Rangers 6, @Cardinals 4: What began as a slugfest wound up as an odd sort of pitchers’ duel. It was 4-all in the 2nd, and none would have thought it could stay so to the 9th. Derek Holland yielded 4 doubles and 4 runs in the first 2 innings, then pitched 5 no-hit innings. Cards starter Tyler Lyons gave back a 3-run lead in the 2nd after walking Holland and Kinsler with 2 outs, but erstwhile trashman Joe Kelly shouldered the yoke and plowed straight to the 7th, logging a career-best 5 scoreless innings.

In the end, it was Nelson Cruz coming through with a 2-run single off Trevor Rosenthal, his 2nd go-ahead hit of the game, set up by Rosenthal’s sac-bunt error and ensuing wild pitch.

• The count was 2 and 1 to Cruz after the wild pitch, with 1st base open. What about walking him to set up the DP for Beltre? I agree with Mike Matheny here. Rosenthal-Cruz is a great strikeout chance; 34% K rate for Rosenthal this year, 24% for Cruz. Beltre fans only half as much as Cruz, and also DP’d in just 10% of chances since 2011, while Rosenthal’s career DP rate is 8%. It didn’t work — Cruz bounced a 2-and-2 pitch up the middle, and, ironically, Beltre hit into a DP — but I like the call.
• Mitch Moreland came off the DL like he’d never been gone, with an RBI double in the early comeback.

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@Nationals 2, Rockies 1: Ian Desmond greeted Manny Corpas with a HR on a 2-0 count, breaking a tie in the 7th and leading the Nats closer to 1st place than they’ve been this month. Stephen Strasburg was both sharp and efficient for 7 innings in his 2nd start off the DL, with 9 Ks and no walks on 95 pitches, collecting his first win in 5 weeks. Drew Storen‘s throwing error put the tying run on 2nd with 1 out in the 8th, but he atoned by fanning CarGo and Cuddy. Colorado’s scored 7 runs during their 5-game skid, with one RBI combined from their two remaining sluggers. Besides Desmond’s blast, the only other Nats to reach 2nd base came with 2 outs in the 6th, when Ryan Zimmerman doubled home Anthony Rendon to tie the game with the only run off Tyler Chatwood.

• Desmond’s homered in 3 straight for the first time, and has 6 HRs, 20 RBI in 18 games this month — same as the next 3 Nats put together.

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@D-backs 11, Reds 4: The first of 2 HRs by Paul Goldschmidt broke a tie in a 4-run 5th, and they put it away with 4 more the next inning and cruised to a 3rd straight win at home. Willie Bloomquist had 2 key hits, a 2-out, 2-run single for a 3-0 lead in the 2nd, and a leadoff knock in front of Goldy’s tiebreaker; he’s batting .345 for the year, all in June, after starting out on the DL. Johnny Cueto had his first clunker in this injury-pocked year, giving up 7 runs for the first time since 2010.

• Didi Gregorius had 3 hits and his first extra-bagger in 11 games,
• Despite losing 7 of 12, Arizona holds the same 2.5-game lead they had on June 7.
• Goldschmidt owns three multi-HR games, all coming since this May; he has 14 HRs and 47 RBI in 45 games since May 1.
• Will Harris struck out Todd Frazier to preserve a tie in the 5th with men on the corners, and became this year’s 27th one-batter winner.

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@Blue Jays 7, Orioles 6: Rajai Davis singled with 2 outs in the 9th, giving Toronto a seesaw win and a roller-coaster ride back to .500 with their 9th straight win.

Was the ball flying out of the Rogers Centre? Ask Munenori Kawasaki. His career first, with 2 outs and a man on, tied the game in the 7th, matched his career high of 3 RBI, and evened the derby at 3 per side. It started with Adam Lind‘s 2-run drive in the first, on 1-and-2 after Edwin Encarnacion‘s 2-out double. The O’s came back on a solo by J.J. Hardy and Chris Davis‘s 3-run jack (just his 3rd to LF), taking a 5-3 lead. They swapped solos, including E.E.’s 20th, before Kawasaki connected off Tommy Hunter, the first time this year he’s surrendered a lead.

