Now that baseball season is almost over, it's time to completely forget about baseball and focus on awards season! My original idea for tonight's Dugout was the AL Cy Young Award 2008 Chatroom, but that ended up being Cliff Lee bouncing a rubber ball against a wall for 35 panels, so here is that Dugout's hotly-contested National League equivalent. On second thought, they should just give that to Cliff Lee too.

Tonight's Dugout, with all the speculation and obsessive statistical analysis you come to the Internet for, is after the jump.

Mark Reynolds of the Arizona Diamondbacks struck out for the 200th time in 2008 yesterday, breaking the previous record of 199, set last year by Ryan Howard (of Philly, not Scranton). Luckily for fans of Reynolds', the milestone K wasn't his last at-bat of the game ... because he was able to add another to his total. The record now stands at 201 strikeouts.

To grasp the enormity of the situation when it comes to Reynolds and his strikeout rate, consider that he only has appeared at the plate 601 times this season. He strikes out just over one third of the time he digs in. You can try to console yourself, if a Diamondbacks fan, with the 28 jacks and 96 RBI if you want ... but Reynolds OPS+ is 98, which means he's a below average hitter. He also has committed 33 errors in the field. You guessed it, that leads the majors ... and it ain't close (Edwin Encarnacion is second with 23).

We should point out that Reynolds himself recognizes the problem:

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

Reyes Rises to Occasion: Life isn't easy for baseball players in New York. Just ask Jose Reyes. The shortstop has taken more blame than anyone this side of Willie Randolph and his teammates in the bullpen for the Mets' collapse last season.

Some of the criticism has been fair. Reyes hit .205 last September and his mental lapses always seem to occur at the worst time. But much of it hasn't been fair. He's been slammed for being unprofessional, for being carefree -- his elaborate handshakes and big smile the sign of someone who didn't care enough to stop New York's free-fall.

The truth? Reyes is a terrific player who went cold at the wrong time last year, but the Mets wouldn't have gotten as far as they did without him in the lineup. Tuesday night's win over the Cubs must have felt especially good to Reyes. His bases-clearing triple gave the Mets a bullpen-proof lead.

Johan Santana was the hero, but Reyes got the big hit. He ensured that the Mets would get a reprieve from all the collapse talk, kept them atop the wild-card race and helped them pick up a game on the Phillies. Has Reyes been vindicated? Not yet. But if the Mets do grab a playoff berth, Reyes' bases-clearing triple will be a big part of it.

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

- Big Papi Busts Out: The news was almost entirely bad for the Red Sox Monday night. Josh Beckett looked pretty shaky. Boston allowed the Yankees to stay alive another day -- mostly because umpire Gerry Davis got in the way of a two-run double.

The big bright spot? David Ortiz is rounding into playoff form. Big Papi had a terrible April, then injured his wrist in May, then lost the hitter who protected him for years, Manny Ramirez, at the end of July. But he's hit two home runs in the last two days, one to the opposite field in Toronto and a second to the deepest part of Fenway Park Monday. He's driving the ball like he rarely has this year, and Boston needs him more than ever heading into October.

The Red Sox are not as vulnerable as they were in 2005, the last time they had a championship to defend, but they also don't appear quite as strong as the teams that won in 2004 and 2007, especially with J.D. Drew likely out for the season and Mike Lowell hurting too.

The loss of players like Lowell, Drew and Ramirez and the general ineffectiveness and inconsistency of guys like Tim Wakefield, Manny Delcarmen and Jacoby Ellsbury means Boston needs its stars more than ever come playoff time.

With ten games to go, Mark Reynolds has struck out 191 times. The major league record, set last season by Ryan Howard, is 199. With Reynolds receiving the night off Thursday, there were questions about whether the manager would start holding him out in order to avoid the dubious distinction. Not the case, as we found out today.

Manager Bob Melvin said he isn't going to manage the rest of the season any differently with Reynolds in hopes of preventing him from breaking the record. Reynolds was out of the lineup Thursday, Melvin said, because he thought Augie Ojeda would give scrappier at-bats against Tim Lincecum.

Sarcastic rants about "scrappiness" aside, I'm not sure I believe Melvin. Lincecum leads the NL in Ks, and it ain't close. He currently houses a 46 punch-out lead on his closest competitor (Edinson Volquez). That had a four-strikeout night written all over it for Reynolds. C'mon Melvin, why deprive his fans -- of which I most certainly am one -- of that night?

Moving forward, though, Reynolds should be able to accomplish the infamous feat of being the first person to whiff 200 times in one season. Nine times in 10 games? Puh-leez.

He could do that with his eyes open.

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

- No Time for Panic: The Brewers finally stopped the bleeding Wednesday night, beating the Cubs to end a five-game winning streak and keeping pace with the Mets, who were also victorious, in the wild-card race. But they might be worse off anyway. Ben Sheets left the game after two innings with stiffness in his forearm. After the game, Sheets revealed he has been battling elbow soreness since late August -- describing it as a "cutting" sensation.

