2025 (9/10/2025)
- An RBI single by 3B Chase Strumpf (Cubs/AAA) tied the Royals affiliate 3-3 on September 4, and his team eked out a 4-3 victory. A day later, Strumpf’s 420-foot HR to center field broke up an 8-8 tie en route to a 12-11 victory over the same team (9/10/2025)
- RHP RJ Gordon (Mets/AA), New York’s #25 prospect and a first-year pro, was named Eastern League Pitcher of the Month after going 4-0 with a 2.08 ERA, 42 strikeouts against 9 walks, and holding opposing batters to a .190 batting average in August. Gordon is 11-3 overall this season across 3 leagues, with a 3.27 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP. His 140 strikeouts are tied for #21 among all minor-league pitchers (9/10/2025)
- RHP Ben Simon (Mets/AA) was perfect in 2 relief appearances last week. In his 1st-place team’s 7-2 win over Cleveland’s affiliate on September 5, Simon needed just 21 pitches to dispatch the 5 batters he faced and recorded 3 strikeouts while earning a hold. And in a 4-3 loss to the same team on September 7, Simon struck out 2 batters over 1.1 flawless innings. Ten games into his Double-A promotion, the 23-year-old is 1-1 with a 1.17 ERA, 3 holds, 18 strikeouts versus 4 walks, and a 0.85 WHIP (9/10/2025)
- RHP Josh Mallitz (Padres/AA), who pitched a no-hit inning on September 3 and another 1.2 on September 6, hasn’t given up a single run, earned or unearned, since August 2, when he was still with New York’s High-A team (9/10/2025)
- 3B Jake Gelof (Dodgers/High-A) had another strong week, hitting .308 (8-for-26) with 3 HRs, 2 doubles, 7 RBIs, a stolen base, a .379 OBP, and a 1.110 OPS. Gelof’s 16 HRs this season rank #4 in the Midwest League (9/10/2025)
- DH Henry Godbout (Red Sox/High-A) and 1B Lyle Miller-Green (White Sox/High-A) fought for supremacy on September 6. Godbout, a rookie batting leadoff, went 2-for-4 and hit an RBI single that tied the game 3-3 in the 7th inning. But Miller-Green hit a go-ahead single in the bottom of the inning, and his team held on for a 4-3 win. The two also faced off a day earlier, and that time it was Godbout who earned bragging rights. With his team down 4-1 in the top of the 9th inning, Godbout helped even the score at 4-4 with a clutch single and run scored. In the top of the 10th inning, Godbout put his team up 5-4 when he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. In the bottom of the 10th inning, Miller-Green nearly sparked a rally with a single that advanced a runner to third base, but his team fell to defeat 7-5 (9/10/2025)
- RF Sam Biller (Mets/Single-A), a recent signee who went undrafted in July, had an unusual if productive game on September 6. The University of Connecticut alum reached base 4 of the 5 times he came to the plate, thanks to 3 walks and an HBP, scored 3 times, and stole 4 bases as his 1st-place team cruised to a 14-3 win over the Twins affiliate. How often do players steal 4 bases in a game? We don’t have 2025 data for the minor leagues. But through September 9, not a single Major Leaguer had achieved the feat (9/10/2025)
Season Stats
Transactions
- Astros option LHP Colton Gordon to Triple-A (9/6/2025)
- Astros call up LHP Colton Gordon from Triple-A (9/5/2025)
- Pirates transfer RHP Levi Sterling to Development List (9/5/2025)
- Pirates promote RHP Levi Sterling to Single-A (9/4/2025)
This Date in History
Visit Jewish Baseball Museum to see highlights from today’s date
Archives
DESKTOP VERSION
Weekly Roundup: September 2-8
Fried’s max-sterpieces
Minor-League Bulletin
- It was the Battle of the Jewish Catchers on September 6 when Andy Yerzy of the Memphis Redbirds (Cardinals/AAA) faced off against CJ Stubbs of the Rochester Red Wings (Nationals/AAA). Yerzy got the fireworks started in the 2nd inning with a 2-run HR that drove in 3B Noah Mendlinger and put Memphis up 3-0. Stubbs, not to be outdone, hit a solo HR in the 5th inning to narrow the score to 5-1 and then a 2-run HR in the 9th inning to bring it to 5-3, but Memphis prevailed 5-3. When the same two teams met three days earlier, RHP Zack Weiss (Cardinals/AAA) upped the Jewish total to 4 players. Weiss threw an inning of relief to batterymate Yerzy, and the first batter he faced was Stubbs, whom he retired on 3 pitches. But Stubbs and Mendlinger got the last laugh as Rochester held on for a 5-4 win (9/10/2025)
- Three Jewish pitchers for the Yankees’ Triple-A team, appearing sequentially, combined for 3.1 scoreless innings in a 7-4 loss to the Red Sox affiliate on September 5. RHP Scott Effross yielded 2 hits over 1.1 innings, RHP Jake Bird gave up a walk, hit a batter, and struck out another one in a one-inning appearance, and RHP Harrison Cohen completed the trifecta with a perfect inning and one strikeout (9/10/2025)
