Indians 4, @White Sox 0: He might not have known it, but while Justin Masterson was finishing the shutout, the door to 1st place swung open when Detroit lost in Tampa. Masterson fanned the first two in the 9th, then two got aboard, and suddenly the insurance run Cleveland got in the top of the frame loomed large, at least for his chance to finish. When Alex Rios looked at strike three, the Indians slipped into the big chair along with the stuttering Tigers atop the AL Central.

• Justin is the first with 3 shutouts this year, and the first since Roger Clemens ’89 to blank the White Sox twice in a season.
• Last with 3 shutouts of the ChiSox was ex-Sox Tommy John in 1980, who needed just 3 tries. The most in searchable history is 4 by Bob Feller, 1946, when 9 of his 42 starts were against Chicago. (Two of those came against Orval Grove … and why wasn’t he called Righty?)
• The last of Walt Masterson‘s 15 career shutouts was against the ChiSox in 1953. All 3 players named Masterson have been pitchers, and none of them did much at the Bat.

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@Red Sox 5, Blue Jays 4: An injury to 1B Adam Lind put Josh Thole in an unfamiliar spot, and his 9th-inning error let in the winning run. Toronto had fought out of an early 3-0 hole, tying with 1 out in the top of the 9th on Jose Bautista‘s 19th HR. It was the 5th this year off the homer-prone Koji Uehara, who suffered his first blown save in his turn as the BoSox scapegoat, i.e., closer.

Regular 1B Edwin Encarnacion was serving as DH, and moving him into the lineup would have forced the pitcher to bat. Utilityman Mark DeRosa was available, but with the Jays down 3-0 and a righty hurling, John Gibbons went with the lefty. Thole went 0-3 with a walk, and twice fanned with a man on. He had played just 2 prior MLB innings at the initial sack, those in a similar emergency at the end of the 18-inning game. He did spend some time there in the minors.

• Ryan Dempster and Craig Breslow combined to escape a no-out, bags-full mess in the 6th, getting 2 pops and a whiff.
• Uehara is extreme in two respects: His 0.90 WHIP is 2nd-best among all active pitchers with 200+ innings, but 17% of the hits he’s allowed have been HRs, the 4th-highest among those same actives.
• It’s the 7th walk-off reached-on-error this year, and the first for Boston since 2008, on an Ellsbury bunt to the pitcher. (The beneficiary that time was one Justin Masterson.) Toronto’s last loss that way was in the 2009 finale, a bunt thrown away by Brandon League in his last game with Toronto before getting dealt for Brandon Morrow.

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Royals 9, @Twins 8: How’s this for production at the bottom of the order? Rookie David Lough, hitting 8th, went 4-4-4-3, all extra-base hits (HR and 3 doubles), while Johnny Giavotella‘s season debut showed 4-1-3-2. Greg Holland gave up a leadoff HR in the 9th, then fanned the next 3; he has 50 Ks in 30 IP, and has whiffed 24 of 46 batters this month.

Lough’s 4-XBH day was the 3rd in the majors this year, and:

• Set a new Target Field record;
• Tied the Royals record; and
• Came in his 55th career game. The previous fastest Royal to a 4-XBH game was Hal McRae, game #468, and only 3 other Royals have ever done it (George Brett, Lonnie Smith and Johnny Damon).
• Only 16 in searchable history have had a 4-XBH game faster than 55 games, led by Mark Wasinger in 1987, his 5th game. Miguel Cabrera did it in his 11th game, Joe DiMaggio his 46th, and Alex Ochoa did with a cycle in his 22nd. Adam LaRoche was the last to do it so fast (2004), while Willie Jones was the only one called Puddin’ Head.

Lough came in with 12 extra-base hits in 186 PAs, and no more than 1 in a game. He doubled in the 3rd, 4th and 6th innings, and homered in the 8th, all four going to right field. He had pulled just 3 of his 12 prior XBH.

