I hope your morning went better than Buster Posey’s evening.
Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:
Cardinals 5, Reds 4: The Reds took a 4-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth and then the Reds bullpen Reds bullpenned all over itself. The Cards scored five runs in the final frame, all charged to Tony Cingrani but with a strong assist from Ross Ohlendorf, who walked in the Cardinals’ tying run and then hit Yadier Molina with the bases loaded, allowing the winning run to score on a walkoff HBP. Bryan Price probably spent a long time after this one, staring into middle distance, wondering why he never went to, I dunno, dental school or something. Dentists make a good living, the hours are better and they never have days like this.
Blue Jays 7, Rays 5: Toronto wins the Battle of the Domes, as Devon Travis had four hits, including the go-ahead single in the seventh and Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista each drove in three.
Giants 8, Marlins 7: Brandon Crawford has seven hits in this game, notching a triple, a double and five singles. He was the first player to do that in 41 years. When I first heard that time frame I thought “I wonder if it was Ted Williams or Stan Musial” and then I quickly remembered that 41 years ago was 1975, time stops for no man and now I feel really friggin’ old. Rennie Stennett did it in 1975, by the way. And he did it in nine innings, not 14 like Crawford did, but it was still pretty cool that Crawford did it.
In other news, Buster Posey face-planted into third base:
[mlbvideo id="1027865183" width="600" height="336" /]
Given how MLB has rolled with this sort of thing with Posey in the past, I expect them to ban third base this offseason.
Braves 4, Brewers 3: Braves relievers Jose Ramirez, Mauricio Cabrera, Brandon Cunniff and Jim Johnson combined for six scoreless innings as the Braves won in 12. The winning run came via a dropped sac fly. Which would’ve been deep enough to score the runner anyway, so it probably didn’t matter. It just looked kinda weird.
Twins 3, Astros 1: The Twins have won seven of nine. Baseball seasons are long and weird. Minnesota enjoyed a three-run fifth inning which came courtesy of Carlos Gomez playing some clown shoes center field. First he let a single get passed him for a two-base error which scored a run and then he lost a fly ball in the lights, turning what should’ve been an out into an RBI triple. We all have bad days at work, I suppose. Thankfully for us, ours aren’t in front of 20,000 people.
Rangers 4, Rockies 3: Colorado had a 3-1 lead heading into the ninth when Elvis Andrus singled in Rougned Odor and Jurickson Profar, who had put themselves into scoring position with a double steal -- and then Mitch Moreland doubled in Andrus. Adrian Beltre and Nolan Arenado homered, the former in a winning cause, the latter in a losing one, obviously.
Athletics 3, Orioles 2: Kendall Graveman went seven innings allowing only one run and Stephen Vogt homered and drove in another run with a single. With this loss and the Blue Jays’ win, Baltimore and Toronto are tied, virtually anyway, for first place in the AL East.
Mariners 3, Tigers 0: Hisashi Iwakuma tossed seven shutout innings and the M’s got three RBI singles. Iwakuma has won seven of his last eight starts.
Dodgers 9, Phillies 4: Corey Seager hit two homers and Chase Utley and Yasmani Grandal each went deep as well. L.A. had a 5-0 lead after one inning, so I assume Vin Scully had to dig deeper into his story telling repertoire than usual on this night.