Good Morning! Here’s what happened in the world of sports on Tuesday, August 13.

MLB

There’s nothing like a hot August weekday filled with baseball. In case you missed it, here are the highlights:

• Marlins third baseman Jake Burger is in rare form. Burger hit a home run in his fourth straight game last night and Miami grilled the Phillies 5-0.

• Kerry Carpenter had been on the injured list for about three months. It was quite a showing for Carpenter in his first game back, as the Tigers DH swatted two home runs. Detroit crushed Seattle 15-1.

• Juan Soto beat the Chicago White Sox 4-1 last night. Yes, you read that correctly– one player beat an entire team. Soto hit three homers and drove in all four runs for the Yankees.

• Congratulations to Atlanta Braves starter Charlie Morton, who became the seventh active player with 2,000 strikeouts. The Braves beat the Giants 4-3 in extra innings, too.

• The San Diego Padres beat the Pirates 3-0 and have now won nine of their last ten games. Tied with San Diego for the first NL wild card is Arizona, who are keeping up with the Padres and are also 9-1 in their last 10 games. The Diamondbacks beat the Rockies 4-3 last night, thanks to a walk-off single from outfielder Jake McCarthy.

NOTEWORTHY NEWS

Minnesota Vikings rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy will be out for a lengthy period, after tests results showed he needs surgery on his knee. The 10th overall pick in this year’s draft had mixed results during his first preseason, but his injury ensures that the Vikings starting QB for week one is Sam Darnold.

The New York Yankees struck all the right notes when they traded for Jazz Chisholm a few weeks ago. That is, until Chisholm was placed on the injured list with a sore elbow. Jazz says the injury is nothing serious, but the team is still waiting for an official diagnosis.

POWER RANKINGS

Welcome to a new section of The Remix! Power Rankings will be appearing periodically, whenever things in the sports world get a bit slow. Anything could end up here– teams, players, uniforms, or even food. We’ll get creative and have some fun. But up first, an MLB check-in has been overdue for a while. Let’s rank some baseball teams:

TIER 6: The White Sox

You get your own tier when you’re 15 games behind the next-worst team!

TIER 5: The Rest of the Bottom Five

29. Colorado Rockies | 28. Oakland Athletics | 27. Los Angeles Angels | 26. Miami Marlins

A rough season for these four squads, and the rebuilds are just beginning.

TIER 4: Better Luck Next Year

25. Washington Nationals | 24. Tampa Bay Rays | 23. Detroit Tigers | 22. Toronto Blue Jays | 21. Texas Rangers

For various reasons (too young, too old, injuries) these five teams are out of the playoff picture. Plenty of hope for next season, however.

TIER 3: Mediocre National League Teams

20. Chicago Cubs | 19. Pittsburgh Pirates | 18. Cincinnati Reds | 17. St. Louis Cardinals | 16. New York Mets | 15. San Francisco Giants

Each of these teams are flawed, but because the National League wild card teams have just now started to separate themselves from the pack, all of them are still alive. The Giants and Mets are playing the best baseball in the group, while the four NL Central teams continue to beat up on each other and hover around a .500 record.

TIER 2: The Wild Card Race

14. Boston Red Sox | 13. Atlanta Braves | 12. Seattle Mariners | 11. Kansas City Royals | 10. Minnesota Twins

Unless things change within their divisions (which is still very possible), one of the Red Sox, Mariners, Royals, or Twins will not make the playoffs this year. I honestly couldn’t tell you which team that will be, but it feels extremely accurate to have them grouped here in the high-middle range. Also in this group is Atlanta. At one point a lock in tier one, the Braves are 3-7 in their last 10 games and have slipped out of contender status.

TIER 1: Championship Contenders

9. Milwaukee Brewers | 8. Houston Astros | 7. San Diego Padres | 6. Arizona Diamondbacks | 5. Philadelphia Phillies | 4. New York Yankees | 3. Baltimore Orioles | 2. Cleveland Guardians | 1. Los Angeles Dodgers

The order of this tier does not entirely reflect the standings. However, these nine have begun to turn their sights towards October. The teams peaking at the right time will go the farthest in the playoffs, so the goal was for this list to reflect recent success and playoff potential over season-long records.

A nice snapshot in time– we will check in again on these rankings during the final playoff push!

PLAY OF THE DAY

A pretty nifty volley is today’s play of the day:

Might not make The Remix end-of-year highlight reel, but a wonderful shot nonetheless from Marcos Giron.

TODAY’S BIG GAMES (all times Eastern)

MLB: Royals @ Twins, 1:10 PM; Dogers @ Brewers, 8:10 PM; Braves @ Giants, 9:45 PM

• This will look mighty familiar if you read Monday’s issue… three matchups of potential playoff teams, concluding three very entertaining series.

TENNIS: Cincinnati Open, all day on Tennis Channel

• The last big tournament before the US Open! If you want to see some high-quality tennis and learn about all the big players before they head to New York, the time is now. Check out a match or two, you won’t be disappointed.

Thanks for reading! Happy Wednesday.