When Maicer Izturis led off the 9th with a hit and moved up on a sac bunt, Buck Showalter ordered a walk to PH Mark DeRosa, preferring Kawasaki (and a potential DP) despite his big game. They got the grounder, but too slow for any out save at 1st, and Pedro Strop came in for Davis. O’s fans weren’t shocked by that outcome: Pedro’s been a flame accelerant since last August, now with a 7.01 ERA and 1.90 WHIP in his last 46 games, letting in 12 of 22 inherited.

• Darren O’Day, one of the game’s true firemen, cleaned up after Hunter left men on the corners, fanning Jose Bautista to end that, then retiring Encarnacion to start the 8th. He’s stranded 13 of 17 inherited runners this year, 50 of 60 since the O’s got him off waivers before 2012, ranking 5th in strand rate among the 66 who’ve inherited at least 40 in that span (min. 60 IP).
• This was the first one-run win in Toronto’s 9-game streak. They allowed just 14 runs over the first 8 wins, but the bats have played just as big a role, scoring almost 6 runs per game.
• Baltimore leads the majors with 101 HRs, but also with 103 HRs allowed. Toronto’s #2 with 94 hit, but they’ve served up 89.
• Davis has 2 of the Jays’ 4 walk-off hits this year, including the 18-inning game, both times coming off the bench in late innings with multiple hits.

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Red Sox 10, @Tigers 6: Shane Victorino had his first 4-hit game for Boston and tied his career best with 5 RBI, and the Sawx plastered 17 hits to stay out of a save chance. Doug Fister has the AL’s 2nd-best GB/FB ratio, making Boston (2nd-lowest GB ratio) a very bad matchup, since fly-ball hitters do better off ground-ball pitchers. Fister allowed 11 hits for the 2nd straight time against them; he’s 1-4 in 7 starts, allowing 5+ runs in each loss. Coming into the game, Boston had hit .286 off those classed as ground-ball pitchers, .262 off the fly-ball guys.

• Miguel Cabrera had 4 hits and a walk, pushing his OPS back up to 1.104. He brought Detroit close with a 3-run shot in the 5th, leaving Jon Lester thinking: You did not hit a home run on that pitch. But it wasn’t so good to be Prince tonight: 0 for 5 with 2 GDPs, his 7th straight game with no RBI. Cabrera was wiped out on both those DPs, and scored only on his HR.
• Miggy’s 20 taters have produced 43 runs: 4 solos, 10 deuces, and 6 worth three or more.
• Just back from a minor-league banishment due to control problems, Al Alburquerque walked 2 and loosed a scoring wild pitch, his 7th WP in just 15 IP. OK, both walks were intentional, but the 2nd was so only after the wild pitch. Not sure why he was brought back up after walking 13 in 14.1 IP at AAA. His combined majors-and-minors stats are like Nuke Laloosh on acid: 29.2 IP, 53 strikeouts, 28 walks (2 IBB). Just 42% of batters have put the ball in play. (Fascist!)

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@Yankees 6, Rays 2: Thursday’s first hit earned a start in LF for Zoilo Almonte, which he paid back with 3 knocks and his first HR. (“Zoilo! Zoilo!”) New York’s 11 hits were their most since a May 29 loss to the Mets, and 6 runs doubled their average in the prior 25 games (10-15).

• The Roberto Hernandez reclamation effort continues to founder — 5.14 ERA, 5 QS in 14 games — and you wonder if he’ll get to face the Yanks again, even in their depleted condition. He’s lost both starts this year, 5 ER each time, and is now 1-7 with a 7.66 ERA against them, with 9 straight non-quality starts after an initial success.
• Two more Ks in a clean 7th by thoroughly modern Shawn Kelley. Out of 91 batters, the defense has been used just 31 times: 43 whiffs, 12 walks, 5 HRs.
• It’s not just the lineup that’s brought down the Yanks of late. Their QS rate was 57% in the first 2 months (31 for 54), but 37% in June (7 for 19).
• Team W% is .562 this year when the starting leadoff man scores exactly 1 run, .406 when he doesn’t score. (Just checking.)

