So, I’m forcing myself to use MLB’s play-by-play, even though I’ve never liked their look, plus their pitch-by-pitch requires individual clicks. But that’s where the videos are, so maybe I can get used to it.*

Pirates 2, @Cubs 0: Chicago left 2 aboard in the 2nd, 4th and 5th (5 of the 6 men via walk). So in the 6th, Russell Martin’s 2-out double on a Travis Wood hanger brought the game’s first run, and Darwin Barney’s tardy arrival at 2nd in the 9th spoiled a sure DP and let another run in. Despite the walks, Francisco Liriano went 7 scoreless for the 2nd time this year; he had no such games for 2 full years after his no-hitter on 2011-05-03, a span of 56 starts. Melancon/Grilli allowed 3 hits between them, but fanned 5, recording their 19th hold and 23rd save, respectively.

• Wood got the first hit off Liriano in the 5th; he’s 8 for 26 with 2 HRs this year.
• Barney’s DPs are down this year, as are his range and ratings. He also went 0-5 with 3 Ks from the leadoff spot, fanning for the final out with the tying runs aboard.
• Like many an emigrant before him, Liriano has found smoother sledding in the NL. He’s 12-6, 2.94 in 22 games against NL teams (10.4 SO/9), but 43-49, 4.57 in 124 starts against DH teams (8.8 SO/9).
• Pittsburgh’s shutdown duo has allowed 7 runs in 59 IP, with 80 Ks and 10 walks.
• Starling Marte has gone 10 straight games without a run (9 starts), batting 4 for 35 in that stretch.

* No, I can’t — it stinks! Their P-B-P for the last 7 half-innings was missing for some time after the game ended; how can MLB let ESPN beat them to the full accounts of the game? And why don’t they say who’s pitching each inning, unless a change is made? Ugh, what an operation!

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Cardinals 9, @Reds 2: Was it already time for another Wainwright win? Cincinnati had fared well against the Redbirds’ ace, winning 7 of 12 meetings before tonight. But he kept them off the board until the score was 7-0 in the 6th, with RBI from 5 different mates, and the Cards cruised to 5-2 against their closest pursuers, pushing their lead to a season-high 4 games.

• STL came in hitting .339/.867 with RISP, and went 8-19 tonight.

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@Rays 2, Orioles 1: TB’s Chris Archer had gone 7 innings on just 2 hits and 84 pitches, but his one bout of wildness — 2 walks in the 3rd and a 2-out RBI hit by Machado — had him on the short end. But after the stretch, James Loney led off with a single on 0-and-2. And while Jason Hammel was still mad over that misplaced pitch, perhaps, Desmond Jennings drove the next one dead central, and the bullpen brought it home. The Rays moved to 6-4 against Baltimore, and crept a little closer to rained-out Boston.

• Jennings has prospered since dropped from the leadoff role: 11 for 32 in 10 games, with a .425 OBP.
• Balto’s near the bottom in pitches/PA, but the approach works for them: 5.0 R/G. There’s no one right way.
• Fernando Rodney has converted his last 4 and dispatched the meat of the order with alacrity tonight, fanning Jones and Davis to end it.

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@Blue Jays 6, Rangers 1: Emergency starter Esmil Rogers gave the Jays 4 strong innings (6 Ks, 1 walk), and 4 relievers extended the bullpen’s unscathed June to 17 innings. Toronto’s 4-run 6th was set up with a walk and a HBP, centered on Edwin Encarnacion‘s go-ahead 2-run double, and tidily capped by consecutive first-pitch sac flies. Nick Tepesch set down the first 9, then Melky tied things with a leadoff HR. Just 5 were left on base all night, and the affair was concluded in 2:08.

• 4 singles, 1 walk, 13 Ks for Texas. They were alone in 1st place since April 21, but no longer. They’re 18-16 on the road.
• Where was I when Brett Cecil switched to relief work? He’s been brilliant this year, 1.72 ERA in 31 IP, no runs in his last 12 innings.
• Last year, Toronto RHRP Steve Delabar fanned 92 in 66 IP (12.5 SO/9), but allowed 12 HRs — the highest HR rate ever with at least 12 SO/9 and 50+ IP. This year, he’s allowed 1 HR in 31 IP. Since the start of 2012, his 11.7 SO/9 ranks 9th among all pitchers with 80+ IP.
• The last run off a Jays RP came in the 17th inning on May 31, after 11 scoreless innings in that game.

