@Orioles 10, Yankees 6: It took just 4 pitches to erase all the momentum of New York’s 5-run, game-tying 8th. David Robertson meant to climb the ladder with a 1-and-2 fastball, but he missed a rung or two, and by the time the fireworks were through — 3 HRs in a span of 14 pitches, capped by a casual left-on-lefty’s-curveball blast — Baltimore had climbed back into a first-place tie, with a leg up in the season series. Their 6 HRs for the game set a new club high against the Bombers.

• The bombardment covered up the puzzling inaction of Buck Showalter during the top of the 8th. Pedro Strop came in with 2 outs, 2 on and a 6-2 lead, then gave up an RBI single, a bags-filling walk to Russell Martin (.203 BA), and a 4-pitch (none close) walk to PH journeyman Chris Dickerson. That made it 6-4 and brought up Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most successful bases-loaded hitters of our generation. It also meant that Strop had retired just 7 of his last 17 batters. But Showalter stayed in the dugout, and Ichiro pulled a 1-1 pitch through the right side to tie the game. It was eerily similar to last Saturday’s game, when Strop came in with 2 out and 2 on and walked his first 2 men (including Ichiro) to tie the game.
• It was the 2nd time Robertson has allowed 2 HRs in a game, both against Baltimore.
• Jason Hammel also started the last time the O’s hit 6 HRs — but he was pitching for Tampa, and gave up the first 3 taters. (Alas, he was gone before his team rallied to win with 11 runs in the 8th, on 8 singles, 3 walks and a double.)
• Derek Lowe, who mopped up for New York, started and won the only time the Yankees ever allowed more than 6 HRs, back on July 4, 2003.
• Yanks are now 4-21 when they don’t hit a HR, and 1-12 when allowing 3 or more. They’ve allowed 162 HRs this year, 3rd-most in the AL and 4th in MLB. Friday’s starter, Phil Hughes, leads the majors with 32 HRs and served up 2 to Reynolds last Sunday.
• Russell Martin, your team is down 4-0 in the 3rd with no outs. Where were you going? Naturally, the next two men singled, but the Yanks didn’t score.
• The loss dropped New York’s all-time record in Camden Yards to 104-57. They’re 4-2 this year in the House that Cal Built.

Rangers 5, @Royals 4 (10):  Consecutive HRs by Josh Hamilton and Adrian Beltre wiped out KC’s 3-0 lead in the 4th and Ian Kinsler‘s leadoff three-bagger set up the winning run, as Texas locked up a 4th straight winning season for the first time in club history.

• Kinsler’s triple — by far the biggest WPA event of the game — got no individual mention among the MLB.com highlight clips, but it’s in here somewhere.
• Texas southpaw Michael Kirkman had faced 130 lefty batters and never allowed a home run. Eric Hosmer had just 3 HRs in 335 career trips against portsiders. But past performance is no guarantee….
• Both Hamilton and Beltre have higher HR rates on the road this year.
• Beltre will soon become the 11th third baseman since 1893 with 60+ WAR, and ranks 18th all-time in WAR batting runs from the hot corner. He’s 4th among AL position players with 5.5 WAR this year.
• Joe Nathan, who notched save #30 and his 28th in a row, has issued just 8 walks in 54.1 IP, easily the best walk rate of his career.
• “Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Frenchy’s first HR in a month!”

@Braves 1, Rockies 0: Baseball-Reference.com is counting down to a half-million errors in MLB history. Has there ever been one so simple, so rare and ultimately so costly as this? Seven shutout stanzas by Tim Hudson earned his 14th win this year and 195th of his career.

• Colorado’s Charlie Blackmon (4-0-4-0) logged this year’s 11th game of 4+ hits with no Runs or RBI.
• Atlanta’s 78-60 record would lead 3 of the other 5 divisions, but they trail the Nats by 7.5 games.
• Since 1920, the Play Index finds no other cases of consecutive wins with no RBI. (The P-I returns from 1918-19 are unreliable because many box scores are missing the RBI data.0
• Rockies are the first team since 1987 to lose consecutive games allowing no earned runs.
• Since 1981, there have been 12 cases of back-to-back 1-0 wins, and each pair featured a lone opponent. Not since 1980 has the feat been split against two foes.
• The Braves last won consecutive 1-0 games in 1971. In the first of those, pitcher Pat Jarvis led off the 9th with a single, just the 3rd hit off Fred Norman. The next batter singled to CF, Cito Gaston kicked it, and Jarvis came all the way around to win the game. (Norman would finish the year 3-12 with a 3.57 ERA; the next year, he won 9 games total, 6 of them shutouts.)
• “Well, duh.” Rockies have been blanked back-to-back 8 times in club history, but never at home.
• What are the odds? In Hudson’s 24 starts, Atlanta has tallied every run total from 0 to 12 at least once. (Jim Bouldin, we’re looking at you….)

@Nationals 9, Cubs 2: Kurt Suzuki blasted a 1-and-2 hanger for a 3-run HR, wiping out an early deficit, and Jordan Zimmermann retired 12 of the next 13 men en route to his 10th win.

• Adam LaRoche homered for the 4th straight game, tying a franchise record shared by 9 others.
• After scoring 7 runs total in a 5-game skid, Washington has averaged 8 per game in winning 8 of their last 9, totaling 24 HRs and at least 1 per game.
• The Nats have scored 9+ in 3 straight games, for the 2nd time this year and 10th in franchise history. Their record is 4, set in 1995.
• The Cubs have lost 6 straight over all and 8 straight on the road. They’re on pace for 101 losses (rounding down); their last 100-loss year was 1966, when Fergie was a rookie and they tied the club record of 103 losses.
• Was it an East Coast/West Coast feud? Bo Porter came out of Weequahic HS in Newark, NJ, while Jamie Quirk hails from Whittier, CA. (Pop quiz: Name a famous tragic figure — one fictional, one real — associated with each locale.)
• If Anthony Rizzo maintains his current pace, he’ll be the first Cub since Mel Hall in 1983 to post an OPS+ of 120 or better at age 22 or under (min. 250 PAs).
• Add Venezuela native Miguel Socolovich to the Incongruous Name Collection.

@Marlins 6, Brewers 2: I’ve been up and down this box score, and here’s all I’ve got: Norichika Aoki‘s goulash of 3B, SB, HBP, SF and GDP is unique in the searchable annals.

• Cool! Livan Hernandez racked up 3 relief wins with Milwaukee while we weren’t looking, nudging him back over .500 at 178-177. One of these days, we won’t have ol’ Bobo … I mean, ol’ Livan to kick around any more.

Belated report:

Angels 7, @Athletics 1: A 3-game sweep in Oakland (combined score 21-5) kept the Halos’ hopes alive, closing their gap to 2.5 games. These teams’ final 4-game set starts Monday in the Big A.

Random Notes:

Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg would be the 8th & 9th qualified SPs to average 11 SO/9, and the first since 2003. Strasburg needs at least 5.2 IP in his one(?) remaining start to stay qualified.

The Yankees’ last two home weekend series hold delicious playoff implications — Tampa on Sept. 14-16 and Oakland on Sept. 21-23. The A’s, currently holding the 2nd WC, sit a half-game behind the Yanks/Orioles, and 1.5 games ahead of the Rays.

The last time the A’s and Yanks played meaningful September games was 2005, Sept. 2-4 in the Coliseum. The A’s romped in the opener, 12-0, which left them tied for the West lead and 1 game up on New York and Cleveland in the WC race. But the next day, Aaron Small came up big, tossing the only shutout of his career, helping the Yanks take the last two games and starting a 12-16 skid for the A’s that dropped them out of the playoff picture.