@Rays 5, Royals 3 / @White Sox 2, Yankees 1: I went to a coronation, and a pennant race broke out! Tampa’s surge has shaved New York’s division lead to 3 games.

Tampa went 1 for 13 with RISP, leaving ducks on the pond in each of the first 7 innings. But they had the game’s only HR, and twice scored a man from 1st on a double.

• Fernando Rodney retired the side in order for his 39th save, trimming his ERA to 0.77 in 58.2 IP. There’s been just one season in modern history with 60+ IP and an ERA below 0.90. Rodney, with a prior career ratio of 1.69 SO/BB, has 57 SO and just 10 walks this year.
• When you’re going this well, even pinch-running seems to work like a charm.
• The afternoon crowd of just under 12,000 was the largest of the 3-game set. Tampa’s average of 20,104 is last in the majors. But consider how attendance expectations have changed: that same average would have been 2nd in MLB every year from 1952-57, and it topped the Yankees’ average for every season from 1962-75. As recently as the 2000 season, eight other teams averaged under 20,000.

In his first start against the Bombers, Chris Sale racked up 13 Ks (only Verlander has more this century), tied his career-best 81 Game Score, and earned his 15th win. Alex Rios answered Derek Jeter‘s game-tying HR in the 6th with his 20th in the bottom half. Besides the Captain’s HR, the Yankees had 2 doubles, a single and a walk, and never advanced a baserunner.

• Phil Hughes pitched well, but the Rios HR was the 29th he’s allowed in 149.2 IP. His rate of 1.74 HR/9 would be the 2nd-highest ever by a qualified Yankee, trailing only Terry Mulholland‘s 1.79 from 1994.
• Derek Jeter set a personal best by homering in his 3rd straight game. He’s hitting .330 with RISP, but 11 of his 13 HRs have been solo shots.
• Sale is 15-4, .789. The only qualified White Sox with a better W% were swingman Sandy Consuegra, 1954 (16-3, .842 in exactly 154 IP, also led the league in ERA+) and Eddie Cicotte‘s famous 1919 season (29-7, .806)
• The 23-year-old Sale has 152 IP, more than double his prior high as a pro. Time to shut him down, no?
• The last time the Yanks were swept in Chicago in a series of 3 or more was 1991.

Giants 8, @Dodgers 4: Chris Capuano had a 2.17 ERA at home. San Francisco was 26-13 vs. lefty starters. Something had to give, so LA played the gracious hosts and the Giants completed the sweep, moving 2.5 games up in the division race. Joaquin Arias powered the offense with career highs of 5 RBI and 3 extra-base hits. Leadoff man Angel Pagan led off 5 innings, reached base thrice and scored each time. Matt Cain walked none and allowed 1 run for the 2nd straight game.

• So who’s the last Giant to rap 3 XBH including a HR, in a game that he started at SS? Juan Uribe? Pedro Feliz? Surely Rich Aurilia did it at least once? Matt Williams had 2 HRs and a double on 1988-09-24, but he only played the last inning at SS. The answer is Chris Speier, and the date was 1975-07-28. (Speier hit for the cycle on 1988-07-09 — at the age of 38 — but he played 2B that day.)
• Pablo Sandoval hasn’t homered in 20 games since the Break.
• In his last 53 games, Andre Ethier has 2 HRs and 17 RBI.

@Rangers 12, Orioles 3: One of those hot nights in Arlington. Adrian Beltre put Texas up with HRs in the 2nd and 4th, then went deep again in the 4th to cap a 9-run eruption. Beltre’s first 3-HR game gave him 332 dingers, tied for 9th among third basemen along with Aramis Ramirez. Baltimore’s loss dropped them a half-game behind Oakland for the 2nd wild card.

• With his first grand slam and a sac fly, Mitch Moreland became the first #9 hitter with 5 RBI since last April.
• Three HRs in 3 IP for Tommy Hunter, who faced 8 men in the 4th and retired none. With 32 HRs in 121 IP, Hunter’s 2.38 HR/9 would be the highest ever with 120+ IP. It also raised his career rate to 1.62 HR/9, 5th-highest ever with at least 75 starts.

Braves 5, @Nationals 1: Coming off his first shutout, Kris Medlen delivered a much-needed encore for 7 innings at a time when Atlanta runs had suddenly become rare as hens’ teeth. They tallied just twice before an error-aided splurge in the 9th. Atlanta salvaged the series finale, but with a 6-game deficit and only 3 more against Washington, they face long odds to avoid the WC do-or-die game.