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@Tigers 7, Indians 5: Justin Verlander had a 5-0 lead through 4 easy innings, then let in 3 runs on 5 hits in the 5th, including 2 infield singles to the left side. It wound up as a workmanlike 7 IP, 7-hit effort, handing the Tribe their 5th straight loss. JV has allowed just over a hit per inning this year, which he hasn’t come close to doing since his 2006 ROY campaign. But plenty of folks would be happy to plug along at 8-4, 3.71, 10.5 SO/9 and 3.6 SO/BB.

• Ubaldo came in on a 2-game tear, but he went back to normal vs. Detroit: 3 IP, 5 runs, 85 pitches; now 5-9, 5.32 in 16 starts against Cabrera & Co.
• V-Mart had a season-high 3 runs and 3 hits, and homered for the 2nd straight day. Everyone had a hit except Miggy & Prince, and tack-on runs produced by Brayan Pena made room for a 2-HR 9th by Valverde. It’s going to be an interesting summer.
• Bad 5th for Nick Swisher: he popped out with the tying runs in scoring position, 1 out, then made a throwing error at 1B, leading to another Detroit run. Swish went 0-4 and made the last out as the tying run.

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Athletics 4, @White Sox 3: Chris Sale opened the 6th with a 3-0 lead. With 1 out and the corners covered, he seemed to pitch around Yoenis Cespedes for the more DP-prone Josh Donaldson. But that gamble failed on a grand scale. The ChiSox had chances in their 6th, 7th and 8th, but hit into a DP, got caught stealing, and then went 0-3 with the go-ahead runs aboard (including a sac-attempt popout).

• Donaldson was 9-for-17 with the bases loaded, but it still lacked a certain something. Sale began this year with no salami stains, but has now succumbed in 2 of his last 5 chances.
• 9th hitter Tyler Flowers had 3 of Chicago’s 5 hits, with a single apiece for Rios and Beckham.

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@Brewers 5, Phillies 4: Cliff Lee walks a leadoff man about as often as you change your motor oil, but he did it in the 7th tonight with a 4-2 lead, and Jean Segura made him pay. Segura slashed his MLB-high 9th triple into the RF corner, and Freddy Galvis forgot which run was the biggie, firing a wild relay home (with no play at all) that allowed Segura to dash in. In the 9th, more Segura: He beat out a slow grounder straight at the SS, flew to 3rd on Braun’s hit up the middle, and danced home on Aramis Ramirez‘s 14th career game-winner.

• Milwaukee fought back from their customary 4-0 hole. John Axford helped strand Philly’s leadoff double in the 6th, and the bullpen logged 3.2 innings without run nor hit. K-Rod earned the win, and has given just 1 run in 9.1 IP. The Crew are 3-2 against the Phils.
• Lee came in on a 6-game roll of 3 runs or less in 7+ IP (5-0, 1.54), but he’s beaten the Brewers just once in 7 tries (1-1, 4.66).

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@Rockies 10, Padres 9: Nolan Arenado was already a defensive star of the game when he stepped in to lead off the home 9th. He crashed Joe Thatcher’s sideslung fastball into the LF stands for his first walk-off hit, and first RBI after the 7th inning. That redeemed Colorado’s blown 9-3 lead, with 5 runs coming off 5 batters faced by Rob Scahill in the 7th.

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@Diamondbacks 3, Giants 1: The Jints had scraped a run off Patrick Corbin with 2 outs in the top of the 7th, and that led to a curious choice: With 2 men still on, career .128 hitter Matt Cain (tossing a shutout) stayed in and flied out. Cain produced one more scoreless frame, but SF would not score again. In the 8th, 2 outs and a man on, Jeremy Affeldt lost the strike zone, walking Willie Bloomquist and falling behind 2-and-0 against Paul Goldschmidt. Bad timing by Affeldt; good timing by Goldy, whose line screamer cleared the RF wall. That was approximately the ballgame. The Giants fell to 10-18 away from home, while the Snakes moved 9 games over .500.

• Affeldt had the longest active homerless streak, 70 games and 62 IP. And he’d retired Goldschmidt in all 5 previous meetings.

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@Dodgers 2, Braves 1 (10): With the corners occupied and Yasiel Puig on deck — and you’d better believe that all LA stories henceforth will feature El Coloso Cubano –Atlanta reliever Anthony Varvaro dropped a curve that was better fitted for pre-1893 dimensions, scoring pinch-runner Skip Schumaker from 3rd with the winning run on Varvaro’s 2nd WP of the stanza.

