Blog

Ruben Amorim is under increasing pressure as Manchester United head coach after a sequence of results that have cast doubt on his ability to make it to a year in the job in November.

Sunday’s 3-0 defeat at Manchester City left the former Sporting CP coach with a record of just eight wins in 31 Premier League games in charge since succeeding Erik ten Hag 10 months ago. And in terms of the 17 teams that have been in the Premier League since Amorim arrived at Old Trafford, United’s haul of 31 points from 31 games leaves them at the bottom of that 17-team table.

But as the 40-year-old prepares United to face Chelsea at home Saturday, how much of the team’s problems are down to Amorim, and is he really fighting to save his job?

– Will Onana’s exit solve Man United’s goalie woes?
– Connelly: Premier League “Ifs List” for contenders, top four
– Derby reaction: How Man City thumped Man United

Mark Ogden and Rob Dawson debate the issues, the positives and negatives, and whether Amorim or the United hierarchy is to blame for the spiral of negativity that the Premier League’s biggest club finds itself in.

---

SQUAD MANAGEMENT: Is Amorim doing the right things with this team?

Mark Ogden: No, absolutely not. We’ll get into the tactics further down, but in terms of selection, he is making life difficult for himself — and the team — by relying too heavily on some players and overlooking others.

Tom Heaton was solid, confident and a reassuring presence in the team when he played in goal during preseason, but Amorim hasn’t given him any game time this season, despite both Altay Bayindir and the now-departed André Onana making costly mistakes. Heaton is 39 and hasn’t played regularly for over three years, but his experience could have been crucial in the opening weeks of the season. Amorim has left him on the bench.

In midfield, Kobbie Mainoo deserves more minutes, especially with Casemiro and Manuel Ugarte nowhere near good enough to play regularly, while Benjamin Sesko should have been thrown in from the outset rather than drip-fed into the team.

Rob Dawson: I disagree a little here, Mark, because for the most part, yes, he is doing the right things.

Like a lot of United managers, he has tried to fix the culture. Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho are talented players, but they had to go if Amorim and his staff were going to succeed in cultivating a collective spirit. The mood on the summer tour was good, which is remarkable in itself after such a miserable season and defeat in the Europa League final.

Amorim is also battling to keep the dressing room onside, which is a hard thing to do when results are so poor. He could have quite easily pointed the finger at a number of players after the defeat to City, but decided against it; instead, he kept the focus on himself and the collective shortcomings. The flip side, though, is it meant he became the lightning rod for criticism along with his system.

Amorim is trying desperately to keep everything together in the face of immense pressure. Ultimately, none of it matters unless he can start winning more games because, as he acknowledged himself at the Etihad, his record isn’t good enough.

Ogden: I take your point on Amorim wanting, and needing, to keep the squad onside and using himself to deflect the criticism, but that also points to lots of the players perhaps being in a comfort zone where they know they will always have somebody else to take the blame.

In many ways, Amorim is in a catch-22 situation. I can’t imagine he ever wanted to rely so much on the likes of Luke Shaw and Mason Mount to make his system work — two players who cannot be relied upon to stay fit — but as the head coach, it’s Amorim’s job to try everything to make things work and he really isn’t doing that.

---

TRANSFERS/PLAYER IDENTIFICATION: Have United helped him or let him down? Are the players coming in good enough?

Ogden: United have paid a heavy price in the past for giving managers too much control over transfers. Erik ten Hag and Louis van Gaal, in particular, made some terrible signings that left the club dealing with the consequences for years after their departure from the club. As a result, Amorim was never going to get the same kind of free rein, and there’s now more balance in terms of recruitment.

Amorim has been backed, certainly in terms of outgoings with players such as Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho, but the United coach really wanted an experienced goalkeeper this summer — Emiliano Martínez was his favored option — but the club failed to deliver, instead signing 23-year-old Senne Lammens from Royal Antwerp.

Somebody at Old Trafford should have prioritized a new central midfielder, but the squad is now actually weaker than last season in that department because Toby Collyer has been loaned out to West Brom and nobody has arrived to replace him.

Did United really need to sign three forwards for a total of £200m? Could one of those signings have been shelved in favor of a midfielder, and then Amorim challenged to make his existing players better?