- Speaking of 2B Noah Mendlinger (Cardinals/AAA): through September 7, the 25-year-old had a .400 OBP across 2 leagues, tied for #4 among all minor-league hitters with a 1.36 walk-to-strikeout ratio, and ranked #8 with a 9.1% strikeout rate. Those rankings were among all minor-league batters who had come to the plate at least 400 times (9/10/2025)
- RF RJ Schreck (Blue Jays/AAA) got off to a fast start this month, hitting .333 (5-for-15) with his career-high 18th home run, 2 walks, 7 RBIs, a stolen base, and a .417 OBP from September 2-8. It was a little painful, though, as Schreck was hit by a pitch three times (9/10/2025)
- 1B Matt Mervis (Diamondbacks/AAA) hit a 401-foot home run and 2-run double in an 8-1 win over the Mariners’ affiliate on September 7. If you take the stats from his 42-game stint with the Marlins earlier this season and add to those his stats during play with Miami’s and Arizona’s Triple-A teams, Mervis — still just 27 years old — has tallied 24 HRs in 2025 (9/10/2025)
- An RBI single by 3B Chase Strumpf (Cubs/AAA) tied the Royals affiliate 3-3 on September 4, and his team eked out a 4-3 victory. A day later, Strumpf’s 420-foot HR to center field broke up an 8-8 tie en route to a 12-11 victory over the same team (9/10/2025)
- RHP RJ Gordon (Mets/AA), New York’s #25 prospect and a first-year pro, was named Eastern League Pitcher of the Month after going 4-0 with a 2.08 ERA, 42 strikeouts against 9 walks, and holding opposing batters to a .190 batting average in August. Gordon is 11-3 overall this season across 3 leagues, with a 3.27 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP. His 140 strikeouts are tied for #21 among all minor-league pitchers (9/10/2025)
- RHP Ben Simon (Mets/AA) was perfect in 2 relief appearances last week. In his 1st-place team’s 7-2 win over Cleveland’s affiliate on September 5, Simon needed just 21 pitches to dispatch the 5 batters he faced and recorded 3 strikeouts while earning a hold. And in a 4-3 loss to the same team on September 7, Simon struck out 2 batters over 1.1 flawless innings. Ten games into his Double-A promotion, the 23-year-old is 1-1 with a 1.17 ERA, 3 holds, 18 strikeouts versus 4 walks, and a 0.85 WHIP (9/10/2025)
- RHP Josh Mallitz (Padres/AA), who pitched a no-hit inning on September 3 and another 1.2 on September 6, hasn’t given up a single run, earned or unearned, since August 2, when he was still with New York’s High-A team (9/10/2025)
- 3B Jake Gelof (Dodgers/High-A) had another strong week, hitting .308 (8-for-26) with 3 HRs, 2 doubles, 7 RBIs, a stolen base, a .379 OBP, and a 1.110 OPS. Gelof’s 16 HRs this season rank #4 in the Midwest League (9/10/2025)
- DH Henry Godbout (Red Sox/High-A) and 1B Lyle Miller-Green (White Sox/High-A) fought for supremacy on September 6. Godbout, a rookie batting leadoff, went 2-for-4 and hit an RBI single that tied the game 3-3 in the 7th inning. But Miller-Green hit a go-ahead single in the bottom of the inning, and his team held on for a 4-3 win. The two also faced off a day earlier, and that time it was Godbout who earned bragging rights. With his team down 4-1 in the top of the 9th inning, Godbout helped even the score at 4-4 with a clutch single and run scored. In the top of the 10th inning, Godbout put his team up 5-4 when he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. In the bottom of the 10th inning, Miller-Green nearly sparked a rally with a single that advanced a runner to third base, but his team fell to defeat 7-5 (9/10/2025)
- RF Sam Biller (Mets/Single-A), a recent signee who went undrafted in July, had an unusual if productive game on September 6. The University of Connecticut alum reached base 4 of the 5 times he came to the plate, thanks to 3 walks and an HBP, scored 3 times, and stole 4 bases as his 1st-place team cruised to a 14-3 win over the Twins affiliate. How often do players steal 4 bases in a game? We don’t have 2025 data for the minor leagues. But through September 9, not a single Major Leaguer had achieved the feat (9/10/2025)
Jewish Box Score
Top Stories
- LHP Max Fried (Yankees) earned 2 wins last week. In a 7-1 victory over the Astros in Houston on September 2, New York’s ace yielded one earned run over 7 innings on 4 hits, 3 walks, a hit batter, and 5 strikeouts. And on September 7, Fried again gave up one earned run over 7 innings, this time a 4-3 squeaker over the 1st place Blue Jays that brought 2nd-place New York within 2 games of the division lead. At 16-5 this season, Fried is one win short of his 2019 all-time high, when he finished 17-6 (9/10/2025)
