Selected observations on Monday’s action.

Mariners 8 @ Indians 10 Yan Gomes was the hero with a walk-off 3-run HR in the 10th, overcoming a solo shot by Seattle’s Justin Smoak in the top of the inning. It was Gomes’ second long ball of the day, giving him 4 for the season in just 55 PAs. Gomes is one of just 13 hitters so far this season who does NOT have more strikeouts than extra-base hits (min. 5 XBH). In 2012, just 3 players (Albert Pujols, Jose Reyes, Salvador Perez) managed that feat with a minimum of 20 extra-base hits.

Some firsts for the Mariners included a rough outing for Hisashi Iwakuma, allowing 5 runs over 6 innings, with most of the damage coming from back-to-back jacks in a 4-run second inning. In his 10th start, all of at least 5 innings, it was Iwakuma’s first time allowing more than 3 runs. Tom Wilhelmsen had his first blown save after converting 11 chances to start the season. But, it took an error (by Wilhelmsen, also his first) for the Indians to push across the tying run with two outs in the 9th.

Rays 5 @ Blue Jays 7 Toronto broke open a tie game with 3 runs in the 7th, then held on as Casey Janssen had a rare rocky outing in the 9th. It was Toronto’s 4th game this season scoring 7+ runs without a homer, tied for the major-league lead with Boston and Detroit, and matching the Blue Jays’ highest total in any of the past 4 seasons.

R.A. Dickey, who went 8 innings for the first time this season, won his second straight start and allowed only 2 earned runs for the 3rd straight outing. Not sure how long the Jays will stick with 41 year-old Henry Blanco as Dickey’s personal catcher. Blanco inherited that role after J.P. Arencibia looked utterly befuddled by Dickey’s knucklers on opening day. But, Blanco hasn’t been much better with two more passed balls on Monday for a major league-leading total of 7 in only 81 innings of work. Can anyone think of another battery with both players known by their initials?

Yankees 6 @ Orioles 4 After going 109 straight games winning when leading after 7, Baltimore is now streaking the other way with its second straight loss in that situation. More importantly, the Orioles extended their losing streak overall to 7 games, their longest slide since July 2011. The Yankees have been headed the other way, winning 10 of their last 13, and 17 of their last 23. Despite the well-documented absence of 4 long-time starters, the Bombers keep rolling along, helped by 4 players slugging .500+ (min. 50 PA) through yesterday’s action (and another at .493).

One player not included in that .500 slugging group is Ichiro, just 3 for his last 31 including a 5 game swoon with nary a hit or walk, exceeding by two games his longest such previous drought. For his career, Ichiro has just 40 “streaks” of 2 or more games without a hit or walk, but 7 of them have come since the start of last season. Now that Curtis Granderson has returned to the lineup, hard to see Ichiro continuing to start.

Royals 5 @ Astros 6 Houston had an early 3-1 lead but gave up a 3-spot in the 4th on Miguel Tejada‘s first home run of the season. But Houston responded in kind, restoring its lead with a Matt Dominguez 3-run jack in the bottom of the inning. Starter Dallas Keuchel picked up his first W of the season and each of 4 relievers logged a hold or save for Houston’s 13th win, 12 of them when leading after 4 innings.

For Tejada, it was his first homer since July 2011, a span of 22 months. Among players with 300+ home runs, that’s the 3rd longest calendar drought between homers, trailing only Al Simmons (July 1940 to August 1943) and Rogers Hornsby (May 1934 to April 1937). If Tejada can get another homer this season, his 22 months will be the longest drought among the 300 HR club that didn’t include the final homer of a career.

Reds 4 @ Mets 3 Cincinnati went the Astros one better, with 5 relievers logging either a hold or a save, the fourth time this season that a team with a lead has used 4 relievers to get to the closer in a 9-inning game. Prior to the 1993 season, that had happened exactly once in major-league history, in this game, a 7-4 Giant win over the Cubs on May 1, 1990.

For the first time since last June, Aroldis Chapman was riding a streak of back-to-back blown saves. That drought ended in just 11 pitches with a tidy 2-strikeout performance, Chapman’s first save with two punch-outs in his last 8 chances.

Red Sox 4 @ White Sox 6 After a fast start on a 1st inning 3-run jack by Adam Dunn, Chicago cruised to its 20th win, 15 of them saved by Addison Reed. That’s the most saves by a Chicago closer in his team’s first 43 games since Bobby Thigpen saved 16 of Chicago’s 28 wins to start the 1990 campaign (how long ago was that – Thigpen was shaking hands with Carlton Fisk and current Sox manager Robin Ventura after some of those games).

Don’t look now, but Dunn has 5 homers and 13 RBI in his last 7 games, good for a .360/.429/1.040 slash, and “only” 8 whiffs. This was Dunn’s 5th game of the young season in which he homered and didn’t strike out, only one game less than his total for all of 2012.

Dodgers 3 @Brewers 1  Clayton Kershaw was Clayton Kershaw, and Milwaukee had no shot. Kershaw held the brew crew to just 3 hits in a 107 pitch complete game, lowering his majors-leading ERA to 1.35. If, as he did in 2011 and 2012, Kershaw should repeat as the major-league ERA leader, he would be the first to do so in 3 successive seasons since  Greg Maddux in 1993-95, and the first to do so in 3 consecutive full seasons since Lefty Grove in 1929-31.

Nats 0 @ Giants 8 Bruce Bochy got 5 shutout innings from Ryan Vogelsong and his teammates did the rest, as the Giants broke a streak of 6 games allowing 5 or more runs. With his first start of the season allowing less than 3 runs, Vogelsong broke an ugly 4 game slide in which he allowed 27 runs (21 earned) in just 16 innings of work.

Brandon Belt did the damage for the G-men with a 4-hit, 4-run game, the first by a Giant since the 2010 season, and the first by a Giant first baseman since the immortal Phil Weintraub in 1944 (Weintraub’s 4 hits were all for extra bases, one of only 25 times by a Giant since 1916, and one of only 18 times by a Giant not named Bonds, Mays or Ott)

That’s all, folks!