Three Up, Three Down: Baseball delivers an instant classic – but why bring up the past?

The Cubs have finally woken up and are looking more and more like a team that's worthy of defending the World Series title that they won in famous fashion last October. That's good news, and the franchise itself tried to give themselves some good karma by reaching back to one of the darkest moments of their past when they gave infamous fan Steve Bartman a 2016 World Series ring.

You might be wondering why this is in the 'down' section, and it's simple really: We're 14 years away from that moment in the 2003 NLCS. Everybody should be over it at this point, and you have to wonder if they'd even bother with extending an olive branch had they not won the World Series last year. Yeah, Bartman should've have reached for the ball back then, but he is not the reason the Marlins scored eight runs in that inning. It's good that he's getting a ring, but it would've been nice to see everyone move on before this happened.

Up: Most of the contenders do well at the deadline

The July 31 trade deadline has come and gone and for the most part, the contenders did their part at making sure that they were good and loaded for the business end of the season and the postseason as well. Normally you see teams sit on their assets and figure that things are going well enough so they don't make too many changes. This year, it seemed as if the contenders were willing to grab the bull by the horns and go for it.

The Dodgers are going to be missing Clayton Kershaw for a while, so they added Yu Darvish and made their potential October rotation look scarier than ever. The Yankees added Sonny Gray to their rotation in an effort to bolster that unit ahead of their battle for the AL East crown, and the Nationals steadily improved their much-maligned bullpen via trades. The good teams got even better, and the battle for and during the playoffs should be as interesting as ever.

Down: Max Scherzer hits a homer and pays for it immediately

Max Scherzer has been one of the best pitchers in baseball for a few years now, but one achievement had eluded him for his entire career. It had nothing to do with his efforts on the mound, but instead it had all to do with his efforts at the plate. The blue-and-brown eyed flamethrower had never hit a home run in his major league career.

That changed on Tuesday when he acted like he was going to bunt but instead swung away and hit one into the seats in Marlins Park. He'd hit his first career home run and it looked like he was floating around the bases. Then the next frame came, and he suffered a neck spasm and had to exit the game. Baseball glory is a fickle mistress, as Max Scherzer learned on Tuesday night.

Up: Chris Archer and Orbit go to "war"

The Tampa Bay Rays visited the Houston Astros this week, which meant that it was time for one of baseball's most vicious feuds to renew itself. I'm not talking about Evan Longoria vs. the Astros pitching staff (though they probably won't miss seeing him after he hit for the cycle against him), nor am I talking about the two organizations' front offices being at each other's throats. I'm talking about Chris Archer vs. Orbit, the Astros' mascot.

The two have a storied history, and things escalated when Archer issued Orbit a "Declaration of Unfriendliness," which resulted in the two adversaries spending the series going at each other with various "high jinx" and other stunts that threatened to tear at the space-time continuum and wreck all of existence as we know it. My only hope is that this doesn't escalate further and go to the point where the entire universe is at stake during a water balloon fight. I implore Archer and Orbit to think of the children during their epic encounters.

Down: Dallas Keuchel wanted help and didn't get it

Speaking of the Astros, you may have noticed that their name was missing from the list of teams who loaded up at or near the trade deadline for a potential postseason run. Even though the Astros are very, very good and still the best team in the American League at this point, they still needed a bit of help in shoring up their rotation. Instead, they added Francisco Liriano, and that's not exactly "loading up" your pitching staff.

Nobody was more bummed out than the team's star pitcher himself, Dallas Keuchel. Keuchel told reporters that it was a "bit of an understatement" to say that he was disappointed in Houston's deadline efforts. It's one thing to hear the fans and media complain about a team's lack of moves, but it's another when it comes from someone who's actually on the squad. Houston may end up being rewarded for their patience, but right now there's plenty of rightful concern to be had about how they may fare when they playoffs come around.