Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Thanks for being here.

Who is the National League MVP? It seems a foregone conclusion that the award will once again go to Shohei Ohtani; our most recent MLB.com MVP poll shows what a commanding lead he’s taken in that race.

But who is the best position player in the NL? You could still say Shohei, but judging by FanGraphs WAR, the actual answer by the end of the season may be a player whose name doesn’t appear in the top five of that poll.

Sandwiched between household names such as Ohtani, Trea Turner, Corbin Caroll and Fernando Tatis Jr. sits D-backs shortstop Geraldo Perdomo, who enters tonight with 6.6 fWAR, third most in the NL. Turner is at 6.7, but considering that the Phillies shortstop is sidelined with a strained hamstring, Perdomo is primed to pass him for second place soon.

Then there is Ohtani at the top with 6.8 fWAR. Yes, his lead is substantially larger when you include his pitching WAR, which puts him at 8.1 overall. But just based on position-player production, it’s very possible that Perdomo could lead the Senior Circuit in fWAR by season’s end.

Perdomo has been stellar all year long -- our Brent Maguire highlighted his improvements way back in May -- but he has been surging during the season’s second half, as Thomas Harrigan wrote today.

The 25-year-old switch-hitter has long been a glove-first player with great plate discipline and decent speed. He produced around 2.0 fWAR in each of the past two years thanks to those skills. But whenever the ball met his bat, the results often left a lot to be desired.

This season, Perdomo isn’t crushing pitches like Ohtani, but he is making better contact, and the jump in his xwOBA from 2024 to ‘25 is second only to Toronto’s George Springer. He has 19 homers after hitting 14 over his first four Major League seasons (1,206 at-bats). His wRC+, which was 85 for his career through last season (100 is league average), is now at 138. He has stolen a career-best 26 bases. All the while, Perdomo has remained a plus defender and has gotten even tougher to strike out. And he’s a key reason why the D-backs, who were sellers at the Trade Deadline, are very much alive in the Wild Card race.

-- Brian Murphy

• Cubs at Pirates (6:40 p.m. ET, MLB.TV): It’s the NL ROY contender vs. the reigning NL Rookie of the Year. Cade Horton is making a late charge for this year’s award, while Paul Skenes is putting the finishing touches on what he hopes will be his first career Cy Young Award. Chicago continued to close in on a postseason berth with its win in yesterday’s opener behind Pete Crow-Armstrong’s big game.

• Padres at Mets (7:10 p.m. ET, MLB.TV and TBS): There will be many eyeballs on this series. The Dodgers are hoping the Mets can create some breathing room between them and the Padres in the NL West, while the D-backs, Reds and Giants are looking for help from San Diego in their chase for the final Wild Card spot. Michael King, who has a 2.12 ERA in six career outings vs. the Mets, is set to make just his second start since coming off the 10-day IL.

• Rangers at Astros (8:10 p.m. ET, MLB.TV): Last night, Houston overcame a Yordan Alvarez injury behind the heroics of Zach Cole, helping the Astros gain a half-game on the idle Mariners. While their playoff hopes took a hit, the Rangers will look to Merrill Kelly, who has a 3.29 ERA in 12 September starts over the past three seasons, to help them keep pace in the AL Wild Card race. Texas sits three back of the final spot.

The esteemed fashion label Fear of God has always been a perfect match for our national pastime. After all, FOG architect Jerry Lorenzo has baseball in his blood: His father is Jerry Manuel, who played a bit in the Majors and managed the Mets and White Sox. So it made perfect sense back in 2020 when Fear of God created a capsule to honor the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues.

Five years later, Fear of God, MLB and Fanatics have turned a collaboration into a partnership, introducing an expanded line of officially licensed clothing from the brand’s popular “Essentials” category. The resulting combination of Lorenzo’s keen eye for fashion -- he’s worked with artists like Justin Bieber and brands like Nike, Vans and adidas -- with his zest for baseball, and the result is a collection that easily crosses over from fan gear to casual wear.

“Baseball has always been the one constant in America. It reflects the times -- where the country is, what the culture values and how people come together,” Lorenzo said. “It’s a mirror and a marker of American life, embodying both tradition and evolution.”

Clearly this is a labor of love for Lorenzo, and it shows in his work. Want to load up for the fall? Watch the awesome “Picture Day” video package directed by Calmatic, then shop the FOG x MLB collection at FearOfGod.com and Fanatics. Then keep an eye out for an expanded release to follow at MLB retail stores and select stadiums.

-- Bryan Horowitz

The film world lost an icon this morning in actor and director Robert Redford, who's regarded as one of the giants of cinema history but also extended his influence far beyond the screen as an activist. Redford played a wide range of roles in a career that spanned six decades, but none had a greater impact on the baseball movie canon than his portrayal of Roy Hobbs in "The Natural."

In the spirit of Redford, a lifelong Red Sox fan, take a look back at our roundtable series on baseball movies, particularly this debate over which has the best Hollywood ending. Does "The Natural" get your vote?

During Monday’s Yankees-Twins game, you may have missed some teamwork between a couple of fans on a foul popup behind home plate. 

One fan reached out to snag the ball with his cap, but when the popup landed in said cap, the force of the impact took the cap out of that fan’s hands -- and directly into the grasp of another fan, who came away with the ball AND the cap.

When it comes to catching baseballs in the stands, nothing beats a glove -- even if it might be 100 years old. But MLB fans have become pretty resourceful in recent years. We’ve seen them snare foul balls with food trays and beverage cups. Baseballs have splashed down into full popcorn buckets. There was even one fan whose funnel cake turned into a makeshift mitt.

Whatever it takes, right?

-- Brian Murphy

You want a whirlwind journey? Jacob Misiorowski’s stacks up with any. As recently as June 12, the lanky right-hander was still serving up triple-digit heat in the Minor Leagues. A little more than a month later, The Miz had joined the Brewers, was named an All-Star after just five starts and then logged a scoreless eighth inning in the Midsummer Classic. And now, as the postseason nears, his electric stuff could be an important X-factor for a team hoping to play deep into October and beyond.

As Misiorowski gazes out into the crowd tonight at American Family Field, he’ll see a sea of light blue “The Miz” shirts, which the first 10,000 fans will receive at the gates before the Crew faces the Halos at 6:40 p.m. CT. All would agree: He’s come a long way from Triple-A.

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