@Red Sox 4, Orioles 3 — A game to lament if Baltimore’s playoff quest falls short.

They led 3-1 after six, but Dustin Pedroia drove in the tying pair with a 2-out well-placed grounder off Darren O’Day, the runners left behind by Frankie Rodriguez. Righties were hitting .157 off O’Day this year, but Pedey’s 5 for 17 career. In the 8th, Mike Carp’s soft pinch-hit fluttered just past Manny’s reach and cashed a 2-out double by Jarrod Saltalamacchia, the catcher’s 35th. Both hits by lefties came off Tommy Hunter, not a good matchup. Koji Uehara got the save, his scoreless string now at 19 games.

• Boston’s won 4 straight, their best since the Break, keeping a one-loss lead over Tampa. Baltimore’s dropped their last 7 one-run decisions, and are 23-25 the last two months.
• Jacoby Ellsbury reached thrice and swiped a couple, but he left the game after scoring the tying run.
• Chris Davis doubled home the first run, then finally hit his 47th HR in the 6th, ending a drought of four whole games and restoring a 4-HR lead over Miguel Cabrera. His 84 XBH are 8 shy of Brady Anderson’s club record.
• So Manny Machado won’t break the season doubles record. But he’ll be the 9th ever with 60 extra-base hits in a season age 20 or under.

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@Braves 3, Indians 2 — Jordan Schafer slid home safely on Chris Johnson’s 2-out, 2-strike hit, his first-ever game-ending RBI, and Atlanta reached 80 wins at their fastest clip since 2003. Schafer set it up with his infield hit and 2nd steal, capping a big clutch game on both ends for the leadoff man. His first of 3 hits put the Braves up 2-0 in the 2nd, after a 2-out walk to Paul Maholm soaked the sacks. Mike Aviles brought Cleveland back, a solo in the 4th and tying sac fly in the 8th off off Luis Avilan, who blew a lead for the first time all year. But their bid to go ahead that inning fell apart when Asdrubal Cabrera was caught sneaking towards 2nd with a man on 3rd. (I still can’t tell what happened there.) Craig Kimbrel worked a clean 9th and claimed the win.

• The Indians fell 4 losses back of both the wild-card leaders.
• Not often does an IBB reflect desire to face a .329 hitter. But the pass to Freddie Freeman was all about platoon edge, pitting Johnson against Joe Smith, who’s held RHBs to a .215 career average.
• Carlos Santana nabbed Schafer once, just his 8th CS in 57 tries.
• Maholm’s career batting line: .110 BA (51/462), 21 walks, 244 Ks.

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@Blue Jays 7, Yankees 2 — If Hiroki’s hit a wall, New York’s in bigger trouble than just this loss. Kuroda’s third straight dud, 7 runs on 9 hits in 5 IP, followed bastings by Boston and Tampa. Toronto tallied 4 with 2 outs in the 1st, two racing home on Chris Stewart’s dropped-strikeout throwing error, and Edwin Encarnacion jacked his 34th homer in the 2nd. Double-E has 3 HRs in his first 20 ABs off Kuroda.

New York got 2 back in their 4th. But A-Rod was nailed coming home on Mark Reynolds’s 1-out double, and no Yankee got past 1st base thereafter, as they fell 6 losses behind both wild-card leaders. Reynolds played all game at second base and had three hits, but the rest of the order managed just two.

• Jays 2B Ryan Goins started both their rallies, and is 10 for 22. He hit .257 at AAA Buffalo.

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Rangers 12, @Mariners 4 — King Felix vs. Texas: 12-20, 4.18 ERA in 39 starts. Against all others: 98-64 (.605), 3.03 ERA.

• August is Adrian Beltre’s favorite month. His 28th HR gave him 894 career extra-base hits, 5th all-time among third basemen.

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@Dodgers 4, Cubs 0 — Ricky Nolasco’s longest scoreless streak is now 16 IP over two games. He fanned 11 with 1 walk and 3 hits over 8 innings, brushing aside his only jam with a called strike three on Cody Ransom. Kenley Jansen added 3 Ks, with a rare walk; that ratio’s 95/12 this year.

• Nolasco is the 4th this year with consecutive games of 8 zeroes or more, including teammate Clayton Kershaw.
• Jansen’s career rate of 40% strikeouts is 3rd-best ever for 500+ batters faced, trailing Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman. Of the 11 whose K rate is 30% or better, only Jansen and Kimbrel have more than 4 BB/SO.
• “Dodgers right fielder Yasiel Puig left the game in the top of the fifth inning for an undisclosed reason.”

