Game Notes is taking a few days off, for his godson’s wedding in New Orleans. See you again in a week or so.

Oakland scored 3 runs with just one hit, turning two Erik Bedard walks and two infield errors into a pair in the 2nd. As noted by contributor Daniel Longmire, it’s the first one-hit win in the franchise’s searchable history (since 1914); also the first in MLB since last July, another Bedard loss.

• The A’s are 8-10 when scoring 3 runs or less — the most such wins in MLB, and the fewest such losses.
• Grant Balfour kept it close in the 9th despite walking the first two A’s, giving him 16 walks in 17.1 IP.
• There are four active players named Fernando. All are relief pitchers, and two earned holds for the A’s in this game.

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Phil Hughes has sipped the Kool-Aid and come up with a big, wide, happy, ear-to-ear smile. Adopting the team motto of no walks, nohow, Hughes has gone 5-0, 1.60 in his last six outings (all Twins wins), going five starts and a total of 37 innings since his last free pass. The last 5-start walkless string in one season was in 2011 by Kevin Slowey, also a Twin.

• Tough-loser Tyson Ross has four straight games yielding one earned run in 7 IP — the longest streak this year meeting those standards, and the longest since 1991 for San Diego.

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Starling Marte (4-2-3-2) started Pittsburgh’s winning rally with a push bunt, went first-to-third on a single to left, and scored on Tony Sanchez’s go-with-the-pitch liner through the right side.

Bucs utilitarian Josh Harrison opened consecutive 4-run innings with a leadoff walk, and threw out the potential lead run at home in the 7th inning. He’s played errorless ball at five different positions so far this year.

Wandy Rodriguez and Chris Tillman combined for 8 outs and 14 runs. That’s the most runs in such brief starts since this 2007 game in which Roger Clemens coughed up an 8-run lead.

• Baltimore lost in spite of three sac bunts. “In spite of“? In interleague games, AL teams are 15-6 with three or more sac bunts; they’re also 78-27 in all games with 3+ SH since 1997. Your assignment: Construct the narrative to fit those results.

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Kyle Lohse’s 8th straight quality start stopped the Crew’s 4-game skid, powered by a Mark Reynolds slam in the 1st — Milwaukee’s first granny this year, and the first one Atlanta’s allowed since last July.

Lohse is the first Brewer ever to begin a year with 10 straight starts yielding 3 runs or less. The 3-year, $33-million deal Milwaukee gave him last March got mixed reviews at the time, with luck seen as the difference between his 3.11 ERA and his 3.58 FIP. If it is luck, it’s traveled with him from St. Louis: Lohse has a 3.92 FIP but a 3.18 ERA through 42 starts for the Brewers.

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Jered Weaver erased one of his few mistakes and avenged another, picking off George Springer for the second out of the 9th moments after plunking him, and went on to complete a two-hitter. Springer had Houston’s first hit, a game-tying solo blast in the 4th. Albert Pujols got the lead back in the 6th with his 13th dinger, spoiling Collin McHugh’s fine start with LA’s only extra-base hit. The Angels have won 10 of 13.

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Best not turn your head in the Monster seats when Edwin Encarnacion comes to bat. Toronto now has a share of first place in the AL East, while Boston has a six-game skid, the last five at home. Double-E has the first consecutive multi-HR games in Fenway since Mark McGwire in 1995. Three others have done that since 1914: George Scott in ’71, Mickey Mantle in ’66, Bill Skowron in ’57. [Doug beat me to that observation.]

• Clay Buchholz leads MLB with four disaster starts (more runs than IP), also has the worst BA and BAbip among qualifiers (.341, .381). Last year, .199 BA, .255 BAbip.
• Casey Janssen has soothed the Jays’ 9th-inning woes, saving five games in nine days since coming off the DL. He’s gone 61-5 in save chances since getting the job in 2012 (92.4%), and his 1.10 ERA in those games is the best of 32 pitchers with 40+ save tries in that span. (Kimbrel #2 at 1.22, Cishek #3 at 1.91.)