In Puig’s previous time up, he became the 7th player known to have been intentionally walked from the leadoff spot within his first 5 games. And before that, he became the 15th in the searchable era to homer in 3 of his first 5 career games, waiting and waiting on Maholm’s bloop curve, then banging it out to left for a tie game in the 6th.

• Hyun-jin Ryu (1 R, 1 walk in 7.2 IP) is tied for 10th in MLB with 9 quality starts (out of 12).
• Donnie Baseball’s game-management skills … well … Ramon Hernandez, who runs just like a 37-year-old backup catcher, hit a 1-out single in that climactic inning, then moved up on Varvaro’s first wild one. Now, maybe this was an acknowledgment of Luis Cruz‘s .140 BA, but Mattingly did not send the pinch-runner for Hernandez until after Cruz’s ground single to LF, which might have scored Schumaker, but left Hernandez anchored to 3B.
• Of the 15 Puig-ilists with 3 homering games among their first 5, only Puig and Mike Jacobs had 4 HRs.
• The last to be IBB’d at leadoff in his first 5 games (and the only one with 2 IBBs in that span) was Kaz Matsui. He and Juan Samuel are the only ones known to have done it in their debut.
• Take that, Henry Rodriguez! He and Varvaro own the highest wild-pitch rates among active pitchers, and H-Rod has the highest ever — but he’s never uncorked a game-ender.
• Percentage of runs coming on home runs: Braves, 46%; rest of NL, 34%.
• The record for team wins with at least 1 HR is 91, by the 1961 and 2009 Yankees, who won 109 and 103 overall. Atlanta’s on pace for 90 wins with a HR, 98 wins total.

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@Mariners 4, Yankees 1: Washington State native Jeremy Bonderman came in at 3-9 with a 5.75 career ERA against the Yankees, but that happened years ago, against stronger and more patient lineups. This year’s model nicked Bonderman in the 1st and had another threat going in the 2nd, but then Reid Brignac missed a bunt attempt and Vernon Wells got picked off/CS from 2nd base. That rally fizzled, and Bonderman cruised through the next 4 frames with just one man reaching as far as 1st.

• When did the dynasty Yanks ever sacrifice in that situation? — already leading 1-0, #8 man up, 2 men aboard? The Event Finder says that, from 1995-present, New York has 2 sac bunts meeting these criteria: 2nd inning, men on 2nd and 1st, no outs, leading, #7 or #8 batter up.
• Bonderman has 6 quality starts in 7 Safeco outings.
• Hiroki Kuroda retired the first batter in all 7 innings. His low OBP to the first batter (.262 this year, ,294 career) is a big part of his success; the MLB mark was .313 last year, and Kuroda’s leadoff walk rate is about half the MLB average.
• Kuroda’s undoing this game was 6 straight batters reaching with 2 outs in the 4th, including two full-count walks.

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@Royals 4, Astros 2: All day, James Shields had stifled the Astros with men on, but he finally surrendered his 2-1 lead on a 2-out, 2-and-2 double in the 7th, Houston’s 2nd hit in 14 RISP tries against him. No decision for Shields, but the Royals struck back in their 8th with a pair of RBI doubles, and held on for their 3rd straight win.

• Shields’s 5 no-D’s: 7 runs in 36 IP. He has the 3rd-lowest run support among AL qualifiers, per inning pitched. In his 11 starts allowing either 2 runs or less in 6+ IP or 3 runs or less in 8+ IP, Shields is 1-5, the team 4-7. Even with this win, KC is 5-8 in his starts overall; that’s maybe 5 wins left on the table, or the difference between their 26-32 record and a contending 31-27 mark.
• Billy Butler has his best combined SO/BB numbers (on pace for 95 of each), but his power is well off his accustomed rates. One difference is that, with few threats behind him, he’s getting fewer hittable first pitches (on pace for his fewest first pitches put in play), and those who fall behind him even by just 1-and-0 have been far more inclined to walk him this year.

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So I’m reading my N.Y. Times Saturday sports section, and my eye wanders up from the Yankees story (Teixeira’s return gives Cano better pitches to hit, uh-huh) and alights on this random sentence: “Chessboxers take the sport more seriously in Europe than in the United States.” Thank heaven the Times is out to rectify that cultural shortcoming.