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Reds 10, @Cardinals 0 — Adam Wainwright’s season high in runs went on the board before three men were out, and his career mark was met by the 2nd inning. Adam took a powder after 9 runs in 2 IP, ending 32 straight games of 5+ innings. Jay Bruce drove in the first 2 and last 3 off Wainwright, each hit after a walk to Joey Votto. That was plenty for Homer Bailey, who won his 4th straight decision with shutout ball into the 8th, his first scoreless outing since the July 2 no-hitter, while chipping in 2 hits and his first RBI this year. Bailey came in 3-9, 5.61 in 15 career starts against the Cards.

• Dusty Baker shook up the order just a bit, slotting Brandon Phillips in the 2-hole for the first time since Opening Day, and Bruce in the cleanup role he’d struggled with before. Those two produced 4 hits, 4 runs and 5 RBI in the first 2 innings.
• St. Louis had 5 singles, none with men in scoring position.

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@Pirates 7, Brewers 1 — Andrew McCutchen drove in the first run and scored the next, setting it up with his 27th steal. After Vin Mazzaro cut off Milwaukee’s rally in the 7th, Marlon Byrd’s 3-run shot cracked it wide. Charlie Morton got 20 outs with just an unearned run, his 5th straight sturdy effort (2.10 RA/9).

• Byrd’s first 3 Bucco trips were fruitless, a line-drive DP and two whiffs.

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@Rays 4, Angels 1 — Chris Archer checked the Angels on 5 singles in 7 shutout frames, stopping Tampa’s slide at 3 games. David DeJesus led the offense from the top with 3 times on, 2 runs and his first RBI in 18 starts this month.

• Wil Myers is 0-18 in his last 5 games, and 9 for his last 61, with 22 Ks. It’s just a slump, but also a reminder that no .398 BAbip lasts forever.
• Tampa’s 44-25 at home, 31-31 away. This series wraps Thursday afternoon, then a 10-game western swing. Their last 11 Trop games are against Boston, Texas and Baltimore.

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Athletics 14, @Tigers 4 — Five hits began the 2nd off Doug Fister, setting a tone for Oakland’s 3rd straight win in this quad set. Six hits brought 4 more in the 5th, closing Fister’s book at 13 hits, and Brandon Moss made the rout official with a pair of homers, including the first by a lefty off Drew Smyly this year. No other visitor’s taken 3 straight in Detroit since last April.

The Bengals put 9 on through the first 4 innings against Dan Straily, but only Torii Hunter’s solo homer made it rain, and Oakland scored the next eleven.

• 28 runs by Oakland in these 3 games, at least 6 each time — the first such streak against Detroit since last May.
• Max Scherzer tries to stop the bleeding in Thursday’s matinee, shooting for #20 against the returning Bartolo Colon.
• There aren’t so many 4-game series any more, but no one’s swept one in Detroit since Minnesota in September 2004.

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Royals 8, @Twins 1 — Maybe their playoff dream’s gone poof, but a winning record for the first time since 2003 is still a noble goal. Their 4th straight win was built on Danny Duffy’s 2nd straight scoreless outing and Salvador Perez’s first 2-HR game, which gave him 4 HRs, 11 RBI and 9-for-17 in the streak. Minny’s Andrew Albers let in just 2 ER in 7 IP, but K.C. piled 5 on top after he left.

• Justin Morneau’s 220th HR tied him with Tony Oliva for #4 in Twins/Senators history. Only Harmon Killebrew (559) reached 300 HRs with the club.

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Phillies 6, @Mets 2 — Daisuke Matsuzaka punched out of bases-full, 1-out in both the 2nd and 3rd, bagging three whiffs and a foulout. But Philly loaded up again on Dice-K in the 5th, took the lead on his 2nd hit batter, then went to work on [shudder] Robert Carson. The southpaw just came back from triple-A and quickly found his groove, letting in 2 inherited, and later serving up his 9th HR in 19.2 IP.

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Tuesday

@Cardinals 6, Reds 1 — The first three Cardinals singled off Mat Latos, and they never looked back, beating Cincinnati for the 10th time in 14 tries to make a 5-loss bulge between the teams, with Pittsburgh in the middle.