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St. Louis walked off on a tough error, when shortstop Chris Owings had to rush his throw home to avoid the runner crossing from second base. The Cards won their sixth of seven games, taking over a wild-card position with the help of an efficient relay play that cut down a would-be lead run in the 10th.

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Miami mashed 14 hits (though none by Giancarlo) to get back over .500 after a rough road trip. They scored 8+ for the 8th time at home this year, raising their home average to 6.0 runs per game (3.4 on the road). Their 18-6 home record is best in baseball, and their 6-17 road mark the worst.

• Marcell Ozuna’s first grand slam made him 6-for-10 in career bags-full chances, with four extra-base hits, no strikeouts. He’s fanned in 22% of his other PAs. Ozuna is a career .261 hitter, but .351 with two or men on base (26/74).
• Six Marlins regulars are hitting .300+ at home, none on the road. Their home OPS is up by .200 over last year (.630 to .830).

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Cincy won behind Alfredo Simon, who shook off Denard Span’s leadoff homer and a mid-game rain delay to earn his 6th win. The Reds seized the lead after the Nats’ NL-high 41st error.

• Eight of Simon’s nine starts have gone either 6+ IP on 2 runs or less, or 7+ on 3 runs or less. The Reds have won all but two of his starts, despite averaging just 2.8 R/G overall; the seven wins averaged a 2-run margin. (Wait now — is he pitching to the score?)

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A game that must have pleased those Mets fans who are frustrated with the low batting average of a team that “takes too many pitches.” New York out-hit LA by 13-5, and even had a 2-run homer by rookie Eric Campbell, but still came up one biscuit short of a batch. The Mets drew just one walk, and are 1-6 in games with 0-1 walks, 4-13 with 2 walks or less; 16-12 with 3+ walks.

• One cost of the Mets’ failure to find an every-day shortstop: LA’s winning run scored on a shoulda-been DP.
• Jacob deGrom is the second pitcher ever to allow 3+ runs in Citi Field exclusively on solo home runs.
• Campbell began his career with a tiebreaking sac fly in the pinch, and has hit in all six games since, including three straight as a PH. All other Mets pinch-hitters are 9 for 59 (.153).
• Yasiel Puig homered on a 2-0 count. How do you pitch him? He’s batted .385 when ahead in the count so far in his career, ranking 7th of 168 players with 200 such PAs since 2013. But woe to those who would sneak in a hittable strike: Puig’s hit .529/1.572 on the first pitch, ranking 1st in BA and 2nd in OPS (to Chris Davis) among those with 60+ PAs in that span. And if you do get to 0-1, Puig is 12 for 31 with 3 HRs on the next pitch.
• Puig’s career 168 OPS+ would rank #3 for a player’s first two seasons (500+ PAs); only Frank Thomas (179) and Johnny Mize (169) did better. For ages 22-23 combined (with no regard to tenure), it would rank 11th, a tick behind Mantle & Pujols; all ten above him on that list were all-time great hitters.

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Cleveland captured a game of attrition in 13 innings, completing a 3-game sweep of Detroit. After Michael Brantley (7-2-4-3) tallied the tying run off Phil Coke with one out, Al Alburquerque was charged with a two-out balk, giving the hosts their first sweep this year. Alex Avila homered in the top half off Josh Tomlin, Cleveland’s 9th pitcher (and scheduled Thursday starter). Rajai Davis had quashed a prior game-winning bid by throwing out Lonnie Chisenhall at home on a shallow fly, but his throw in the 13th was a moment too late.

Max Scherzer blew an early 4-0 lead, giving up 7 runs in the first three innings. But he stuck it out through seven, and got in line for his 7th win when Detroit scored a pair off John Axford in the top of the 8th. That uprising was fueled by a walk to light-hitting Don Kelly, hitting in place of the dismissed Miggy, and some typically shoddy defense. But David Murphy tied it in the 9th by clocking a slow curve from Joe Nathan, his first-ever tying or go-ahead blast later than the 7th.