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Pirates 5, @Angels 2: Two Bucco HRs in the 2nd, by Pedro Alvarez and Jordy Mercer (hitting 9th in a DH game), helped send Jered Weaver to his 3rd straight loss (4 HRs, 6.62 ERA) while pushing Pittsburgh back into 2nd place with the majors’ 2nd-best record. Gerrit Cole showed off his 3-figure heat, and he also found his strikeout pitch (not necessarily related), fanning 5 in 6.1 IP to win his 3rd straight start. He got Albert twice, so I guess we forgive Pujols for admiring this one, even though it only made the score 4-1 in the 7th.

• Mercer’s HR was the Pirates’ first by a starting #9 hitter since Ross Ohlendorf’s 3-run shot in Sept. 2011.
• Mr. Cole, meet Myrl Brown, the last Pirate to break in by winning 3 straight starts, 91 years ago. Or maybe just forget about Myrl; his MLB performance lasted just one month and seems to have left a sour taste behind.
• Say, what’s up with that 1924 article on Myrl Brown in the Reading Eagle? The author said Brown went 5-2 with Pittsburgh in 1922; he actually went 3-1, and the Bucs went 4-3 in the games he pitched. The author said Brown was “hailed as one of the most promising prospects” for 1923; if so, it must have been a thin year for prospects. Brown’s ERA was 5.97 in 35 innings with Pittsburgh, and he’d gone 63-68 with an ERA around 4.00 in his 4 years with Reading. Looks like a case of jilted fandom and damn-the-details bitterness.

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@Padres 5, Dodgers 2: The Battle of Clayton’s Hill never came off, as Clayton Richard went down on his 2nd pitch, giving Tim Stauffer the emergency “start”. And although the leadoff man reached in all 4 of his innings, Stauffer limited the damage to one 1st-inning run to pick up his first win since 2011. Chris Denorfia answered that opening tally with a full-count HR off Clayton Kershaw, and the top of the order created 3 runs in the 3rd, paced by Chase Headley‘s 2-run triple. San Diego won their 8th straight home game, improving to 24-14 at Petco, 7-4 vs. the Dodgers, and 13-7 this month.

• Logan Forsythe has ably filled in as a leadoff man, reaching in 7 of 14 trips, with 4 runs in 3 games.
• When you laser it to the cutoff man, good things can happen.
• Kershaw allowed 4 ER for just the 2nd time in his past 28 starts, but despite his 2.06 ERA this year, the team is just 8-8 behind him.
• Yasiel Puig went 2 for 4 with his 8th infield hit. He’s only hit 9 fly balls, but 4 have gone the distance.
• Hanley Ramirez has started 4 straight for the first time this year, collecting 9 hits with a .688 OBP and 5 RBI. LA still lost 3 of 4.
• The last HR by Adrian Gonzalez came in Puig’s June 3 debut. In the next 16 games, he’s 14-64 with 3 RBI.
• It’s been that kind of year: Dodger pinch-hitters are 16 for 83, 25 Ks, 5 walks, 6 GDPs.
• It’s getting to where you can’t tell the flops without a scorecard: Which LA team lost 5-2 behind their former 20-game winner on the road, and sits 10 games back, and which did that at home to fall 9.5 behind?

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Mets 4, @Phillies 3: I won’t stop disliking this play, but I have to report when it works: Men on the corners and 1 out in the 5th, Jeremy Hefner put down a straight sac bunt. And Eric Young — a career .246 hitter with 2 outs, .217 with 2 outs and RISP and .147 with 2 strikes — stroked a 2-and-2 grounder through the middle to tie the game. The Phils threatened right back, but with 2 outs and 3 on, Juan Lagares ran down a long drive straight over him to quash their last rally, and a few minutes later, his 2-out double in the gap put the Mets on top. Bobby Parnell whiffed Ryan Howard to convert his 3rd straight one-run save.

