News ‘n’ notes

More from Maryland:

• Happy day for Nats fans yesterday, as the home nine lost to the Phillies — but clinched the division championship anyway when the Braves also lost.  The good guys have won 96 games, and they and the Reds are in a flat-footed tie for the best record in the bigs.  Unlike unhappy Giants fans of an old baseball poem (“Baseball’s Sad Lexicon,” known more broadly for its immortalizing of the Cubs’ double-play combo, Tinker to Evers to Chance), there’ll be no pricking the Nats’ gonfalon bubble this year, and if you had the unhappy experience of watching a couple of teams that were both awful and eminently unlikable, this constitutes something of a minor miracle.
• That’s Amore runner Johannesboom made her second start on Sunday at Monmouth, and it was a nice improvement from her debut.  She’s green as spring grass, but she’ll learn, she’ll learn.
• Ironic horse name of the day: Love the Cash in Laurel’s first.  The horse, a maiden after seven starts, has earned $1,480.
• Three horses will seek to defend Maryland Million titles on Saturday: Ben’s Cat (Turf Sprint), Sloane Ranger (Sprint), and Eighttofasttocatch (Classic).  Read more here, and look for lots o’ Million ‘capping later in the week.
• Tomorrow’s fourth is a nice-looking maiden event for juvenile fillies.  Among the runners are a couple of Tapits, a Candy Ride, an Elusive Quality, and a Tiznow.  The Tiznow, Classy Broad, is 2-1 and will be making her fourth career start.  I’d be inclined to poke around before taking those odds on a horse who’s lost at this level three times.  Meanwhile, the grass races have all drawn huge fields.
• Speaking of breeding, the Fasig-Tipton Eastern Fall Yearlings sale, which took place on Monday at Timonium, equaled the event’s record median sale price of $12,000 (here), while the average grew over 20 percent.  Of course, that was helped in part by the sale’s having been shortened from two days to one, with 276 horses changing hands, down from 332 a year ago.  A $300,000 Malibu Moon filly topped the sale.  Hip 155 — a daughter of Exchange Rate out of the millionaire, and blog fave (here), Silmaril — fetched $82,000.