SUNDAY

@Pirates 3, Royals 2: Ladies and gentlemen, your first-place Bucs! Winning 12 of 15 (including 4 of 6 from Cincinnati), they’ve surged from 5th place to forge a tie with the Reds. We can celebrate it, but we can’t explain it. Their offense is last in the majors in scoring and in OPS+, they’ve been outscored by 17 runs, the cleanup spot has been a black hole (.200, 4 HRs), and they have just one player with an OPS+ of 100 or better — not just one regular, but one player, period.

• That one is the sublime Andrew McCutchen. He’s well on his way to a 4th straight year with OPS+ over 120; in that span, no other Pirate has had even one such year with 100+ games. On Sunday, McCutchen drove in all 3 runs with a double (their only hit with RISP) and a 2-out, 2-strike, 2-run HR; he’s hitting .380 in the precious few chances he’s had with men in scoring position.
• When I said “we can’t explain it,” I didn’t mean to dismiss the fine work of A.J. Burnett, one of 3 qualifiers in their rotation with a better-than-league ERA. He’s won 5 straight starts; his best run in his 3 NYY seasons was 3 straight, and that just twice. Other than his one disaster start, he’s allowed just 13 runs in 10 games, for a 1.96 “mulligan ERA.”
• On Saturday, a key play in their decisive 5-run 4th was a bases-loaded blooper towards Eric Hosmer in RF (playing his 2nd pro game in the outfield). Its safe landing surprised the runners, and Hosmer’s strong throw home would have gotten the forceout had it not been juggled by C Brayan Pena. The rest of that big inning: two walks, a HBP, one clean single, a 40-foot dribbler, and two RBI groundouts. BuccyBall!
• Attendance for the weekend series averaged almost 34,000. Pittsburgh has averaged almost 29,000 on Friday-Sunday, but less than 15,000 otherwise (not counting Opening Day).
• What has gotten into Jason Grilli? Er, perhaps I should rephrase that to avoid insinuations. Anyway, since joining the Bucs last July, this 35-year-old journeyman reliever has become a strikeout machine. Here are his K rates for 3 phases of his career: 2000-06, 4.7 SO/9 (156 IP); 2007-09, 8.1 SO/9 (200 IP); 2011-12, 12.1 SO/9 (57 IP). Sunday, after pitching himself into trouble, he whiffed the last 2 men to earn his first save of the year. He’s fanned 39 of 98 batters, 39.8% — that would be the 11th-best percentage ever in a season of more than 90 batters.

@Orioles 5, Phillies 4 (10): Baltimore stayed within leapfrog distance of the division lead with their 2nd straight walk-off win. Ty Wigginton‘s error in the 10th — his 5th in 17 games at 3B, capping an o-for-5 day — preceded the winning double by Matt Wieters.

• As mentioned in a subtle piece by Tyler Kepner, it was Philly’s 7th walk-off loss (tops in MLB) — with $13 million closer Jonathan Papelbon a bystander each time. (He has entered 2 tie games this year, both at home, and lost them both.)
• Steven Tolleson now has as many 3-run HRs as his dad hit in his entire 10-year career: one.
• It was the 9th straight time the Phillies lost when they had no extra-base hits.
• Baltimore is 9-2 in extra innings, winning the last 9. They’ve played 3 more extended contests than any other team; the Phils are next with 8 games (2-6), while the Nats have the next-most wins (5-2).
• On a related note, the MLB leaders in reliever Win Probability Added (WPA): #1-Jim Johnson; #6-Pedro Strop; #9-Darren O’Day. Among all Orioles players, they rank #1, 3 and 4 in WPA, with Adam Jones #2
• Philly’s 29-33 record is their worst in 10 years after 62 games; they were at least 32-30 at this point in 2003-11. Baltimore’s 34-26 marks the first time since 2005 that they were over .500 at this exact point.
• The O’s, a game out of first, next face the first-place Pirates. The times, they are a-changin’.

Rays 4, @Marlins 2: Tampa never trailed in the 3-game series. B.J. Upton doubled home Carlos Pena in the 1st, after one of those “harmless” walks, and a pair of HRs in the 4th made enough cushion for James Shields and the bullpen to seal the Rays’ 4th straight win and Miami’s 6th straight defeat.

• Matthew Joyce is following up his 2011 All-Star season with a 165 OPS+, ranking top-10 in a dozen metrics, including 5th in OBP and 9th in WPA.
• Pena, hitting .198, has 41 hits — and 41 walks, for a .345 OBP that’s 35 points above the park-adjusted league average and 20 points ahead of, say, Mark Teixeira, whom Pena has outscored.
• Winning teams don’t have a lot of 6-game losing streaks. Among last year’s playoff teams, Texas had none, the others 1 each. Miami has 2 so far.
• Since 2008, the Rays are 19-8 against their cross-state rivals, including 7 straight, and have closed the all-time series gap to 40-42.
• Emblematic of their balanced approach, the Rays are over .500 in virtually every split — home and away, regulation and extra innings, blowouts and one-run games, vs. winning and losing teams, vs. AL and NL. They did play just .500 ball in May….

 Tigers 7, @Reds 6: Detroit captured the last 2 games and the series with 8th inning runs, bagging consecutive wins for the first time since they swept Minnesota from May 25-27. Sunday’s 4-run 8th, largely against Aroldis Chapman, was their biggest inning in the 7th or later this year; in 2011 they had 9 outbursts of 4+ runs in the late innings.