• Pitchers batting against Ross Detwiler were 1 for 32 with 1 walk and 18 Ks. But Medlen drew a 4-pitch walk with 2 out and a man on in the 5th, setting up Martin Prado‘s 2-run double that broke a scoreless tie. Medlen has just 7 hits in 57 career ABs, but he’s accepted 6 walks.
• Michael Bourn‘s 9th-inning trip around the bases: RBI single, wild pitch, steal & overthrow. His 84th run gave him the #2 spot in the NL.
• Medlen has allowed 3 runs in his 5 starts, and for the year he has a 1.86 ERA in 87 IP. The only live-ball Brave with 100+ IP and an ERA that low was Greg Maddux, 1994-95 (1.56, 1.63).

@Cardinals 4, Astros 2: With “SD 4, PIT 2” going on the board early, Kyle Lohse buckled down after a couple of solo HRs and allowed just one more safety in his 7 low-key innings. Jon Jay tied it with a single in the 5th, taking 2nd on the throw and 3rd on a groundout, and scored the decisive run on a wild pitch.

• Lohse is now 13-2 record, but with 8 QS/NDs. Not cheapies, either; a total of 10 runs allowed (9 ER) in 53 IP in those 8 games, but the Cards totaled just 18 runs. What would the CYA race look like if Lohse were, say, 18-2?

@Padres 4, Pirates 2: A winning debut for Andrew Werner, the undrafted free agent who apprenticed with the Frontier League’s Evansville Otters and Windy City ThunderBolts before latching on with San Diego through a try-out camp. He seems to be the first player out of the 2010 Frontier League to reach the majors. Pittsburgh is 8-13 in August and has slipped a half-game behind St. Louis in the battle for WC#2, with the Dodgers another half-game back.

• Wait — Garrett Jones made which out, at what base, while trailing by 2 runs? Pressing, people!
• James McDonald had an 0.97 WHIP at the Break, but 1.86 since then. As someone once told me, “It’s a game of regression to the mean.”

@Tigers 3, Blue Jays 2: After losing a wild-card showdown with the Orioles, Detroit welcomed these birds of a different feather, who’ve now lost 18 of 23. The decisive run came in the 6th on Prince Fielder‘s single, after southpaw Aaron Laffey intentionally passed Miguel Cabrera. Following Cabrera’s 12 IBBs this year, Fielder has produced 5 RBI singles, a sac fly, 2 walks (1 intentional) and 4 outs, with 1 DP.  So far, so good, sayeth Mike Ilitch….

• Detroit’s average attendance of just under 38,000 is 2nd in franchise history.

@Brewers 3, Cubs 2: The reigning MVP homered, tripled and doubled, and now leads the NL in HRs, RBI, Slugging, Total Bases, Extra-Base Hits, and just for fun, LF Range Factor. (What was his name again?)

• Yovani Gallardo has won 5 straight starts, going 7+ on 3 runs or less each time. He’s working on his 4th straight year averaging 9 SO/9 or better; there are just 2 others in Brewers history.
• Can you name the four different Brewers who’ve previously led the league in Total Bases? (Answers here.)
• Travis Wood lost his 7th straight decision over 8 starts.
• Through May 15, Bryan LaHair had 10 HRs and a 1.175 OPS. His HR Wednesday was his 15th and his first since July 4, snapping a 31-game drought in which he went 11 for 77 with 32 Ks. Yet he still has a higher OPS+ than the heralded Anthony Rizzo, who has found his own funk lately, no HRs and 4 RBI in his last 17 games. It’s a looooong season.
• Chicago completed a 1-6 road trip, after going 0-6 on their last excursion. They’re 30-28 at home, but 17-48 outside the Friendly Confines.

@Diamondbacks 3, Marlins 2 (1st game): Five weeks after his 21st birthday, Tyler Skaggs earned a win in his MLB debut. Skaggs struck out his first batter on 3 pitches, struck out the side in the 5th, and worked around 5 walks to last 6.2 IP, the 2nd-longest debut in Arizona history. Before the call-up, he was the youngest pitcher in the PCL (2.91 ERA in 9 starts), and before that, the 3rd-youngest pitcher in the Southern League (2.84 in 13 starts).

• Jacob Turner notched his first QS in his NL debut (7th career start), didn’t walk a man and fanned 5. But he couldn’t solve Aaron Hill, who drove in all 3 runs with go-ahead hits in the 1st and 3rd, including his 18th HR.
• Justin Ruggiano (.328/1.004 in 215 PAs) would be the 2nd Marlin ever with a 1.000 OPS in 200+ PAs. Gary Sheffield did it in 1995-96.
• Who knew? Arizona has the best Pythagorean record in the NL West, and they’re 13-8 against the Dodgers & Giants combined. Nine of their last 27 games are against San Francisco.

@Diamondbacks 3, Marins 0 (2nd game): In what may have been the first all-Wade matchup, the All-Star rookie Wade Miley unspooled a personal-best 8 scoreless innings with a walk and 5 Ks, as the Snakes captured the twinbill.

• Miley is 14-8, 2.80 in 151 IP, with a 154 ERA+. The last qualified rookie with an ERA+ of at least 150 was Brandon Webb, 2003.