Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #538 on November 30, a little easier than yesterday's puzzle, the Connections Companion has a difficulty level of 3 out of 5.

We update our Connections clues and hints daily. And if the hints aren't enough, you can see all four solutions along with the category title and related words. In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle 537.

Connection #538 contains a spoiler. Only those who want to know the answer to today's connection should read it.

Alternatively, see our NYT Connections How to Play Guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.

While today's wordle solution guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, Connections' solution depends on identifying the categories that are connected from the 16 words. The difficulty of each category is represented by a color, with yellow being the easiest grouping and purple the most difficult. Hints are helpful as the answer is displayed after four wrong guesses.

If you need a hint to solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

If you read these hints, you should at least find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you only want to know the answer, scroll down further.

Here's a bigger hint: Take home a bad pitch and finish them off with a solid dance.

Now, what's the answer to today's Round 538 connection?

Drum roll please.

Whether it was yesterday's MLB mascot or today's purple category, the Connection crew is all about baseball in November.

Anyway, I saw the knuckleball and thought pitch. This quickly led to fastballs, curves, and screwballs. Purple out.

Still thinking baseball, I saw the swipe and thought stolen base, so lift, palm, pocket it.

Ace, Crash, and Nail stuck to the kill here, but I wasn't sure about rock because the music grouping focused on jazz and modern. Nothing else seemed to fit into the blue category, except rock. And it did. [Jazz, modern, swing, tap. It is always interesting to see which category different brains see first. I wonder what the statistical difference is between those who associate yellow with purple and those who associate purple with yellow; unlike Wordle, I don't know if there are such overall statistics for connections.

Are you reading this late in the day? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 3.3 out of 5.

I got a late start thanks to turkey day, but it was just the right speed for a holiday after a big meal.

I started with the blue category and a baseball team that saw Ray, Twin, Tiger, and National.

Next came yellow, which saw Projects and Ventures, which led to Enterprises and Efforts. I initially saved the first two in hopes that we could do a spaceship theme. No luck.

Hertz, second, and volt made sense as a group, but I'm still not sure what a mole is a measure of. I think it's chemistry based, but I was totally useless at school.

And we finished with some pretty good shows on HBO, including “Boardwalk (Empire),” “Curve (Enthusiasm),” “Game (of Thrones),” and “Silicon (Valley).”

Don't let the Black Friday sales hurt your wallet too much.