Orioles 4, Rays 2: Chris Davis homers again. Number 46 on the year. He’s four short of the all-time Orioles record. He tied Rafael Palmiero for the most home homers in Orioles history with 25. Tommy Hunter got the save, as it does appear that Buck Showalter is gonna go with the hot hand now. Or, at the very least, avoid Jim Johnson.
Braves 4, Mets 1: Three run homers in the tenth inning are great. Blown calls at first base that allow those three run homers to happen instead of the third out of the inning being properly recorded are not so great. I’ll get over this one and won’t renounce the win because that would be silly, but yeah, this game woulda been very different if it were the Replay Era.
Yankees 4, Blue Jays 2: Hit number 4,000 for Ichiro between the U.S. and Japan. I don’t think there’s any doubt that he’d be pushing that mark if he had spent his whole career here too. Such a unique talent. Alfonso Soriano -- who also spent some time in Japan -- hit the tie-breaking two-run homer in the eighth. The Yankees still have to climb over three teams, but they are only four back in the wild card.
Mariners 5, Athletics 3: Brendan Ryan got to play and had two hits and drove in three runs. GIven how awesome his glove is it’s sad that he doesn’t hit better so he can hang around longer and get more PT.
Cardinals 8, Brewers 6: Carlos Beltran and Allen Craig homers and four relievers help bail out the redbirds after Jake Westbrook couldn’t make it out of the fifth. Westbrook did hit a bases-loaded double THHOC, however.
Red Sox 12, Giants 1: Barry Zito was shellacked for six runs on seven hits in three and two-thirds. We may have seen his final start as a Giant, if Bruce Bochy’s cryptic comments about changes to be made mean what they sound like they mean. Even if he gets another, his time in San Francisco is almost over and it’s ending very much like it began.
Indians 3, Angels 1: A year ago Cleveland ended the year with just 68 wins. Last night won their 69th. With more than a month remaining, the Indians are just five and a half games behind division leading Detroit and two and a half behind the A’s for the wild card. Not bad for a team that, at times anyway, has looked lost. Just very hot and cold. A two-run homer for Nick Swisher and a strong outing for Justin Masterson who, last start against them notwithstanding, has historically owned the Angels.
Padres 2, Pirates 1: Ian Kennedy tossed seven shutout innings and the Padres avoided the sweep. Yonder Alonso did all the damage on offense. Or, yonder, Alonso did all the damage. Unless you actually were in San Diego yesterday in which case that would be misleading.
Phillies 4, Rockies 3: Another low-run-support no-decision for Cliff Lee as the Phillies failed to capitalize on many early opportunities, but Michael Young hit a walkoff single to end it.
Tigers 7, Twins 1: Boy the Twins stink. I watched the second half of this game and the Tigers’ late rally was the stuff of both good hitting on their part but a lot of boneheaded plays and curious pitch selection on the part of Minnesota. It just looks like a totally lost team.
Reds 10, Diamondbacks 7: Shin-Soo Choo went 4 for 5 with a homer and three RBI and the Reds started early with an 8-0 lead. They needed all of that to hold of the Dbacks. But hold them off they did and now have a pretty comfortable six-game lead over Arizona for the second wild card.
Rangers 5, Astros 4: Elvis Andrus with a walkoff sac fly. That’s probably among the least uplifting walkoff events you can have. Walkoff errors or wild pitches at least have some moment of unexpected excitement to them. Walkoff walks have a sense of building tension as the pitcher struggles to locate. A walkoff sac fly is, like, “and, yep, there it is. It will be deep enough. Ballgame.”
Dodgers 4, Marlins 1: Zack Greinke had eight innings of one-run ball. Yasiel Puig went 0 for 5, but hey, at least he was on time to the ballpark.
White Sox 5, Royals 2: Dayan Viciedo hit a grand slam and that made all the difference. Well most of the difference, but I read Robert Frost before bed last night and I wanted to say “that made all the difference” at some point today.
Nationals 11, Cubs 6: Two homers for Anthony Rizzo were nice but Cubs pitchers gave up two three-run homers to Nats hitters. And that has made all the difference.
OK, that worked a little better, with the exception of the awkward “has.” But we’ll just go with it.