Have the new signings even been good enough? Since the start of last season, when INEOS took charge of football operations, the record has been mixed. Leny Yoro, Noussair Mazraoui, Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha look to be good signings, while the jury is out on Sesko and Matthijs de Ligt. As for Patrick Dorgu and Joshua Zirkzee, they are both examples of what you get when signing players from mid-ranking Serie A teams.

Dawson: You brought up money spent this summer, Mark, and I want to focus on that for a minute.

One of the criticisms being leveled at Amorim is that “he’s spent £250m on his players.” Except that’s not correct. United have spent close to £250m on new players since his appointment, but the idea that he single-handedly selected them all isn’t right.

Recruitment is done by committee, with director of football Jason Wilcox and director of recruitment Christopher Vivell both heavily involved alongside the scouting department and the data team. Amorim has a say, but he’s far from the only voice.

Ten Hag was forced to compromise with some of the players signed under his watch, and it’s the same for Amorim. Sources have told ESPN that he’s a lot happier with some signings than others.

The plan to spend the bulk of the summer budget on three attacking players — Cunha, Mbeumo and Sesko — was driven by data that suggested a lack of goals was the biggest reason for the team’s underperformance last season. The consequence is a summer window that’s left the squad looking lopsided. There are too many No. 10s, very few capable central midfielders and three No. 2 goalkeepers.

Ogden: I think we agree on this one, that Amorim has been let down by those charged with recruiting new players. The failure to bolster the midfield means that Amorim simply can’t make his system work.

They also overpaid for Cunha, Mbeumo and Sesko. Had they been smarter, they could have saved around £40m in total, which could have helped pay for a new midfielder or a goalkeeper of the caliber of Gianluigi Donnarumma or Emiliano Martinez.

Dawson: You’re not wrong about some of these transfers, but it’s important to understand that Amorim isn’t responsible for everything that’s happening at United. Having spent a lot of time around him for the past 10 months, he looks like a man who’s fighting fires in all corners. You cannot overstate just how tough the job is.

---

TACTICS: Do the pieces fit? Should he change his system?

Ogden: Amorim’s refusal to countenance a change to his 3-4-1-2 formation will cost him his job. If it isn’t working — and it really isn’t — then there’s no reason to believe it will suddenly come good with a group of players that have been failing to adjust to it for the past 10 months.

The 3-4-1-2 system needs top-quality wingbacks aligned with power and energy in the center of midfield, and United have none of those. That isn’t Amorim’s fault because the players he has for those positions (Dorgu aside) are all inherited from previous managers. But Amorim really should have realized that months ago and changed his system to suit the players he has.

Let’s be honest. Diogo Dalot can’t defend either as a right back or right wingback, while Casemiro lacks the mobility to play in a 3-4-1-2 or 4-3-3 formation. But Amorim still plays them regardless. And with such unconvincing options in midfield and at wingback, United are unable to control games and create chances for their forwards, so Sesko — and Rasmus Hojlund before him — is isolated up front and barely gets a scoring chance.

Amorim came in believing that the 3-4-1-2/3-4-3 was the solution, but it has now, unquestionably, become the problem.

Dawson: Here, we agree, because I also think Amorim has gone past the point of no return with his system. There was a window for him to be flexible last season, but that’s been and gone. Changing now — after a full summer working on 3-4-3 — would be viewed as a sign of weakness within the dressing room, and once that happens, there’s only one way it ends.

Amorim will stick with three at the back as long as he’s in the job. He’s pretty clear that he’s not changing and — in his defense — he’s got a point. He got the United job because of what he did at Sporting CP, and he achieved what he did at Sporting CP by playing in a 3-4-3. It’s what he knows and what he trusts. For their part, United knew exactly what they were getting.

It’s becoming noticeable for those who sit in Amorim’s news conferences every week that he’s becoming more and more irked by questions about his formation. Again, you can understand it. He was quick to point out that there were no questions about the system after United played well against Arsenal. Then Sunday’s defeat at City was less about a tactical failure and more about individual defensive errors.