• Parnell has just 12 saves, but 7 were very high leverage; only Joe Nathan has more saves with aLI of 2.50 or greater.
• Last year and this, the Mets are 3-9 at home against the Phillies, but 9-4 as guests.
• It might seem that the Mets are just copycatting the 9 other teams that have beaten Cole Hamels this year, but they’ve won more games started by Hamels than any team, 14 of 23.
• I’ve noticed several long running catches by Lagares, who’s finally getting some real playing time after a series of pointless experiments, but I don’t trust my eyes to evaluate defense. Now I see his dWAR is off the charts. In about 26 games’ worth of innings, he has 1.2 dWAR, and a very big range factor. Since Rick Ankiel was released on June 11, Lagares has started 7 games in CF, going 9 for 28 with 4 extra-base hits.

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@Brewers 2, Braves 0: Thanks to Wily Peralta‘s best game of the year, Milwaukee didn’t need any production beyond what they’ve usually had from the top of the order. Norichika Aoki and Jean Segura paired up for 6 of their 8 hits, including the shortstop’s 11th dinger, and Peralta — who still leads the NL in hits and ER after this 2-hit, 7-scoreless outing — led the way to their 2nd shutout in a week.

It wasn’t strikeouts this time that stymied Atlanta’s scoring chances, but more of bad timing and a bit of bad luck. Starter Julio Teheran hit in the middle of their two best rallies: In the 3rd, he bunted into lead force-out after 2 opening walks (nice wheel, dubious call), so the ensuing deep fly went for naught. In the 5th, men on the corners, Teheran gave away his intentions too soon on a safety squeeze, and Peralta’s push-pass nipped B.J. Upton at home. Aoki made a fine catch to end that top half, and Segura’s well-placed wall-scraper led off the bottom. Back in a set-up role, Francisco Rodriguez continued his comeback year with a clean, 2-K 8th, and Jim Henderson survived his own wildness for his first save in a month, getting Dan Uggla to fly out after 2 walks. Uggla is 6 for 47 with RISP.

• In 14.1 IP, K-Rod’s allowed 1 run and 10 baserunners, and has not let go of a lead.
• Carlos Gomez whiffed in all 3 ABs (twice in RBI spots), and got picked off 1st with a man on 3rd and 1 out in the opening frame.

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@Indians 5, Twins 1: Just when you thought they were ready to fold after a 5-16 stretch, the Tribe have won 7 of 9 to climb right back into the Central race. Scott Kazmir powered through Minnesota for 7 innings, beating them for the 2nd time in as many tries this year (combined 13 IP, 14 Ks, 1 walk). Cleveland didn’t tattoo the ball themselves, but exploited 4 walks (3 in two scoring frames) and got 3 run-scoring hits with RISP, while the Twins had none of the above.

• Beat the teams you’re supposed to beat: Cleveland is 19-8 against clubs under .500. They face mostly so-so teams until their next with Detroit on July 5, when they’ll look to improve their 2-6 mark vs. the Tigers.
• As long as Caleb Thielbar‘s still perfect, I’m happy. But we do need a hit for Caleb Gindl.

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Thursday Leftovers

@Cardinals 6, Cubs 1: Lance Lynn had to scrape by with just 6 runs, which is below his average for both this year and last. Twenty-three of his 44 starts since 2012 have been backed by 6+ runs, tops in that field. But don’t call him just a run-support wonder. The less his support, the better Lynn’s pitched: 4.09 ERA with 6+ runs (23 GS); 3.23 ERA with 3-5 runs (15 GS); 2.68 ERA with 0-2 runs (6 GS). His record is 2-3 with 0-2 runs, which is excellent.

• Yadi hit cleanup and went 2-2-1-0 with 2 walks. He’d started 14 prior games there, with little success: 8 for 53, no HRs. But he’s raking for his last 25 games, hitting .451 with 21 RBI, 13 doubles, shooting his season BA up to .366, tops in the majors. He’s hit .322 since 2011, tied with Braun for 3rd-best (1,000+ PAs), one point behind Posey.
• From 1901-92, catchers had 49 seasons batting .315 or better with 450+ PAs. From 1993-2012, there were 29 such seasons — 3 of them last year, and all 3 on track to repeat.