- You think LHP Max Fried’s left arm is precious? Well, check out his mitt. Fried, who earned three consecutive Gold Glove awards while with the Braves (2020-22) — and delivered a characteristically athletic double play on September 2 — may have a shot at winning the award in his first season with the Yankees. As pointed out by JBN reader Ethel H., the 6’4″ stringbean ranks #1 in the Majors in defensive runs saved — RHP Dean Kremer (Orioles) is tied for #9 — as well as #1 in assists and in range factor per 9 innings. A possible mark against him? Fried has three errors so far, versus zero in 2024. If Fried does earn a Gold Glove, he will be only the fourth pitcher in MLB history to win the award in both leagues (9/10/2025)
Season Stats
Transactions
- Astros option LHP Colton Gordon to Triple-A (9/6/2025)
- Astros call up LHP Colton Gordon from Triple-A (9/5/2025)
- Pirates transfer RHP Levi Sterling to Development List (9/5/2025)
- Pirates promote RHP Levi Sterling to Single-A (9/4/2025)
This Date in History
Visit Jewish Baseball Museum to see highlights from today’s date
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MLB News
- Another week, another indelible set of memories for CF Harrison Bader (Phillies). On September 4, the charismatic 31-year-old doubled and scored a run in the top of the 9th inning to give 1st-place Philadelphia a 2-0 lead over the Brewers — and then helped preserve the lead in the bottom of the inning by robbing Andruw Monasterio of a home run. But things got positively weird in a 9-3 victory over Miami the following day, when Bader crushed a 410-foot solo HR to left field in the top of the 4th inning. It’s what happened in the stands afterward that captured the attention of tens of millions of viewers around the world, along with commentary from the likes of the Washington Post: an argument between two fans over Bader’s home-run ball. From the perspective of Jewish Baseball News, the one-sided vitriol aimed at the female fan, who berated the male fan after he grabbed the ball for his son, smacks of anti-women bigotry. After all, the ball landed at the woman’s feet, and the man dashed from roughly a dozen seats away to seize it. Regardless, Bader helped make things right after the game when he handed the boy a signed bat (9/10/2025)
- The Phillies have good reason to be happy about CF Harrison Bader, whom they acquired from Minnesota in a July 31 trade. In 32 games with Philadelphia through September 8, Bader hit .320 (32-for-100) with 3 HRs, 10 extra-base hits, a .389 OBP, and .889 OPS. The University of Florida alum also is at or near multiple personal records for full season. His 16 HRs tie the career high he set in 2021, his 51 RBIs match his 2024 high, and he is on pace to set career highs in average, OBP, and OPS (9/10/2025)
- JBN reader Ethel H. has dubbed DH Joc Pederson (Rangers) and 1B Spencer Horwitz (Pirates) the Boys of the Second Half of Summer. Up until the 2025 All-Star Game, Pederson was hitting .131 (16-for-122) — the third-worst batting average among all MLB hitters with at least 100 plate appearances — with 2 HRs, 6 RBIs, and a .507 OPS. From the All-Star Game through September 8, the slugger hit a comparatively robust .240 (23-for-96) with 6 HRs, 15 RBIs, and a .767 OPS. Horwitz’s bat has traveled a similar upward trajectory. During the first half of the season, he hit .232 (38-for-164) with 2 HRs, 16 RBIs, a .298 OBP, and .628 OPS. Since then, he has hit .287 with 5 HRs, 23 RBIs, a .371 OBP, and .824 OPS — all while reducing his strikeout rate from 22.7% to 14.7% (9/10/2025)
- Thanks to call-ups earlier this month, the Phillies now have three Jewish players on their 28-man roster: CF Harrison Bader, RHP Max Lazar, and C Garrett Stubbs. A trio of teammates — and even more — is not unprecedented. The 2012 Red Sox, for example, simultaneously featured Craig Breslow, Adam Stern, and Ryan Kalish on their roster, according to Jewish Baseball Museum editor Bob Wechsler. Bob also reminds us that the 1941 New York Giants fielded a record four Jews in a single game (9/10/2025)
- RHP Dean Kremer (Orioles) tossed 3 no-hit innings and struck out 4 batters in a 2-1, walk-off win over the Dodgers on September 5 but left the game early due to discomfort in his throwing arm. Kremer led off the game by striking out superstar Shohei Ohtani, who swung and missed on a 92.9-mph four-seam fastball for strike three — and gave the 29-year-old pitcher something to tell his grandchildren. Kremer reportedly underwent an MRI after the game and will skip his next start (9/10/2025)
- 3B Alex Bregman (Red Sox) hit a go-ahead single in the bottom of the 8th inning on September 2 to break up a 7-7 tie and give Boston all the runs it needed to secure an 11-7 win over the Guardians. And in a 7-0 win over Oakland on September 8, Bregman went 2-for-4 with an RBI single — and was robbed of a home run — to outshine A’s 2B Zack Gelof, who went 0-for-3 (9/10/2025)
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