Ogden: I’m sorry, but no top-level coach can only have one system in his locker. We can make all kinds of jokes about the madness of doing the same thing over and over again if it isn’t working, but that’s the reality of Amorim and his system. Whenever I speak to a former player or coach about it, they’re completely bewildered by the lack of flexibility. Nobody other than those charged with speaking on the club or Amorim’s behalf believe it makes sense.

Every time United play, their opponents know exactly what they are going to do and how to nullify them. It’s naive, arrogant and reckless on Amorim’s part to believe that he knows best and his one and only plan will miraculously come good.

Dawson: Let’s be clear about what we’re addressing here. It’s not that Amorim has only one system in his locker — he understands other systems and when he was a player, he never played in a 3-4-3. It’s about what he has tried and tested. You could argue that it’s more reckless to throw his players into a system he doesn’t truly believe in because the players would sense it immediately.

Amorim is trying to keep the message to his players as consistent as possible. You also have to remember that most of these players failed in a different system under Ten Hag. Systems and formations mean nothing if the players aren’t good enough.

---

OMAR BERRADA: Would sacking Amorim have wider consequences for Man United’s CEO?

Ogden: Berrada drove the decision to hire Amorim from Sporting CP. When other voices were suggesting the likes of Marco Silva, Gareth Southgate, Thomas Frank and Graham Potter, CEO Berrada pinpointed Amorim and did the deal to take him to Old Trafford.

Amorim was the hot ticket in coaching at the time, a bright young coach who had been considered by Liverpool and Barcelona, but his 3-4-1-2 fixation was a factor in both clubs opting to go elsewhere.

So here are the questions that Berrada must answer: Did he ask Amorim about his tactical approach and challenge him on it? Was it deemed OK for a young coach to take on the United job with only one way of playing? And did he ask Amorim if he had a Plan B?

If the answers are “no,” then Berrada failed to do proper due diligence. If the answers are “yes,” then Berrada will have questions of his own to answer from Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Glazer family.

Dawson: There might be some nuance to it, Mark, but if Amorim does go, Berrada will get dragged into the discussion because he was such a big advocate of hiring Berrada from Sporting CP. In some ways, they’ve become tied together.

However, it would be a mistake to decide that if Amorim isn’t up to the job, it must mean Berrada isn’t. Every managerial appointment is a risk, regardless of vetting, and there’s nothing to suggest that another candidate — even the ones pushed by former director of football Dan Ashworth — would have worked out any better.

Berrada is an experienced football administrator who’s trying to solve a lot of problems not that he caused, but that he inherited. He has had to make tough decisions, including making a series of redundancies.

One criticism of Sir Jim Ratcliffe is that he doesn’t know enough about football. That’s not true of Berrada. He’s well-connected after spells at Barcelona and Manchester City and highly regarded across Europe, while he also did well to squeeze so much financial headroom out of a tight summer budget. Remember, he’s not the one picking the players.

If United are going to eventually get back on track on the pitch and off it, it will be because of Berrada. Forcing him out if, or when, Amorim goes would be gross mismanagement on United’s part.

Ogden: I still can’t understand why a supposedly smart CEO hired a coach with only one way of playing. He either knew that to be the case and hired him anyway or believed/hoped Amorim would be more flexible. Whichever it is, Berrada showed inexperience and a lack of judgment, but maybe it will turn out to be a valuable lesson if, or when, he has to find a new coach.

---

THE BIG QUESTION: Should Amorim stay or go?

Ogden: Eight wins from 31 Premier League games, the no-show in the Europa League final and the Carabao Cup humiliation against Grimsby all point to one conclusion. United must make a change before the situation gets worse.

Since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013, United have developed a habit of avoiding a tough decision on a failing manager for months after it has become clear that they are the wrong person for the job. David Moyes, Van Gaal, Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ten Hag could, and should, have been dismissed long before their ultimate exit because of results, and Amorim is now in the same holding pattern.

Unless Amorim changes his tactical approach, results will continue to be unacceptable and he will lose his job. That’s what happens in football at every level. The question for United is whether they are bold enough to act quickly or if they would rather limp on, allow another season to disappear down the sinkhole and give Amorim another two or three months before doing what they should do now.

