Angels 7, @Nationals 2 — There would be no long wait at the doorstep for Albert Pujols. In the 1st inning, first time seeing Taylor Jordan, he watched a ball and a strike, then focused all eyes on the 3-run moonbeam that put him on the hill. Jordan won the next battle on strikes, and he got ahead 1-and-2 in Albert’s third trip. Kid, this ain’t yer night. The historic wallop was all that you’d want it to be.

Most home runs through Albert’s current total of 1,978 career games, and when they got #500:

Sosa hit #499 in his first AB of the last game of 2002, but then whiffed twice and walked, and had to wait out the offseason; the big’un came early the next year. Killer needed 13 going into 1971, and started fast, but tailed off; after #498, it took 37 games to reach 500. But that loosed the gates; he hit another that game, and 16 in his last 45 games.

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Marlins 1, @Braves 0 — Two bright young stars staged an old-fashioned “I can top that” pitcher’s duel, one for the books. Jose Fernandez and Alex Wood, age 21 and 23, and with less than 50 career starts between them, put their signatures together, combining for 25 strikeouts and no walks in their 8-inning stints.

Each gave up a hit to the first man, then set down at least nine in a row. Fernandez seized total control after that hit: first a DP grounder, then 10 of the next 14 men down on strikes. One reached on a 4th-inning error; he fanned the next five. Miami broke through in the 4th, Giancarlo’s double cashed in by Casey McGehee’s single. Wood whiffed a pair to end that, and gave up only Jose’s infield hit in the rest of his night.

In the 8th, Atlanta raised what passed for a threat — a leadoff knock, their first man aboard safely since the 1st; and after Jose racked up K nos. 13-14, a roller beat out by Andrelton. That brought up Wood’s spot, so Ryan Doumit came off the bench, a pretty good pinch-hitter. But he hit back to Fernandez on 2-and-2, and the young ace had his career-best outing: 8 scoreless innings, 3 hits, 14 Ks, 90 game score.

Wood finished with 11 strikeouts, his first double-digit affair. The relievers tacked on three more Ks, with Steve Cishek whiffing Freddie Freeman on three pitches to close it out.

• It’s just the fourth game since 1914 where both starters fanned 10 or more without walking anyone. The others: Kershaw-Bumgarner 2012; Prior-Vazquez, 2003; Clemens-Sele, 1997. But none of those games matched either the 1-run-or-less or 4-hits-or-less standards of tonight’s duelists.
• Also, the first searchable game with at least 13 Ks and no walks for each team.
• It’s the 12th 1-0 game so far this year; 4th for Atlanta (3-1), and 3rd in their last 7 games.
• Third 1-0 home loss ever by the Braves to the Marlins. Alex Wood started the last one.
• Jose’s sixth career 10-K game, but first on the road. He tossed a gem in his one other start in Atlanta, but Freddie beat him with a 1st-inning tater.

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Reds 4, @Pirates 1 — Edinson Volquez kept up his surprising renewal, but Johnny Cueto’s on some other planet right now. He took a 2-hit shutout into the 9th, giving him 20 straight scoreless innings before Andrew McCutchen’s home run.

• Cueto’s the first Red in 20 years with consecutive 9-inning CGs on 3 hits or less; Tom Browning did it in April ’94. Only two others did it for any team in the last 10 years: R.A. Dickey’s one-hitters in 2012, and Roy Oswalt 2008.
• Baby steps: Slidin’ Billy has 9 hits and 5 runs in his last 7 games, five of them Reds wins.

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Yankees 9, @Red Sox 3 — Tanaka was rolling, Lester was reeling. Suddenly, the lead shrunk by half, as Papi & Napi got lift-off. Then A.J. doubled with two outs. But Tanaka caught Bogaerts spectatin’ on 1-and-2, and the Bombers racked up a 4-spot after Napoli dropped a 2-out liner. Tanaka worked into the 8th with no further damage, bowing out after his 7th whiff.