• Last walk-off balk, by my research: July 4, 2011, KC’s Aaron Crow pitching to Adam Dunn in Chicago. (Dunn was also batting for this year’s only walk-off wild pitch.) The Mets’ D.J. Carrasco had a W.O.B. just three weeks before Crow, in Atlanta.
• And one more for fun: not a balk-off, but a two-balk effort by Armando Benitez, against his former Flushing mates, to score the tying run, followed by a walk-off homer. [Credit to Voomo Zanzibar for spotting this one.]

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The Cubs blew another win for Jeff Samardzija, this from 2-0 in the 9th, leaving him winless through 10 starts and 44 team games. Since the Streak Finder doesn’t offer “no win,” I looked at pitchers with the most non-winning starts in a team’s first 50 games, back to 1980. Out of 100 pitchers with at least 10 non-winning starts, the best ERA was 2.85 by Andy Ashby, with the ’94 Padres. Samardzija’s ERA is 1.49. (Samardzija has allowed five unearned runs, but Ashby allowed eight.)

Since 1980, the most non-winning starts in a team’s first 50 games is 12, shared by Dave Burba (1996 Reds) and Rick Mahler (1987 Braves). But Mahler also had two wins in that span, including an Opening Day shutout, as Atlanta was using a four-man rotation and had some days off. Burba was 0-7, 4.73 after those 12 starts, and 0-8 after 14 starts, but rallied to finish 11-13.

In 2010, Kevin Millwood was winless through his first 14 starts. He pitched well at first, with a 3.26 ERA through seven starts, but that rose to 5.16 by #14. He finished 4-16, 5.10.

Samardzija has tied another unwanted mark that dates to the dead-ball era: Nine team losses started, within the team’s first 44 games, without yielding more than 4 runs. Scott Perry of the 1918 A’s had nine such games by that point, taking each loss himself (plus a relief loss and five wins). Perry, who was basically a rookie although with his fourth team, rallied to finish 20-19 with a 1.98 ERA, for a last-place team that won just 52 total.

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Scattered Notes from Tuesday

Adam Wainwright allowed nothing but Paul Goldschmidt’s two-out double in the 4th. His first one-hitter, and a career-high 94 game score, tying Andrew Cashner for the year’s MLB high.

Masahiro Tanaka allowed more than 3 runs for the first time.

Denard Span had 5 of Washington’s 9 hits.

Hisashi Iwakuma lost his scoreless string, but finished 8 innings for the third straight time, the third pitcher to do that this year.

Texas is 12-24 when they allow any runs.

Troy Tulowitzki made his first error of the year, letting in SF’s 3rd run.

Something Chris Davis didn’t do last year — a 3-HR game, and on three consecutive swings: first pitch, first pitch, 1-0 count. (So, not quite a Reggie.) Davis did have one in 2012, though.

The first three 3-HR games for the Baltimore Orioles (not the Browns) were all by ____ ____.

Boston’s bats broke free a bit, but not enough to offset Toronto’s 4 HRs. Fifth straight loss dropped the Sox to 20-24 overall, 10-15 at home. First 4-HR game for a Fenway visitor in over a year, since the Jays slugged five. Edwin Encarnacion has 9 HRs in 19 games this month.

It hardly mattered, but Carlos Gomez loosed a cannon on Chris Johnson.

One double-switch by Terry Collins created six position changes: Valverde to P (replacing 1B Duda), Murphy from 2B to 1B, E. Young from LF to 2B, C. Young from CF to LF, Granderson from RF to CF, Abreu to RF. I’m sure that’s not a record, not even during regulation innings, but it livened up a dull night at the office.

Matt Adams has 4 walks in 175 PAs. Not since 1906 has a full-time first baseman (600+ PAs) had a rate so low.

Among position players so far in 2014, there are almost as many Venezuelans (44) as Dominicans (48). But Dominican pitchers outnumber Venezuelans by 53-22.

Through 41 games, Detroit shortstops slugged .222. That would tie the worst known performance in that realm, set by the 1968 Giants. Their .193 BA would be 10th-worst, their .474 OPS 6th-worst.