Dawson: My vote is for Amorim to stay, Mark, although admittedly it’s hard to defend a record of eight Premier League wins from 31 games.

Set against Ten Hag, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Jose Mourinho and it looks even worse. Ten Hag won 12 of his last 31 league games in charge. Solskjaer had 14 wins from his last 31 league games, and Mourinho won 16 of his last 31. But here, context is important. Amorim was forced to throw away some league games last season to focus on the Europa League. This season, his two defeats have been against Arsenal and Manchester City.

Overall, there have been signs of progress. United led a lot of statistical categories going into the international break, and there has been a sense that they deserved more from some games — particularly against Arsenal and Fulham. His message throughout the summer was the club could not fix every area of the squad in one window and it has proved to be the case.

Amorim is being asked to take the first steps forward from near rock bottom and it’s going to take time. That said, he needs to buy himself some with some wins.

Ogden: The end is nigh. We’ve both covered United long enough to know how the story plays out.

Since Amorim took charge last November, United have the worst record of any of the 17 clubs who have been in the Premier League for that entire period. It has been almost a year now and I disagree that it’s getting better. I think he will be gone by Christmas.

Dawson: As Mark says, even though there are a lot of other things at play here, Amorim’s status will come down to results. There are signs of life — the data proves it — but progress might not be quick enough and he could run out of time.

Getting rid of him in the October or November international break would still feel too soon. January is the very earliest Amorim’s departure should even be considered. But really, he should get at least the full season.

LOS ANGELES — It was the middle of June, the San Diego Padres were in town for what promised to be a heated series against the Los Angeles Dodgers and Joe Musgrove, their injured ace, had one thing on his mind:

Securing a signed Clayton Kershaw jersey.

Major league players often send each other jerseys for personalization, to commemorate friendship or admiration or even milestones. But Musgrove had done that only a handful of times in his nine years as a major leaguer — all for former teammates he was once close with, never for a prominent member of the Padres’ biggest rival.

“This is the first that I’ve sent one over in admiration for what someone has done for the game,” said Musgrove, who grew up a Padres fan before ultimately pitching for the club. “I know he’s flooded with them now, and it might seem like a lot, but he’s made a big impact on this game — not only as a player, but for the way he handles himself.”

Kershaw will make his final regular-season start at Dodger Stadium on Friday, in what we now know will be one of the last appearances of his career. But even before the news of his impending retirement became official Thursday, the likelihood of it was high enough for Major League Baseball to extend him a special invitation to this year’s All-Star Game. And for a number of opposing players to seek opportunities to pay respect in their own way, whether it’s offering praise, expressing gratitude or, often, seeking autographs.

Kershaw, 37, has noticed that jersey requests have “slightly increased from years past” but stressed it’s “nothing crazy.” Sometimes a home series will go by and nobody will ask. Others, he’ll be flooded with them. “It’s like they all talk,” Kershaw said. He signs them all, either by listing his accomplishments — 3X NL Cy Young, 2014 NL MVP, 2X WS Champ!, as he wrote on one for Colorado Rockies starter Kyle Freeland — or scribbling a brief message. In his mind, it wasn’t long ago that he was on the other side.

“It’s amazing how fast that flips, you know?” Kershaw told ESPN last week. “You don’t think that you’re the old guy until it happens, and then you are. It happens fast.”

---

WHEN KERSHAW SIGNED his fourth consecutive one-year contract with the Dodgers in March, he was considered a luxury. Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki had already been added. Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow were coming back healthy. Shohei Ohtani was on track to return as a two-way player. The likes of Emmet Sheehan, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May were next in line.

But when Kershaw rejoined the rotation in the middle of May, in the wake of offseason knee and toe surgeries, he helped stabilize a staff that had once again absorbed an avalanche of injuries. In August, as the Dodgers’ rotation began to round into form, he found another level, winning all five of his starts while posting a 1.88 ERA. Kershaw is throwing the slowest fastball of his career, offsetting it with a slider that oftentimes lacks its traditional bite and resorting to more inventiveness than ever, even with the occasional eephus pitch. And yet his record is 10-2 and his ERA is 3.53.