• Tanaka has 35 strikeouts, 2 walks, in 29.1 innings. He stretched his post-1914 record to 4 straight games with 7+ Ks and no more than one walk to start a career. On the K side alone, Strasburg and Jose DeLeon both got to five.
• Not many were happy to see Ellsbury back in Boston, but he didn’t mind.
• Hard to believe: The Captain hasn’t hit well in Fenway — .263 BA, .694 OPS before 2 hits tonight.
• Ichiro’s not playing a lot, but he’s 13 for 35; he needs 20 more hits to crack the top 50.

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@Blue Jays 9, Orioles 3 — All runs scored on 3-run HRs. Nelson Cruz struck with no outs in the 6th, off R.A. Dickey, but Edwin Encarnacion matched that to a T. To the 8th, when the first two Jays reached for Brett Lawrie, and he reached for the stars. One out and two hits later, Melky slugged his 5th, all in 7 home games.

• The O’s have just 5 quality starts, besting only the Snakes. They’ve averaged 5-2/3 IP per start, topping only the Twins in the AL.

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@Tigers 8, White Sox 6 — David Schoenfield called it: “[I]if you’re Charlie Leesman and making just your second career start Tuesday night for the White Sox … be careful. Miggy is due.” Cabrera stroked an RBI double and 2-run HR his first two trips, both driven to right field (a very good sign), and Detroit batted around in the 3rd, sending the rook to an early shower. It got tight in the 9th, thanks to an ongoing delusion regarding Phil Coke, but Joba halted the madness.

• There’s no buzz around Justin Verlander, but he’s getting the job done, 2 ER or less all five starts. He’s won 13 of 16 starts vs. Chicago since 2009.
• The ball does jump off the bat of Jose Abreu, no?

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Cardinals 3, @Mets 0 — Matt Holliday was a two-way wonder, knocking 3 hits, scoring the first one, driving in the last, and maybe taking two off New York’s line in between. Adam Wainwright didn’t need much more than that, giving no walks and 4 singles and running his nil streak to 17 innings before tweaking a knee in the 7th.

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Royals 8, @Cleveland 2 — Danny Salazar’s battle with One-Bad-Inning Syndrome continues. He gave up 4 in the 4th tonight, 4 in the 5th last game, each time blowing a lead. A 2-out, 3-run shot by Mike Moustakas cracked this one open, and each of Eric Hosmer’s 4 hits led to marks on the board. James Shields went 6 solid innings, with 9 Ks, leading KC back into the black.

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@Cubs 9, D-backs 2 — And the beating goes on … Snakes bitten in 10 of their last 11, 11 of 12 on the road so far, and 18 of 21 regulation games. Jason Hammel’s 4 for 4 in QS, 14 hits in 27.2 IP. Brandon McCarthy gave exiled rotation mate Trevor Cahill some company in the 0-4 ranks.

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@Rockies 2, Giants 1 — Two solo shots are better than one. Tulo and Nolan Arenado went deep in the 4th and 5th innings, and the second one took, hanging a loss on Madison Bumgarner despite the Giants’ first CG. His mates had 2 on with one out or none in four innings, including the last two, but they went 0 for 9 in their RBI chances.

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Late Monday

@Cubs 5, D-backs 1 — Chicago took no pity on the one NL club slinking lower than they. But there’s no shame for ‘Zona getting beaten by Travis Wood, on the hill or at bat. The righty ranks 13th in ERA+ since the start of last year; his 7 career HRs are second among active pitchers, his 12 RBI tops since 2013. Wood’s three-run bazinga built a 4-0 lead in the 2nd, giving Arizona a 47-29 run deficit over the first three innings so far. Not that it gets better; they’ve been trounced 54-22 in innings 4-6.

But shame or no, Arizona is 5-17; only two teams since 1998 have started worse. Even leaving those out, the 19 teams that started 5-17 or 6-16 since 1998 had an average final record of 66-96, and none reached .500.

• Wood is the first pitcher to swat three taters with 2 or more runners aboard since Steve Carlton, whose third came in 1986.
• Diamondback starters have a 7.46 ERA; next-worst in the NL is 4.33.
• Don’t night-time homers in Wrigley look great?