• The biggest hero was Austin Jackson, who doubled home the tying runs, and also homered in his 2nd game since a 3-week absence. The whiff-prone leadoff man has cut his K rate by almost one-third this year, and has been the team’s best hitter in many ways — .404 OBP, .552 SLG, 159 OPS+, 30 runs in 38 games, 6 steals without being caught. Even with all the missed time, he’s 6th in WAR among AL position players. Detroit is 20-17 when he’s started, 8-15 without him.
• After 9 weeks of near-perfection — 7 hits, 52 Ks and no earned runs in his first 29 IP — Chapman has finally hit a bump in the road, with consecutive losses featuring 2 hits. Sunday, he inherited a 3-run lead with 2 on and no outs in the 8th, and allowed a single, HBP, double, walk, and finally a wild pitch to score the lead run. He had stranded all 9 previous inherited runners this year.

Dodgers 8, @Mariners 2: The beat goes on for the Kemp-less Dodgers, now 16-10 without their best player in the lineup, and even scoring slightly more in his absence (4.34 R/G with, 4.46 without). Bobby Abreu and Jerry Hairston have combined for a .435 OBP and 155 OPS+ in roughly one regular’s playing time, and the pitching has held opponents to 3 runs or less in 8 of their last 9 games. Clayton Kershaw hasn’t racked up the wins like last year, but he still has a 2.65 ERA, a sub-1 WHIP and leads the league in IP, and the team is 9-4 in his starts. Chris Capuano has won all 5 home starts with a 1.36 ERA (tied for the most home wins in MLB).

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SATURDAY NOTES

Hunter Pence (5-0-4-0) — second 4-hit game in MLB this year with no runs or ribbies by a #3 hitter. Yet cleanup man Jim Thome went 2-for-4 with a HR.

Chris Sale (8 scoreless, AL-best 2.05 ERA) — Last ChiSox ERA title won by Joe Horlen in 1967 at 2.06. Last ChiSox lefty with 20 wins was Jim Kaat in 1975. Last ChiSox hurler to average a strikeout per inning … never. (Javier Vazquez was 4 Ks short in 2007.)

Adam Dunn (4-1-2-5) — 12th career grand slam, in 162 chances, but his first since 2009.

Adam Jones is the 26th different player with a game-ending HR this year. No player has more than one, and no team has more than two.

Baltimore used 4 relievers in their 12-inning win, and each finished the game with an ERA below 2 and at least 25 IP. There are only 10 other relievers in the majors who meet those criteria.

Curtis Granderson‘s fine running catch in the 7th took a double and likely a game-tying RBI away from Omar Quintanilla, who had a tying HR in the 3rd. Grandy also homered in the 8th, and walked ahead of Teixeira‘s go-ahead HR in the 6th. Quintanilla, who is playing through a fractured left index finger, also kept the Mets alive with a 2-out single in the 9th, and is 11 for 32 with a 1.024 OPS — not bad for a 5th-stringer.

• On a curve from a righty to a lefty, there’s a thin line between a perfect pitch and a hanger. Dillon Gee buried a beauty for strike 2 on Teix. But when he tried to put him away with the same pitch, he didn’t quite finish it, and Teixeira did.
• It was only the 3rd of his 11 HRs this year that came in Yankee Stadium. In 3 full years in the new park, Teix has averaged 22 HRs at home, 15 away. It was also his biggest WPA game (.411) in over 2 calendar years. But despite his lingering vocal-cord problem, Teix is faring better in win probability this year (11th among MLB 1Bs) than in either of his past 2 years (15th and 17th).

Gio Gonzalez is the fast National to 8 wins since Livan in 2005, their first year in D.C. He’s allowed just 1 HR this year — the only HR hit by Josh Harrison in 36 games.

• It’s the 9th Nats’ win this year while getting 5 hits or less. No other team has won more than 4 such games. Washington is 9-7 with 5 hits or less; every other team has a losing record, with a combined W% of .170.
• It was the 6th team win this year with no more than 1 man left on base; two have gone against Boston in the last 4 days.

Minnesota has won 8 of 10, and 4 straight series. Scott Diamond (5-1, 1.61) is the only Twins starter with more than 2 wins; all other SPs have combined for a 6.73 ERA.

• With a .413 OBP, Joe Mauer is on track to become the 4th catcher ever with 5 qualifying seasons at .400+, and the first since the 1930s. His career .404 OBP trails only Mickey Cochrane (.419) among catchers with at least 3,000 PAs; next-best is .393. Mauer’s .323 BA is tops all-time, 3 points ahead of Cochrane and 10 ahead of Bill Dickey.
• In his last 11 starts, Ben Revere is 20 for 50 with 10 Runs and just 1 strikeout. Revere has the 2nd-lowest K rate (5.7% of PAs) of anyone with 100+ PAs this year; the lowest is 4.8% by Carlos Lee.

The Angels are within 3 games of Texas, the closest they’ve been since April 12.

• In his return to the Rockies, Jeff Francis had the 2nd-worst start of his 181-start career, by either Runs Allowed or Game Score (both 8).
• It was the 5th time this year that both SPs allowed 10+ hits — and the 3rd in Coors Field.

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If you’re sensing more parity in the standings than usual, you’re right. Through 60 games, the Dodgers had the best record at 38-22. That’s tied for the worst best record in the majors after 60 games in the last 30 years.

There will be no more than 2 teams with a .600+ winning percentage (36+ wins) through 60 games. (Washington has 35 wins with 2 games in hand.) There was only one such team last year, but the previous 20 seasons had an average of 4 teams at .600+ at this juncture. There were 6 such teams in 2006-07, and 8 in 1998.

No AL team has more than 35 wins through 60 games. In every year from 1978 through 2010, at least one team had 36 wins or more through 60 games.