“He’s making jokes about how he’s only throwing 86, 87 — and he’s still getting outs,” San Francisco Giants starter Logan Webb said. “To me that’s the most impressive thing.”

Webb was a 12-year-old in Northern California when Kershaw made his major league debut. His high school years coincided with a four-year stretch from 2011 to 2014 that saw Kershaw claim three Cy Young Awards and an MVP, accumulate 72 regular-season victories, tally 895⅓ innings and establish himself as one of the greatest of his era. Competing against him, as a fellow frontline starter on a division rival, hasn’t taken any of the shine away.

Said Webb: “He seems to amaze me every single time.”

Two months ago, Webb shared an All-Star team with Kershaw for the first time and was adamant about securing a jersey from him, even though, he said, “I usually feel awful asking guys.” On Friday, Webb will watch from the opposite dugout as Kershaw makes what might be the final Dodger Stadium appearance of his career, depending on how he factors into L.A.’s October plans.

The Dodgers boast a six-man rotation at the moment, and two of those members, Yamamoto and Snell, are basically guaranteed to start in a best-of-three wild-card series. The third spot would go to Ohtani, unless the Dodgers surprise outsiders by deploying him as a reliever. Then there’s Glasnow, who was lavished with a $130-plus million extension to take down important starts, and Sheehan, a promising right-hander who has been effective out of the bullpen.

Kershaw wasn’t healthy enough to contribute to last year’s championship run and wants nothing more than to help with this one. But he’s also realistic.

“We’ll see,” Kershaw said. “We’ll see what happens. My job is just to pitch well. Whatever decision they make, or if I get to make a start or do whatever — they’re gonna make the best decision for the team. I’ll understand either way. Obviously making it hard for them is what I want to do.”

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts doesn’t know what role Kershaw might play on a postseason roster, but he said “there’s a place for him” on it.

“The bottom line is I trust him,” Roberts said. “And for me, the postseason is about players you trust.”

---

ANDREW ABBOTT SAT alongside Cincinnati Reds teammate Chase Burns in Dodger Stadium’s first-base dugout on Aug. 26 and couldn’t understand what he was seeing.

“Is that a changeup?” he asked.

Kershaw famously doesn’t throw many changeups, largely because he has never been confident in his ability to do so. But suddenly Abbott was watching him uncork a pitch that traveled in the low 80s and faded away from opposing right-handed hitters, the continuation of a split-change he began to incorporate a couple years ago. To Abbott, it spoke to the ingenuity that has extended Kershaw’s effectiveness.

“He knows what he’s doing,” Abbott said. “He can just figure things out on the fly.”

The Reds’ third-year starting pitcher had shared a clubhouse with Kershaw for the first time during the All-Star Game in Atlanta this summer. He wanted so badly to pick his brain about pitch sequencing, but he also didn’t want to waste Kershaw’s time; he made small talk about their Dallas ties and left it at that.

Six weeks later, when the Reds visited Dodger Stadium, Abbott made it a point to provide a visiting clubhouse attendant with a Kershaw jersey to be sent to the other side for a signature. He already had one of Christian Yelich, who represented his first strikeout; Edwin Diaz, the brother of his former teammate, Alexis; Joey Votto, a Reds legend; and Aaron Judge, arguably the best hitter on the planet. Abbott initially didn’t want to bother Kershaw, worried that he might just be adding to an overwhelming pile, but he couldn’t run the risk of missing what might be his final opportunity.

“I watched Kersh since I was a kid,” Abbott said. “I mean, I was 9 when he debuted. I just like to have guys that I’ve watched and I’ve kind of idolized. Those are the ones I go after. It’s cool that you’re in the job with him, too.”

After spending the past four years pitching for two of their biggest rivals — first the Padres, then the Giants — Snell signed a five-year, $182 million contract with the Dodgers over the offseason and told president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman that he wanted his locker next to Kershaw’s. Snell’s locker neighbored Kershaw’s in spring training, and he now resides just two lockers down inside Dodger Stadium’s newly renovated home clubhouse.

As a fellow left-hander, Snell has tried to soak up as much as he can from watching Kershaw, specifically how he utilizes his slider. He has learned, though, that a lot of his success is driven by his mindset.

