Wednesday

Angels 9, @Orioles 5: Since sliding into the rotation on May 5, Jerome Williams is 4-2, 3.48 in 7 starts. All other Angels starters are 16-27 this year.

• Chris Davis doubled and homered, his 21st of each. The closest Orioles to that sort of 40/40 season: Rafael Palmeiro (39/40) and Brady Anderson (50/37), both in 1996.
• Last 20 games for Adam Jones: 8 HRs, no walks. He’s on track for 34 HRs, 20 walks, 22 SB. Dante Bichette had the only 20/20 year with <20 walks, but that was a strike year. Anyway, no one’s crying while Jones hits .300.

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@Twins 4, Phillies 3: Glen Perkins has had a one-run lead in 10 of his 17 save tries, converting 8; he’s 7 for 7 in others. Does any site have saves broken out by the size of the lead?

• Mike Pelfrey lasted 7 for the first time since his Mets farewell last April.
• Career-high 4 hits for Clete Thomas … but Boyer still leads the all-time Clete 4-hit derby by 7 to 1. No other Cletes have played in the majors. (Meanwhile, Philly’s starter was Tyler Cloyd; the only other MLBer with Cloyd as a first or last name was Clete’s big brother.)

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@Royals 3, Tigers 2: Who told you there’d be a BBQ-sauce facial on their next walk-off win? Hoist with my own petard, I guess.

• Who knew that Lorenzo Cain was just counting down to blast-off? 3-and-2 strikeout … 2-and-2 strikeout … 1-and-2 strikeout … 0-and-2, last-gasp game-tying HR.
• The last such meaningful HR after nothing but whiffs in at least 3 prior PAs was on 2012-08-16, Corey Hart‘s go-ahead slam with 2 outs in the home 8th. Brandon Inge also had a go-ahead slam in the visitors’ 9th on 2009-09-06. (By the way, Inge’s slam gave Detroit a 7-game lead and a 6-game win streak with 26 games to go; they still led by 3 with 4 games left, but finished tied with the Twins and lost the playoff. Not that I’m wallowing….)
• All 3 of the save-blowing hits off Jose Valverde this year have come with 2 outs. For all Detroit’s closing problems before Valverde returned, 3 of the 4 games that they’ve lost when leading after 8 innings are on his account. Look at the HRs he’s allowed: one, two, three, four, five. What do these pitches have in common? There was nothing on them. You cannot be serious about your title hopes if you’re letting this guy pitch important innings going forward.
• David Lough robbed a ribby from Miggy’s basket. One spot Cabrera hasn’t excelled in is late-and-close situations — 5 for 37, 1 RBI. In the 10th, Greg Holland fanned Miggy and Torii Hunter on 3 pitches each.
• Lost in the shuffle: Another strong no-decision for James Shields, his 3rd straight and 6th overall, totaling 9 runs in 43 IP.

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Diamondbacks 8, @Dodgers 6 (12):

• Bases loaded, no outs, already down a run: Not the best time for the guy with the 2nd-lowest K rate among 150 relievers with 20+ IP this year. But when you’re on your 6th reliever, options run thin. Brandon League has now inherited 5 runners this year, and they’ve all scored.
• Not that Heath Bell doesn’t stink, too. Comes in with a 4-run lead and walks 2, the first one bringing up the tying run. Second time in this series he’s allowed a HR to the first batter and then let the next reach base.
• So, they’ve already given up running on Puig. Not that we blame them.
• The same cannot be said of Ethier. That’s a pretty big margin of error on a pretty short throw.

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Astros 6, @Mariners 1: It seemed like a big deal at the time … Nick Franklin‘s 3rd hit of the game put the M’s on top, 1-0, with 2 outs in the home 8th; Franklin is 15 for 50, with a .397 OBP and 7 extra-base hits. But a lot happened after that.

• As you know, I hate the bases-filling intentional walk. I hate it more when the home team does it with a 1-run lead in the 9th. And I hate it most when it goes to a crappy hitter and huge strikeout threat like Carlos Pena. So after Chris Carter foiled that one with a 2-run double, they tried it again — passing Matt Dominguez (.227) to reach Brandon Barnes (.280), and the inning just disintegrated.
• Odds on Jeremy Bonderman tossing 8 shutout innings, even against Houston? His last such outing was in July 2007.
• 6th game this year with 7+ shutout innings by both starters. Houston was in another one just last Sunday.

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@Padres 5, Braves 3:

• Nick Vincent, from nearby Poway, CA, earned his first big-league save, catching Justin Upton on a heater too close to take with the tying runs on. He owns a 1.47 ERA in 31 career innings.
• Logan Forsythe was in the middle of it all for the Padres, and most of his work earned rave reviews — a 2-run single with 2 outs in the 1st, this quick pivot after Headley’s nifty pickup, another DP on a liner, and even this no-glove/no-arm assist in the 9th.
• But Logan’s Run was not a hit. Quiz for the little leaguers: You’re on 2nd with 1 out, bases loaded. Line drive straight at the SS in normal position. Which way are you moving?

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Brewers 10, @Marlins 1: Milwaukee hadn’t a scoreless start after 62 games. Then they get 2 out of 3 against Miami, who’s averaged 2.5 R/G in all non-Mets games.

