When even keel feels more like keeling over.

They didn’t sell, even though I was ready for it, and evidently they were as well.

They didn’t really buy, either, at least not a level you might expect from a team that had just slipped out of first place for the first time in three weeks.

It was deflating. For me, I suspect for you, and probably to an extent for Chris Young and Ross Fenstermaker and their group — not to mention the guys who put the uniform on every day and presumably figured they’d earned a roster boost.

After the trade deadline passed — and having sent out 18 Substack posts in the final week leading up to it — I was gassed. Tapped out. I needed a break from writing, if not from baseball. Losing a season-worst sixth straight game hours after the deadline was largely responsible.

But two different times in the four days after the league forced front offices to put their pencils down, something happened that got me going again. I started to write this story a week ago.

Then stopped.

Then started back at it.

Then stopped.

Kind of fitting, given the season the baseball team has given us. Some ups, some downs, the distance to the finish line relentlessly shrinking. Some days seemingly too fast, others excruciatingly slow.

West Coast divisional baseball sucks at its core, but this week charted new depths. The worst series of the year, circumstances considered, bookended by a trip to the injured list for one of the team’s two star pitchers and a scare with the other that we may learn will lead to the same.

Jamey Newberg@NewbergReport

What an abject disaster of a baseball week around here.

3:41 AM · Aug 14, 2026 · 5.76K Views

16 Replies · 4 Reposts · 128 Likes

There are many things that make me happier in my life than a ball season. God knows there are plenty that make me more sad.

Still, it’s part of my balance, and I depend on it for that.

Let me first tip a quick cap to the two things that had first reinvigorated me last week, after which I’ll soul-search a bit on where I am right now. That part, I trust, might resonate with some of you.