— What’s behind Starlin Castro‘s offensive collapse this year? It’s easy to say that he’s never mastered the strike zone, and it’s finally caught up to him. But it’s interesting to compare his ball/strike count splits for 2012 and 2013. His stats when behind in the count are almost identical; the big drop is when even or ahead. All those counts are occurring at about the same rates as last year — but not the times that he hits the first pitch:

• 2012–.294 BA/.860 OPS (6 HRs in 102 ABs)
• 2013–.208 BA/.532 OPS (no HRs in 24 ABs)

His first-pitch-in-play rate has dropped by almost half, from over 1/7 of his times up in 2012 to 1/13 this year. Who knows if that’s a change in his approach, or an adjustment by pitchers who’ve seen his first-pitch success. But he’s winding up with more trips that begin with a 1-0 count, an edge he’s not exploiting, and also more trips that start off 0-1, which is not good for anyone.

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@Twins 8, ChiSox 4: Six home runs ties the Target Field record, and just the 2nd game there this year with at least 2 HRs for each team.

It’s the 4th time the Twins have hit 4 HRs at Target, matching the combined total for Detroit and Oakland. Oddities: (a) The A’s hit 4 HRs in back-to-back Target games last July, games 2 and 3 of a series, with 3 out of 4 hitters repeating; the other guy homered in games 1 and 3. (b) Jhonny Peralta homered in 5 straight games at Target, from 2010-09-02 through 2011-07-22 — and has no HRs in 27 other games there.

• Speaking of hitting catchers … Three knocks by Joe Mauer gave him 1,357 for his career, tied with V-Mart for #35 on the modern list of players who caught at least 50% of their games. (Will Martinez stay on that list? He’s caught just 26 games since the start of 2011, none this year. But he’s still almost 500 games away from falling under 50% — and at the rate he’s going, he won’t last another 500 games as a DH.)
• Mauer is also #34 in times on base among modern catchers, #30 in walks. I’d have thought he’d fare better than that in walks, as he’s averaged 85 per 162 games. But now that I think of it, it seems there have been a fair number of catchers who walked a lot — and also quite a few who rarely walked. What do you think? — is there a wider range in walk rates for catchers than for the total population?

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@Angels 10, Mariners 9: So you blow a 7-0 lead with your ace on the hill. You go on top again in the 8th, but are tied right back in the home half, and face men on 3rd and 1st, no outs. You get a grounder and throw out that lead man at the plate, but somehow the others wind up at 3rd and 2nd on the the play.* You walk a man to set up the force, and then get a spectacular one by your all-world defensive shortstop, killing another run at the plate.

And after all that, when you’re past the heart of the order, you walk Alberto Callaspo on 4 pitches. You are, after all, the Seattle Mariners.

* This play was curiously absent from the MLB video clips, including the 4-minute recap. Where’s our Zapruder? Even the A.P. story skipped over it: “Bourjos singled, stole second, advanced on a throwing error and tied it on Erick Aybar’s RBI single…. Seattle walked Trumbo to load the bases with one out….” Yes, but in between Aybar and Trumbo, Trout singled, sending Aybar to 3rd; and then Pujols grounded to 2nd, Aybar thrown out at home, Trout and Pujols wind up on 3rd and 2nd. How does that happen? If Aybar got himself in a rundown long enough for the others to advance, that’s a great job and deserves mention.

• It’s the 10th go-ahead walk this year in the 8th inning or later.
• It needed incredibly quick thinking, steely nerves, and huge, clanking … er, confidence — but Brendan Ryan could have turned 2 on that shot by Kendrick.
• When Seattle went up 8-1, you had to think it was over. They were 30-0 when scoring 8 or more behind Felix Hernandez.
• April 16, 2010: The last time Seattle scored more than 9 runs in a Felix start. That’s 113 starts ago.
• Since 2006, Hernandez ranks 5th with 242 starts, 6 behind the leader. He’s 32nd in starts backed by 6+ runs, and tied for 1st with 85 starts backed by 0-2 runs. Of the 69 pitchers with at least 150 starts in that span, Hernandez ranks 3rd-highest in percentage of starts backed by 0-2 runs, and those above him pitched mostly in the NL in this span.