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@Pirates, Brewers: Gaby Sanchez beat out a grounder to start the 14th, and with 1 out he bagged his first steal in over a year, exploiting a known K-Rod weakness. The next man walked, and Rodriguez hoped for a DP like the one that got him through the 13th with the bases loaded. But Russell Martin shot a hit into center, and Sanchez galloped around for the Bucs’ 9th straight win, pushing them 2 games up on St. Louis.

Milwaukee scored an unearned run on a squeeze in the 2nd, then got 2 hits and no walks in the last 12 innings. A long rain delay knocked out both starters after 2 innings, and Vin Mazzaro worked 5 perfect innings — the longest such stint in relief since 2004, and the longest for Pittsburgh since Elmer Ponder in 1919. Tyler Thornburg pitched as long and nearly as well, yielding 2 hits. It’s the 2nd game since 1996 with two relief stints of 5+ scoreless innings, the other coming this month in Oakland.

Pittsburgh tied it up in the 8th off Jim Henderson. Starling Marte scratched out his 18th infield hit, moved up on a groundout, and came in on McCutchen‘s 2-out knock. Cutch has struggled in 2-out RBI spots, hitting .227 in his career. Sanchez made an earlier bid to tie — looked gone for sure, but Logan Schafer saddened the souvenir seekers.

Tony Watson got the win with 3 near-perfect innings; one reached via error, then was picked off. He and Mazzaro make just the second pair of searchable teammates with 3+ relief IP and no hits, walks or HBP. Pittsburgh’s ‘pen faced 38 men in all, and got 36 outs. The Bucs issued no walks over 14 IP, the 4th time in searchable history, and the 2nd such game in MLB since 1997.

• Martin Maldonado had 3 of the 4 Brewers hits, with the other by Carlos Gomez.
• Base thieves are 55-6 off K-Rod since 2007.
• You saw Brandon Inge come up with the bags full and 2 out in the 9th, and you just had a feeling: he owns 10 walk-off events, while Mike Gonzalez has suffered the same number. The count went full; Inge fouled one off — but he chased, and Gonzo got him.

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@Braves 6, Diamondbacks 2: Freddie Freeman‘s first 3-run HR this year broke a tie in the 3rd, and Paul Maholm pulled the DP rabbit out of his hat 3 times to thwart the Snakes for his 9th win. Freeman was the lone RISP hero for Atlanta, as he’s been all year, driving one out to left-center off Trevor Cahill in his only RBI chance, lifting his RISP average to .422. The rest of the team went 0-9 in those spots and are hitting .204.

• Cahill gave 3 HRs and dropped his 6th straight decision, with a 7.91 ERA in 8 starts.
• Atlanta’s opening rotation have made all but one of the team’s 82 starts, a feat of health matched only by KC.

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@Marlins 6, Padres 2: Jeff Mathis was 0 for 3 on the day, 7 for 61 this year, and hitting .194 in his career — the 2nd-worst live-ball BA of any non-pitcher (1,500+ PAs). Now he’s king for a day.

• It’s the first walk-off HR for Miami since last May 13, a Giancarlo slam.
• Nathan Eovaldi put up 6 zeroes, his 3rd straight QS since being called up. He’s the first Marlin this year with 3 straight starts of 2 runs or less in 6+ IP.

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@Dodgers 6, Phillies 1: A typical Yasiel Puig game evokes the Hollywood cliche: “I laughed; I cried; I cheered!” His first 4-hit game featured two on the infield and followed by steals; his first triple, a rather sorry affair (he looked at the play so many times, he might as well have run backwards); and a double, also to RF, then nabbed stealing 3rd with his hottest teammate up. Last time up, he chased a high full-count fastball to leave the bases loaded. Even when he does nothing, something happens, like the pitcher getting picked off.

• That was the only blot on Stephen Fife‘s record. His 7 untainted innings stretched to six his run of good starts (2.21 ERA in 37 IP, 30 Ks, 10 walks). Jose Dominguez debuted with a perfect inning, after dominating the minors this year (9 hits, 40 Ks in 25 IP).
• At day’s end, the NL West stood thus: Arizona 2 games ahead of Colorado, the Padres 2.5 back, the Giants 3 and the Dodgers 4. Should be a wild second half!