• What do we like more than triples? More triples! Brewers were the 2nd team this year with 2 bases-loaded triples in one game. From 2009-12, there wasn’t a game with 2 such triples by both teams combined.
• Jonathan Lucroy has two 3-run triples this month. He’s the only catcher with two such triples for 2003-present combined.

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@Athletics 5, Yankees 2: The AL’s last “perfect” closer is Grant Balfour, 17 for 17. But if you look at his stats, it feels like something’s overdue.

• Turns out, just donning the pinstripes didn’t make Vernon Wells better, after all:

• Or Travis Hafner:

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Tuesday

@Padres 3, Braves 2: Seeing Tim Hudson‘s line of 3 runs in 7.1 IP, I wondered how that has played in Petco Park. Not well, it seems; not well at all: Teams whose SP allowed 3 runs in 7 to 7.2 innings are now 13-29 in Petco. Those starters themselves are 11-23. In all other parks since 2004, that SP line has produced a 926-875 mark for the team and 656-648 for the pitcher. That is one tough park.

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Monday

Rangers 6, @Indians 3: Lance Berkman broke a tie in the home 7th with a 2-out, 2-run shot, breaking a 12-game drought (no HRs, 1 RBI, 8 for 45). Jeff Baker had tied it in the 4th with another southpaw blast; that’s 8 dongs in 44 ABs off lefties, 17 hits, 8 walks, busted my calculator.

• Good on Texas for noticing Baker’s splits: From 2008-12, his BA and SLG were near .300 and .500 against lefties, in about 600 PAs, but they signed him for a song.

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@Royals 3, Tigers 2: It’s no longer a question of whether; the game now is to guess which inning will host all the runs tallied off Doug Fister. It goes without saying that 7 of his 8 innings were scoreless, in this CG road loss.

• Miguel Cabrera tagged his 18th HR (first in a week) for a 2-0 lead in the 3rd.
• Fister’s allowed 2 HRs and 12 walks in 85 innings; his ERA should be, what, 2.50? But kee-rist, what trashy defense. This is how the first 2 scored: 3rd & 1st, 1 out, and nothing resembling MLB-caliber play in center; that’s a pretty routine sac fly for a real CF. But Fister shook it off and got the 2nd out, holding the runner. Then, a mundane 6-3, but Peralta just laid back and misjudged Lorenzo Cain’s speed, and KC took the lead. There was another innie to SS earlier in the inning, and another later on. I feel sick.
• I’m too frightened to look up how many infield hits Detroit has yielded this year.
• Fister and Rick Porcello are #2-3 in AL GB/FB ratio, normally a good thing. But besides the hits that get through, each has been backed by just 7 DPs; 21 ALers have more, 13 have 10+.

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Diamondbacks 5, @Dodgers 4: Wow. They keep sending out diving bells, but LA hasn’t found the bottom yet.

• Clayton Kershaw worked out of some scrapes and became the first to 100 IP this year while snipping his ERA to 1.88, and was poised for his first win since May 20.
• Why did Donnie move Puig out of the leadoff spot?
• To recap Nick Punto‘s one-game reign of error atop the batting order: Led off the 1st, 3rd and 5th with outs, none leaving the infield; ended the 7th the same way; and with no outs in the 9th and the tying run on 3rd, winner on 1st, he popped to shallow LF. Then Mark Ellis struck out, and Adrian Gonzalez ended the game with a comebacker. You can guess who was on deck, hoping for a chance at his first 4-hit game.
• That completed a terrible trio of half-innings: LA loaded the bases with no outs in the 8th, but didn’t score, after a Hairston GDP. Top of the 9th, Brandon League suffered his weekly torching — helped by Punto’s inability to hold onto Willie Bloomquist‘s infield hit, as the go-ahead run scored from 2nd — and got the added pleasure of being relieved of duty in front of the home fans, only to watch Peter Moylan cede one last run on a 1-and-2 pitch to Paul Goldschmidt. That run seemed mere salt in the would, but of course, it wound up decisive.
• Puig’s last 3 games: 8 hits, no runs, no RBI. He did get himself out once; or would you call that Parra’s doing?
• Gerardo Parra has 6 assists in 40 games in RF, a couple more from CF, having a great year all around. (Well, excepting his 5-for-12 base-stealing.) In the 9th, his NL-high 21st double put the tying runs in scoring position with 1 out.
• Kershaw has batted 5 times with the bases full … and hit into 3 GDPs, tied for the MLB lead for that situation. The last pitcher with more than 5 GDPs in a year (any situation) was Phil Niekro, 1983 (7).
• Gonzalez has 43 RBI, 8 HRs, and 19 runs. That projects to 110 RBI and 49 runs. Just one 100-RBI man ever scored less than 58 runs: Vic Wertz, 1960 (45 runs, 103 RBI). Wertz had 488 PAs, 19 HRs and a .335 OBP. Gonzalez is pacing 625 PAs, 21 HRs and a .374 OBP. No one with 600+ PAs and a .370+ OBP has ever scored less than 52 runs (that was 36-year-old Ken Singleton). Conclusions: LA’s lineup is godawful, and Gonzalez is the slowest man in the NL outside of catchers (and he’d lose a footrace to most of them, too).