NYT Connections puzzle hint and answers for Saturday, September 9 (#90)

pcgamer.com:

Cut straight through those tricky purple words in today's NYT Connections game with our help. A full set of answers for the Saturday, September 9 (90) game are ready and waiting for you just below, as is a helpful set of clues if you'd rather give yourself a little hint instead.

I ended up one word away from pinning down my chosen first group in what felt like 20 different ways today, so I did the sensible thing and tried to focus on another potential pairing instead. Thankfully that tidied away one of today's Connections in no time, leaving me free to arrange the rest in the right pairings.

Yellow: Sporty words are the name of the game here. Think of the sort of calls you'd hear in one popular and chiefly American ball game.

Green: Today's greens like to keep things nice and toasty. Some of these can gently bake, while others are hot enough to melt steel. 

Blue: This group's a little bit odd. They're all aquatic, but also verbs too?

Purple: The English language is a strange and inconsistent beast, and these words are great examples of that. Pronunciations and spellings aren't always the best of friends.

Don't scroll any further until you're ready for the full answers!

Yellow: Ball, Out, Safe, Strike (Baseball calls)

Green: Forge, Furnace, Kiln, Oven (Heat sources)

Blue: Carp, Catfish, Flounder, Smelt (Fish that are verbs)

Purple: Colonel, Salmon, Walk, Yolk (Silent «L»)

Connections is the NYT's latest popular puzzle game where you have to find the common thread that ties four seemingly unrelated words together. Can you find all four increasingly challenging groups of words before you make four mistakes? Don't forget: every day only has one solution even if some words look like they could belong to more than one