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@Rays 3, Tigers 1: Same old story, same old song-and-dance. Detroit went 1-10 with RISP, scoring only on Miggy’s 25th tater that tied the game in the 3rd, and then Rick Porcello put them right back under water with 4 straight hits and a walk. They wasted 3 doubles with less than 2 outs, and left the bags full from no outs in the 7th. Prince Fielder went 0-4, and Cabrera rapped into his 13th DP.

Longo sat out the weekend, but the Rays took both games and captured the series. Jeremy Hellickson (6 IP, 1 R) won 5 of 6 June starts, with a 1.80 ERA in the wins. Platoon catcher Jose Lobaton had 3 hits and 2 RBI. Fernando Rodney fanned 2 in the save, including Jhonny Peralta as the tying run; Peralta is 1 for 22 off Rodney. Tampa is 33-32 against teams .500 or better, the most such games in either league; such is life in the AL East.

• Detroit led the Central by 5.5 games on June 9, but they’ve gone 8-11 while Cleveland got hot and caught them yet again.
• 53 quality starts by the Tigers, tops in the AL — but they also lead with 20 losses. Through Saturday, Oakland is 37-11 in QS, Cleveland is 28-7, Baltimore and Tampa both 27-10, Boston 33-14, Texas 27-11, New York 29-13 … you get the picture. Good AL teams win at least 70% of QS.

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@Orioles 4, Yankees 2: Too many Chrisses on one side, too much Nix on the other. Davis went deep, Tillman went 6 sturdy to win his 6th straight start. MannyMac hit #38 and broke a 50-game HR drought.

• In the last calendar year, Chris Tillman has started 32 games, going 19-5 with a 3.33 ERA, averaging 5.82 IP/GS over all and 6.47 IP in his wins. I’m not knocking, just observing.
• Quick, name the only other Chris who’s ever hit 30 HRs in a season. Davis will likely be the first Chris ever to drive in 100.

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Nationals 13, @Mets 2: It began with the promise of Zack Wheeler‘s home debut. It wound up more memorable, to Mets fans, for another pitching debut, that of backup catcher Anthony Recker. In between was a truly historic feat: 5 extra-base hits off Brandon Lyon in just two-thirds of an inning — the 8th searchable relief outing of less than an inning with 5 or more XBH. Among Mets, only the immortal Manny Acosta has ever allowed more than the 6 runs charged to Lyon in an outing so short. Lyon had never allowed more than 3 XBH in his 548 relief games. Seven prior Mets relief stints saw 5 XBH or more, with two in this legend — the only searchable game with 10+ runs off 2 different relievers on one team.

• Washington tied the record of 4 HRs in a Citi Field game, the 9th such game and the 4th featuring the Nats on one end or the other.
• Ian Desmond at the halfway point has 15 HRs and 21 doubles. Here are the 30-HR, 40-double shortstops in MLB history: Tejada 2004 (34-40); Nomar ’97 (30-44); A-Rod ’96 (34-54); Ripken ’91 (34-46).
• John Buck broke up the shutout — and doubled his June HR and RBI totals — with a last-second 2-run shot.

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The Curse of the Beast? Jimmie Foxx is the only player to win the BA and RBI titles with 50+ HRs but still miss the Triple Crown. Already owning one Triple Crown, Foxx in 1938 hit .349/50/175, leading all MLB players in all 3 categories except for Detroit’s Hank Greenberg, who hit 58 HRs. This year, Miguel Cabrera leads both leagues in BA (.373) and RBI (82), and his 25 HRs — a 50-HR pace — are more than anyone but Chris Davis (31, as of 10:30 pm EDT).

Davis, by the way, is 2nd in AL average and RBI. There has never been a Triple Crown where another player finished 2nd in all three.