“He never gives in,” Snell said. “He’s a competitor. And you can’t, like, train that or teach that. You either have it or you don’t. And he’s very elite at competing. The game comes, and he’s the best version of himself.”

Snell arrived in the major leagues as a 23-year-old former first-round pick. But he did not believe he would stay very long, so he made it a point to gather as many personalized jerseys as he could. He already has two framed Kershaw jerseys hanging on an office wall littered with other sports memorabilia, but the end of his first year with the Dodgers has left him wondering if he has enough.

Said Snell: “I might get me another one.”

---

TO THOSE WHO have observed Kershaw throughout his career, the thought that he would even allow himself to be mic’d up while pitching in a game — let alone revel in it — stood as a clear indication that this would probably be it. Roberts, who managed the National League All-Stars earlier this summer, noticed a more reflective, appreciative side to Kershaw even before he took the mound for his 11th Midsummer Classic.

Roberts noticed it when Kershaw addressed his NL teammates before the game, reminding them this was an opportunity to honor those who got them there. He noticed it 13 days before that, on the night of July 2, when Kershaw finished a six-inning outing with the 3,000th strikeout of his career and spilled onto the field to acknowledge the fans. Most of all, he’s noticed it through the ease with which Kershaw seems to carry himself this season. “The edges,” Roberts said, “aren’t as hard anymore.”

“He knows he’s had a tremendous career, and I think that now he’s making it a point. He’s being intentional about taking in every moment.”

Kershaw allowed himself to savor his 3,000th strikeout — a milestone only 19 other pitchers have reached — and made a conscious effort to take in every moment at this year’s All-Star Game. His wife, Ellen, and their four children have made it a point to travel for every one of his starts this season, even when Texas schools re-started earlier this month, adding a layer of sentimentality to the stretch run of his season.

But for as much as Kershaw would like to soak in every inning remaining in his major league career, he can’t. The season keeps going, the stakes keep ratcheting up, and Kershaw believes in the link between dismissing success and maintaining an edge. “The minute you savor, the minute you think about success, you’re content,” he said. But that also means he can’t truly enjoy the end.

There’s a cruelty in that.

“Yeah,” Kershaw said, “but that’s OK. Because you want to go out competing, just like you always did. At the end of the day, being healthy, being able to compete and pitch well, being on a great team — that’s all you can ask for. If you do all of the other stuff, you become content or satisfied or whatever it is. Then it’s all downhill.”

ESPN’s Jesse Rogers contributed to this report.

The ragtag, scrappy Houston Astros host the big, bad Seattle Mariners this weekend, including the series finale on “Sunday Night Baseball” at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN, in a series that might decide the American League West — as the pair is tied atop the division.

Wait … what?

That’s right. The Astros, who have won seven consecutive full-season AL West division titles, are rightfully described as the underdog. How are they even in this position? They traded Kyle Tucker, lost Alex Bregman in free agency, have played most of the season without Yordan Alvarez, lost Jeremy Pena for over a month, have just two pitchers with at least 15 starts and have been without Josh Hader since early August. In ESPN’s preseason predictions, only three of 28 voters picked them to win the division.

The Mariners, meanwhile, are fighting to win their first division title since 2001. Only the Miami Marlins and Colorado Rockies, who have never finished in first place, and the Pittsburgh Pirates, who last won in 1992, have gone longer without a division title. Yet, when the Mariners acquired Eugenio Suarez and Josh Naylor at the trade deadline, many pundits believed they were now the team to beat in the AL.

What will decide the AL West title over these final 10 days of the season?

The Astros and Mariners are tied in the season series at 5-5, so whoever wins the weekend series will own the all-important tiebreaker. The Texas Rangers, after the Astros just swept them, are all but eliminated from the division race, so it’s just between Seattle and Houston now.

Here are five key questions to the division:

1. What will Cal Raleigh do for a final encore?

After hitting under .200 in both July and August (while still mashing 17 home runs), Raleigh has been mixing in a few more singles with his home runs in September and has an OPS over 1.000 for the month heading into the start of the series. He has still missed just three games all season and, with the Mariners fighting for their playoff life down the stretch, hasn’t missed a game since July 23. Even with DH games mixed in, that’s a phenomenal workload (only J.T. Realmuto and William Contreras have caught more innings this season). It seemed as if Raleigh hit the wall a bit in August, but playoff fever erases all fatigue.

