Our West division report runs a day late, as usual:

Athletics 10, @Brewers 2: No matter the weather, Oakland loves hot Coco. The leadoff man never known as Covelli watched the first pitch as a courtesy, then crunched the next over the right-field wall, providing Milwaukee their customary early deficit. Oakland scored 6 more in the 5th, starting with 5 straight hits and adorned with the first of Tommy Milone‘s two bingles, and the rout was on. Crisp had 4 hits and a walk, raising his slashes to that happy land, .300/.401/.513.

• All 9 A’s hit safely (7 with multiples); 8 scored, 8 drove one in.
• A’s have won 15 of 17, slashing the Rangers’ lead from 7 to 1.5 games.
• No walks drawn by Milwaukee; they’re 28th in the majors, averaging 2.4 BB/G, almost 2 fewer per game than the #1 A’s.
• Milone joined Mark Mulder as the only A’s pitchers with 2 runs in a game since the DH was invented; Mulder’s game was hitless. Milone is 4 for 18 with a HR, 4 runs, 6 RBI; he batted .273 in the minors (12 for 44). He looks plenty hitterish up there … but isn’t this a rather cautious approach by Carlos Gomez, with 2 outs and a run scoring if it falls in? Gomez has a good reputation and the numbers support it, but I’ve seen some timidity, too.
• The Brewers are 5-20 against southpaw starters, dropping 15 of their last 16. They’re 16-15 against righties. But it’s just a fluke: Their hitting stats are better against lefties.

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@Cardinals 7, D-backs 1: Lance Lynn stoned the Snakes until the 6th, while the Cards scored in 5 of those first 6 innings. Yadier stayed calm and raised his BA back to .350; Matt Carpenter scored 3 for a share of the NL lead (he’s 6th in OBP); and Carlos Beltran hit his 13th HR and drove in 3. Yup — that sounds like the best team going.

• Although he was 5th in SO/9 last year, many saw Lynn as a middle-of-the-pack guy, since he enjoyed the majors’ best run support. His first 3 outings seemed to support that view, with a 5.40 ERA but 2 wins and an average of 8 RS/G. But since then, Lynn’s been a #3 starter only by the schedule: 2.10 RA/9 over 9 starts, and keeping up that strong K rate.
• In Arizona’s 31 wins, Paul Goldschmidt has a 1.249 OPS and 39 RBI. In their 25 losses, .662 and 8 RBI.

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@Reds 3, Rockies 0: No walks in 8 shutout innings for Bronson Arroyo, his 20th straight start with 2 BB or less (2nd-longest active streak); he’s had one 3-walk start in 44 games since 2012. In the 8th, Jay Bruce lengthened a slim lead with a 2-out, 2-run mash in his first time seeing lefty Josh Outman, who owns a career .183 BA against LHBs. Colorado’s Tyler Chatwood was off to his 5th good start in a row, but left after 4 IP with a sore soupbone.

• Aroldis … pitches … the … ninth. And Dusty sleeps well.
• Chatwood went 0-for-2 at bat, but made contact both times. He has 4 Ks and 11 hits in 33 career ABs.
• Michael Cuddyer had a single for 4, but held onto the NL lead in SLG and OPS. That much is a Coors factor, but .305/.887 with 18 RBI in 22 road games is just fine.
• Arroyo’s always had good control, but since 2012 he’s cut his walk rate to 1.5 BB/9, down from 2.5 in his prior 8 full years.

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Astros 2, @Angels 1: Joe Blanton held Houston to 3 hits and no walks, but they made just enough of those knocks to finish the 4-game sweep and extend their streak to 6, all on the road. At least the Angels were in all 4 games.

• Should we have been shocked by this? The Astros had split their previous 6 with the Halos, split their previous 14 overall, and, well, they have played better on the road than at home.
• Erik Bedard fanned just 2, a career low for 7+ innings, but he made the necessary pitches, getting Albert and Trumbo with a man on 2nd in the opening frame, and retiring Trout and Pujols after men at the corners with 1 out in the 3rd (although a run scored). With just 1 walk, he managed to get through 7 IP for the first time since last August.
• Chris Carter on the road: .289/.936, 8 HRs, 20 RBI, 18 runs in 27 games.
• How many veteran starters will set a new career high in strikeouts against Houston this year? Blanton only matched his high, with 11 Ks in 8 IP; no walks, 3 hits, but his 9th loss. His last 3 starts have been good.

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@Dodgers 2, Padres 1: A lightning bolt was loosed by Yasiel Puig to double off a runner and seal the Dodgers’ win in his MLB debut.