Yikes. Considering this is a team that just couldn't go on with its manager with two weeks left in the season and the wild-card lead, it's hard to imagine that the possibility one of its best pitchers being out indefinitely will go over well. Milwaukee has already made its panic move by firing Ned Yost. Now they're really in trouble, right?

Yes and no. Sheets was slated to make two more starts this season. If he can't make either, you'd be hard-pressed to argue that the Brewers have a better chance at qualifying for the postseason than they did yesterday. That doesn't mean we should bury them entirely, though.

After all, it's only two starts. Sure, maybe they're two of the biggest starts in a quarter century for the franchise, but how many mediocre pitchers, even terrible pitchers, have strung together two good starts in a row in the major leagues. Heck, Carl Pavano even won two consecutive starts at the end of last month.

Stars are born this time of year, but so are unlikely heroes who rise to the occasion at the right moment then fade into baseball oblivion. (See: Spencer, Shane.) Carlos Villanueva or Seth McClung would be in line to start should Sheets be unable to go, and both are capable of turning in a good start or two.

There have been plenty of histrionics about the Mets and Brewers collapsing, but odds are one of those teams is going to the postseason anyway. With or without Sheets, there's no reason it can't be Milwaukee.

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

- Phils Fighting Back: It looks like September will once again be a magical month for the Phillies. The reigning NL East champions ended August trailing the Mets in their division and with no real alternate path back to the postseason via the wild card. But since then, Philadelphia has kept pace with New York and erased the gap between it and the wild-card-leading Brewers.

With two weeks to go, Philadelphia has two avenues into the playoffs, and while there is still work to be done, things appear to be tilting its way because of a bullpen that is much stouter than what the Mets and Brewers have to offer.

The Phillies are built on star power. They have an ace in Cole Hamels, the best second baseman in the game in Chase Utley and the last two MVPs of the league in Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard. They depend on those stars to win. Rollins and Howard have struggled mightily at times this year, but they are at the heart of this surge just as they were in last year's whirlwind climb to the top of the NL East.

Rollins is hitting .340 and getting on base more than 40 percent of the time in September. Just like last year, when he stole 14 bases in the final month, he seems to be ratcheting up his running game in the stretch drive. Howard has been even better. He struggled to stay above the Mendoza Line earlier in the year, but he's hitting a scorching .386 in September and has seven home runs and 19 RBI.

Philadelphia's superstars appear to be shining brightest when they're needed the most.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Chicago Cubs (88-58) "at" Houston Astros (80-67) - 8:05 PM ET

When is a home game not a home game? Well, when Hurricane Ike (and Bud Selig) force you to go to a domed stadium located conveniently in Milwaukee for a Houston Astros home game against the Chicago Cubs, who reside about 90 minutes away from Miller Park and will no doubt be represented well in the crowd for games there tonight and tomorrow afternoon. And it's not like Brewers fans are going to show up in droves to support the Astros, who are 2.5 games behind them in the wild card. If anything, Brewers fans will show up and they'll root for the Cubs too. Too bad the Packers aren't playing the Sunday night game ... then maybe Brewers fans would all have their portable TV's handy to watch the Pack and cheer at completely random times during the baseball game and confuse everyone involved.

In April, this guy was their best pitcher and their best hitter. But in September, the Diamondbacks have made him the player named later in the Adam Dunn trade.

It was a poorly kept secret, so the actual announcement is a bit anti-climactic. But Micah Owings has moved on to the Cincinnati Reds after an injury initially kept him from being moved as part of the Dunn trade. He went 4-0 to start the season with a 2.42 ERA. But since then, he's gone 2-9 with an ERA of 7.09 before going down with a shoulder injury. Now that he's healthy, Dusty Baker gets to put him in the rotation (Dusty should be very familiar with pitchers who have had shoulder issues.)

Owings is going to the perfect division, where three teams have batted their pitcher eighth. With five career home runs in a season and a half and a career .895 OPS, Owings could raise the bar for NL Central pitchers and bat sixth.

As frustrating as award season can be in Major League Baseball, the most maddening portion for me is -- bar none -- having to hear about a pitcher's won/loss record as the main indicator of a Cy Young candidate. The inclusion among many other factors is reasonable, because the pitcher's job on any given night is to give his team a chance to win.

It's pure laziness and insanity to glance just at the record of each pitcher, though, when deciding who deserves the Cy Young. Consider a pair of different outings to illustrate how accurate a measure wins and losses are when relating to pitching performance:

May 28th: Livan Hernandez went six innings. He gave up 13 hits and eight runs, six of which were earned. He did strike out a whopping two hitters. He also received enormous run support and came away with the win.

July 21st: Rich Harden went seven innings, and yielded only a hit. The problem was, it was a solo home run (landing in the first row). He also struck out ten. His team gave him zero runs in support and he took the 1-0 loss.

Based upon the archaic W/L criteria some Cy Young voters use, Livan Hernandez was the better pitcher of those two examples.