Indeed, Raleigh keeps hitting home runs and he has great numbers with runners on base — an OPS over 1.000 with runners in scoring position and over 1.100 in high-leverage situations, both higher than his overall season OPS. The Astros, however, are one team that has contained Raleigh in 2025. In 10 games against Houston entering this series, Raleigh has hit just .190/.244/.286 with one home run and three RBIs.

2. Can the Astros score runs without Alvarez?

Alvarez missed 100 games with a broken bone in his hand before finally returning on Aug. 26. He hit .369/.462/.569 in 19 games before suffering a severe ankle sprain while scoring a run in Monday’s win over the Rangers. The Astros rallied to win that game without him and the next two as well, but even after the trade deadline acquisitions of Carlos Correa and Jesus Sanchez, they’ve struggled at times to score runs. This is the worst offense for the Astros since the rebuilding year of 2014 — in the full seasons from 2017 to 2023, they averaged 231 home runs per season before dropping to 190 last year and just 169 so far in 2025.

The Astros haven’t put a timetable on Alvarez’s return, but manager Joe Espada said Wednesday that injured third baseman Isaac Paredes, who has been out since July 19 with a hamstring strain, might be back “sooner rather than later.” But with Correa locked into third base, where will Paredes play? He could play first base, although Christian Walker has been better in the second half. He could DH, although that means playing Jose Altuve in the field every day. If Alvarez makes it back, it seems likely it will be only as a DH and not in left field, where he started nine times since coming off the injured list. Maybe Paredes will play some second base, where he did play 57 games in 2022-23. In the end, if Houston can somehow get both Alvarez and Paredes back, too many players will be a good problem to have.

3. Which bullpen will finish strong?

At the end of July, the Astros ranked fifth in the majors with a 3.39 bullpen ERA, getting outstanding work not just from Hader but less heralded names such as Bennett Sousa (2.66 ERA at the time), Bryan King (2.78 ERA) and Steven Okert (2.98 ERA) — like Hader, all lefties. That left Bryan Abreu as the lone high-leverage righty in the pen, so it was a clear concern whether the lefty-heavy pen could hold up.

With Hader perfect in his save chances, the Astros still rank first in the majors in bullpen win probability added, but he last pitched Aug. 8 — and since the beginning of August, Houston’s bullpen has a 4.53 ERA. Abreu is 7-for-8 in save opportunities filling in for Hader but has allowed eight runs in his past seven innings entering the Seattle series. King has remained effective, Sousa and Okert less so, with Sousa on the IL and GM Dana Brown saying he could return at some point during the postseason in a “best-case scenario.” The Astros even signed Craig Kimbrel off the scrap heap in mid-August and have given him some high-leverage innings.

The Mariners rank fourth in bullpen WPA, so it has been a strength throughout the season, but both closer Andres Munoz and top setup man Matt Brash have been a little shaky of late. The Mariners saw their 10-game winning streak snapped Wednesday when Brash blew a 4-3 lead in the eighth inning by giving up a two-run home run to light-hitting Adam Frazier. That was Brash’s second straight game allowing a home run and he has a 5.19 ERA over his past 19 appearances. Munoz has a 1.54 ERA but has still managed seven blown saves (two of those were ghost runners in extra innings). He has walked the tightrope a lot of late. There will be no margin for error in these final games.

4. Which team will clean up in the final week?

Unless there’s a sweep this weekend that creates some space between the two teams, the final week of games will then decide the race. The Mariners finish at home with six games against the Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers, while the Astros go on the road to play the Athletics and Los Angeles Angels. Keep in mind that with the Detroit Tigers slumping of late, the No. 2 seed in the AL behind the Toronto Blue Jays remains in play as well. Detroit owns the tiebreaker over Houston, but Seattle holds the tiebreaker over Detroit.

Factor in that a surging Cleveland Guardians team still has a shot at that third wild card (whether it’s over Boston or the Seattle-Houston loser), and the Mariners or Astros could end up anywhere from the second seed in the postseason to completely out of it.