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Phillies 7, @Dodgers 0 — Any GMs browsing the late-night shop-at-home network were reminded of what Cliff Lee still does better than anyone, four months from his 36th birthday: strike one. Lee faced only one 3-ball count in 8 innings, gave LA just four singles, and had his one Excedrin moment relieved by the headache himself. Twenty straight Dodgers went down after that.

• I’ve no more clue than you how Ryne Sandberg chose rib-less Chooch to bat 4th, but it worked like a charm.
• In Lee’s 30 career starts of 10 Ks or more, he’s issued 23 walks.
• In 8 career starts against LA, he’s gone 7+ innings each time, totaling 10 runs in 61 IP, 1.48 ERA and 0.79 WHIP.
• For starts with 70% strikes, Lee has led every year since 2008, except ’09 when he was tied for second. His total of 98 such outings since 2008 is 15 more than the next two actives combined.

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@Rockies 8, Giants 2 —

• Good golly, Sir Charlie? The current Blackmon already leads the majors in hits, total bases, batting and slugging — so what would he ask from the genie?
• Colorado hasn’t gotten a lot from their top spot over the years. No Rockies leadoff man ever hit 10 HRs in a season, and just one drove in more than 46 runs. The team is #1 in NL runs since their 1993 inception, which makes their leadoff scoring numbers look good — but they’re next-to-last in percentage of team runs coming from the leadoff spot.
• My hopes were dashed when SF reeled off three hits in the 3rd, ending their 7-6-5-4-3 hit pattern en route to a grand total of six safeties. But maybe 6 hits in Coors should only count as 2 in real life.
• Tulo is walking more, striking out less. Last year’s .391 OBP was a career high, but he’s pushing .500 so far — and that’s one reason Colo’s #5-6 hitters have 38 RBI, 11 more than the #2 NL team.

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Ranger 4, @Athletics 3 — A 17-21 mark against Oakland in 2012-13 left Texas looking up at the division winners. So with the A’s starting off hot again and building a 2.5-game lead heading into this first head-to-head test, Ron Washington’s club hoped to strike first, especially with Yu Darvish going. Their ace went 1-6 against Oakland those last two years, though the bats bore the brunt of the blame (12 runs in 7 games). Yu had his struggles again, but he toughened after falling behind 3-1 in the 2nd. Oakland’s 4th proved key in holding the line: a leadoff single was erased by DP, and though the A’s filled the bases with two outs, Darvish dispatched Josh Donaldson with a breezy aspect. Texas tied up by the 5th, with the Prince complicit in both plots. But they lost Shin-Soo Choo in the 7th — off the bases, thanks to review, and out of the game after that rough landing.

When the unstoppable Kevin Kouzmanoff started the 8th with a double, Ron Washington called for his #6 batter to lay down the club’s 10th sacrifice, twice the next AL team and more than all but 3 NL squads. Mitch Moreland got that job done — his second sac in the 6th spot, matching all others combined this year — and Donnie Murphy delivered the git-‘er-done hit.

• Dan Straily’s effort (3 runs in 5 IP) was just the 4th time in 19 games that the A’s fell short of a quality start.

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Astros 6, @Mariners 2 — Another make-what-you-will-of-it: Since his 2005 debut, 10.7% of the runs charged to Felix Hernandez have been unearned. In that same span, just 7.7% of all other MLB runs were unearned, and 6.9% of other Seattle runs. If Felix had the same UER as the rest of his teammates, his career ERA would rise from 3.17 to 3.31.

So, what am I saying? We’ve all seen occasions that seemed like the home scorer protecting the ace’s ERA. But Felix’s UER rate is 6th-highest of 99 active pitchers with 700 IP. Of the top 20 in active WAR, only Felix and CC Sabathia have a UER rate over 9%. I’m not doubting the error charged to Kyle Seager in last night’s 6th inning; I haven’t even seen the play. But Felix gave up a leadoff double; and after the error, with two outs in the inning, he gave up a single, a triple and a double, and all four runs were unearned. So, I’m just sayin’.