Puig was leading the AA Southern League with a .982 OPS, 100 points above anyone who’s still in the minors. He ranked top-8 in doubles, triples, HRs, RBI and steals, and had zero GDP. The MLB Network last night showed some clips of Puig in the minors and back in Cuba, and while their tone was a bit fawning, he seems an impressive athlete with an all-around feel for the game. Puig is the 5th Dodger to wear #66, and the 6th in the majors this year.

• When you talk about hidden benefits of the running game, don’t forget its hidden costs. Chris Denorfia was running on a 2-0 count with 1 out when Kyle Blanks lined out to Puig in deep RF. Bad day at the track for Denorfia, who was picked off 1st base (as the trail runner) with 1 out in the 4th, down 0-2, and rapped into a DP with 2 on to end the Padres’ rally in the 6th.
• Of the game’s top 5 plays in Win Probability, 4 were DPs.
• Everth Cabrera is 23-5 in steals, putting him on a pace of 65 SB, but only 82 runs despite a fine .362 OBP. San Diego’s #2 men have batted .227 — or .199 if you take out Cabrera’s 18 games in the 2-hole. Their #8 men have outdone the deuces in BA, OBP and SLG.
• HRs by Scott Van Slyke and Adrian Gonzalez. Dodgers have just 8 multi-HR games, 27th in MLB.
• Last Dodger to start at leadoff in his debut: Jose Offerman, 1990. (And who, may I ask, was Gibby Brack?)
• Tough loss for Eric Stults (2 runs, no walks in 7 IP), who got no decision in previous 12-K, 1-run gem. In his last 7 starts, Stults has averaged 2 runs and almost 7 innings. Grabbed off White Sox waivers last May, the 33-year-old Stults is 12-8, 3.31 in 26 SD starts, with excellent control. There’s nothing in his past to suggest this success.

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@Mariners 4, White Sox 2: Chicago’s first lead in a week didn’t last the inning. The tying run was set up by a passed ball, and came in with 2 outs on an 0-and-2 goof. (Two words, Mr. Danks: waste pitch.) In the 3rd, the firm of Morales y Ibanez had long RBI hits on back-to-back payoff pitches.

No in-between for Joe Saunders this year: 6 starts of 6+ innings with (IP>4*R) — only his regal teammate has more — averaging 1 run in 7 IP for those six games. The other six starts are a toxic dump: 11.17 ERA, all team losses. In the good group, the worst Game Score is 62; the best of the bad group is 32.

• That 0-and-2 hit came from Jesus Sucre. He’s struck out once in 27 PAs, but he’s still just 5 for 24, all singles.
• No secret that Tom Wilhelmsen has hit a speed bump in the last 2 weeks, blowing 3 of 5 saves while yielding 6 runs in 7.1 innings. Commentators on the MLB Network said that he hasn’t commanded his curve this year and that his fastball is straighter, leading to fewer swing-and-misses. While his Ks are down, the strike stats don’t support that analysis. His swinging strike percentage is down one point from last year, 19% to 18%, which is still above the AL average of 16%. And his hits allowed are way down, which might be luck and might mean nothing, but it sure doesn’t back the theory of better swings on fatter pitches. All I see is, his walks are up a bit (especially during this little slump), and the few hits he’s allowed have been clustered in the bad games. Before the slump, he allowed just 1 run on 6 hits through 18 IP.
• Paul Konerko‘s last 100 games: .240 BA, .385 SLG, 36 runs, 45 RBI, all batting cleanup. Even the good guys get old.
• Sox have crapped out with 11 runs total in their 7-game swoon. It’s their longest streak since ’88 scoring 3 runs or less.
• Tyler Flowers has been charged with 6 passed balls this year, 3rd most in the AL. He had 1 last year, in about the same innings.
• Gordon Beckham returned from the DL Monday, and today marks 4 years since his debut, 10 months after signing and with 59 games on the farm, with “his whole future ahead of him,” as my dad liked to say. I offer no insight on how his career devolved from R.O.Y. contender to batting .232 with a .296 OBP for 2011-12, only the observation that my Sox-fan brother’s eyeball summation — “pop-up machine” — is well supported by data. In each of the prior two seasons, Beckham was very near the top in “IF/FB,” or percentage of fly balls that were on the infield. He also had a very low BAbip in those years, .262 — among the lowest 10% of qualifiers. I don’t know if those things tend to be related.

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@Phillies 7, Marlins 2: Domonic Brown is in the zone, and this is a hanger.

• Nine homers in 10 games for Brown … and 10 runs.
• Last pitcher before Kyle Kendrick with a triple in a Complete Game: Cole Hamels, May 3, 2011. (Best thing about Kendrick’s hit was … he didn’t get picked off afterwards.)