Seattle has played much better at home — 48-27 — so you have to like its chances of sweeping the lowly Rockies, although the Mariners’ three best starters (Bryan Woo, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert) will start against Houston. The Dodgers are too far behind the Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies for one of the top two seeds, so they’re already locked in to a wild-card series. Even though the Dodgers might still be battling the San Diego Padres for the NL West title that final weekend, they will be concerned about getting their top starters lined up for the first-round series, so the Mariners might miss Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Shohei Ohtani. Advantage Seattle?

On the other hand, the Astros get two teams playing out the string. The Angels, in particular, look like a potential sweep, even though the series is in Anaheim. Advantage Houston? Well, the A’s have been over .500 since the All-Star break, so that won’t be an easy series.

Bottom line: Both teams might go 5-1 that final week. Whoever enters the week with the lead will have the edge.

5. Can the Mariners overcome their own history?

On paper, the Mariners appear to be the better team, with more frontline talent and the better run differential. Though they’ve gone through ups and downs all season — usually dependent on whether they’re at home or on the road — the recent 10-game winning streak suggests they might be hot at the right time. Friday’s game seems like one of the most crucial of the entire season, in a must-see battle of aces: Seattle’s Bryan Woo vs. Houston’s Hunter Brown.

Even though these aren’t the same Astros we’re used to seeing since 2017, this is a franchise that knows how to win, and this team has proved resilient beyond expectations, given all the injuries and the patched-together rotation beyond Brown and Framber Valdez. The sweep over the Rangers showed how this is still a team that can step up in the big games.

The Mariners, meanwhile, come down to the final week with a playoff spot up in the air, and their history is not good in this regard:

2024: Fell one win short of the Tigers and Royals for a wild card.

2023: Fell one win short of the Blue Jays for a wild card (and two wins short of the AL West title).

2022: Made the playoffs for the first time since 2001.

2021: Eliminated on the final day of the regular season.

2016: One game out of a wild card with two left to play.

2014: Fell one win short of a wild card.

Baseball … it can be painful. However, when the Mariners made the playoffs in 2022, the clinching blow came from a young catcher named Cal Raleigh, who pinch-hit in the bottom of the ninth inning of a tie game and hit a walk-off home run that sent the Mariners to the postseason for the first time since 2001.

It has been the season of Cal, one home run after another. It’s asking a lot, but he might need one more week of heroics.

That was enough of a nod to the locals, with the former model changing into a severe grey Dior skirt suit from the French luxury label, paired with a purple hat that made eye contact with Camilla and Catherine challenging.

The low-brimmed style was reminiscent of the hat Melania wore to Trump’s inauguration earlier this year. The purple shade of the new hat, a perfect match with her husband’s tie, prevented the previous comparisons with the hat-wearing McDonald’s character the Hamburglar which flooded the internet.

At the meeting, Catherine stuck to the familiar territory of New Zealand-born, London-based designer Emilia Wickstead for her double-breasted, wine-coloured coat dress. It’s a tried and true silhouette from the Princess of Wales, who wore a similar Wickstead design in purple to the 80th anniversary of VE celebrations in May.

Finding meaning in the royal family’s selection of coat brooches, beyond the fact that they will never be short of diamonds, is difficult. Catherine wore Queen Alexandra’s three feathers brooch, made in 1863, a traditional accessory for the wife of the Prince of Wales, having been worn previously by Princess Diana and Queen Camilla.

Loading

The Queen wore a sapphire and diamond brooch that once belonged to Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia, who smuggled it out of the country during the revolution, enhancing the international flavour of the event.

The brooch, worn by Camilla on a bright blue Fiona Clare coat dress, was sold by Empress Maria’s children to Queen Mary, before becoming a favourite of the late Queen Mother.

Later that morning, the Queen swapped the sparkler for a vintage 18-karat gold, diamond and ruby flower brooch by Tiffany & Co., presented to her by the Trumps.

The royal family gave Melania a personalised bag by British designer Anya Hindmarch, presumably not one from her supermarket range for Woolworths. That would be too democratic.

Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.