The game’s most crucial play found Cincy third-base coach Mark Berry hoisting a late and needless stop sign for Jay Bruce with 2 outs in the 4th. Trail man Zack Cozart didn’t pick it up, and he ran into a who’s-on-third? inning-ending out. Cozart was blameworthy, of course, but it looks like Bruce would have scored easily, even if low-assist CF Jon Jay had made a good throw, which he did not. Shin-Soo Choo homered leading off the 5th, by the end of which 11 Reds had reached against Joe Kelly, by only one had scored.

• For the second straight year, Kelly’s actual ERA is well below what Fangraphs predicts from underlying stats (combined 3.25 actual, 4.12 FIP). How does he do it? High rates of groundballs and GDPs, a rate of bases per hit below the NL average (1.47 to 1.55), and the 3rd-best reduction in BA with RISP vs. overall (.210-.269), among 153 pitchers with 150 such ABs in 2012-13.
• Kevin Siegrist fanned all 3 he faced, now 40 Ks from 107 batters — 6th-best percentage of all those with 100+ batters faced this year. Lefties have 4 singles and 24 Ks in 46 ABs, but he’s handled righties, too.

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@Nationals 2, Marlins 1 —

Nathan Eovaldi has started 13 games. He was thumped twice, but the other 11 were legitimate quality starts, totaling 18 runs in 69.2 IP (2.33 RA/9). But Miami’s only 5-6 in those games, totaling 10 runs scored in the 6 losses.

The 2 runs Eovaldi gave up in the 1st inning Tuesday: (1) He beat Jayson Werth (.324/.925) with a tailing 3-1 fastball and got a chop to 3rd. Ed Lucas probably could have thrown out the runner scoring, but he rightly took the safe 2nd out instead. (2) Eovaldi didn’t quite bury a 2-2 curve, and Ian Desmond grounded it through the middle.

• Lucas whiffed twice with men in scoring position, including bags-full/1-out in the 4th. He’s done a nice job on defense, but he’s hit about as badly as Placido Polanco, the man he semi-replaced. Miami’s third baseman are dead last with 2 HRs and 40 RBI, and 29th in OPS.

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More on Jon Niese’s shutout & 3 RBI:

• The last pitcher with 3 RBI in a shutout was Brandon Webb on May 20, 2006, the first of two consecutive shutouts (but not to be confused with his more famous scoreless streak).
• As for the last Met to turn this trick … To my surprise, there are just 20 Mets games with 3 RBI by a pitcher — 4 by Doc Gooden, 2 each for Walt Terrell and Tug McGraw. But the only Met besides Niese to do so in a shutout was Pete Falcone, on September 29, 1981. The feat included Falcone’s only home run, off Phillies rookie starting pitcher Mark Davis.

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Return of the long reliever: Josh Collmenter and Anthony Swarzak both have averaged 2+ innings per relief appearance, each with about 80 IP. They’d be the first since 2003 with such an average, no starts and 60+ IP.

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Random Cardinals musings

There are 14 qualified MLB hitters with a BA of .310 or above. Four of them are Cardinals. They would be the 4th team in the last 60 years with four such hitters, joining the 1995 Indians (who had five, plus Manny’s .308) and a couple of Colorado inflatables.

The Cards are 12th in NL home runs and in bases per hit. But they’re 1st in runs per game, 23% above the average of the other NL teams, and 11% above the #2 Braves. They are 1st, of course, in BA and OBP, but only 9% and 7% above the others’ average. One has to wonder if their skill at hitting with men in scoring position is as repeatable as a broader skill in reaching base.

The Cardinals’ BA goes up sharply with men in scoring position (compared to bases empty), but their rate of bases per hit goes down, from 1.52 to 1.41. Some have suggested that a focus on hitting singles is a key to their RISP success. But the rest of the NL also has a lower rate of B/H with RISP, falling from 1.58 to 1.51.

The Cardinals’ BAbip goes up from .283 to .374 with RISP. For the rest of the NL, that figure goes down with RISP, from .296 to .286. Of the other 14 NL teams, 11 see a lower BAbip with RISP than bases empty, and the second-highest increase is 8%. The Cards’ BAbip goes up by 32%.

Count me among the skeptics. I can believe that some of their RISP success is skill, but I’m not buying a team-wide skill that drives a .374 BAbip.