Drew Pomeranz pitched exactly 5 scoreless innings for the third straight time. That’s a first — officially since 1914, but I would be stunned if it ever happened before that. No prior 3-game streaks with at least 5 and less than 6 IP. Just three prior 3-gamers of less than 6 IP, with no minimum. How about three straight wins with just 5 IP? Four priors, starting with Storm Davis, 1989.

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From Monday, etc.

Obligatory oddball stat: Ryan Doumit’s twice-to-bat pinch-hitting appearance Monday was the second case already this month of a PH batting twice without ever taking up a defensive position. Brandon Barnes had two singles in Colorado’s 6-run inning on May 6. But Doumit is the first to do that and hit a homer since 2011, when Eric Hinske did it, also for Atlanta, in a similar scenario (pinch-HR boosting a late one-run lead). There are no known cases of a pure pinch-hitter with two home runs.

Some other fun cases of double-pinch-hitting:

• Bill Robinson, 1982, started Philly’s comeback with a single, and capped it with a grand slam.
• Cliff Johnson, 1975, drove in the tying run with a double off Tug McGraw, then capped Houston’s 12-run, 10-hit 8th inning with a home run off Gene Garber. Wayne Twitchell took a two-hit shutout into the 8th, but the Astros wound up with a 15-3 win … in Veterans Stadium.
• Besides Johnson, the other known case of a HR and another extra-base hit in a pure-PH appearance was by Jeff Stone, 1986. Oddly, that came in the 3rd inning, as John Felske had tired of his pitcher’s wildness. The Phillies scored 8 runs that inning on seven extra-base hits and an error, no singles or walks. (Also in that game: Pete Rose’s 4,240th hit and 745th double.)
• Darryl Strawberry, 1998, a tying pinch-slam in the 9th, sparking a 9-run explosion that left the Yankees at 80-28, to keep pace with the 1944 Cardinals for the best searchable record at that point in a season. (Those Cards peaked at 89-29, which the Yanks also matched.) Straw’s slam was his second that year, both batting for Joe Girardi. It was also his fifth straight game with a home run (not counting a PH walk), and his eighth in eight games (ditto).

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It’s too bad Dallas Keuchel didn’t get the shutout Monday, and had his scoreless string stopped by bequeathed runners. Sure seems like at least one of the two infield hits with two outs in the 9th should have been converted. (Start at 1:23.) Jose Altuve just took too long to get rid of Trout’s grounder, and the ball that tipped off the diving Matt Dominguez looked like it was heading for a 6-3, since Albert no longer runs well. Ah, well. He’ll always have that moment when he told Bo Porter, “I’m not coming out,” and the skipper backed down.

Keuchel’s so-close-to-a-shutout performance got me thinking about starts of exactly 8.2 innings:

Tim Hudson had two in a row this year with the Giants, winning on April 30 (pulled after a home run cut the lead to one), and losing on May 6, the wacky “walk-off by review” game.

Hudson has five such games in his career; no other active pitcher has more than three. His first was intriguing:

On Sept. 22, 2005, Hudson’s Braves hooked up with Jon Lieber’s Phillies through eight scoreless innings. Atlanta led the heads-up division race by five games with ten to play, despite losing the night before in 10 innings on Ryan Howard’s grand slam. Bobby Cox made it clear that Hudson would win or lose it himself: In the home 8th, Hudson batted with a man on third and one out; he tapped out to the catcher, and the runner was stranded. He opened the 9th with a four-pitch walk to Bobby Abreu. After two deep flyouts and a single by Howard, Michael Tucker’s pinch-hit broke the tie, on Hudson’s 112th pitch. Cox still left him in to face pinch-hitter Shane Victorino, a September call-up. Victorino took him deep on a 1-and-2 count, for his first career homer. Billy Wagner closed, and cut Atlanta’s lead to four.

The next night, Philly blew a big lead in Cincinnati, but scored 5 in the 9th to win, 11-10. But Atlanta staged their own late rally against Florida, with 4 runs in their last raps for a 4-3 win that all but killed the Marlins’ wild-card hopes. Atlanta won three of their next four, with Hudson beating the Rockies to clinch their 11th straight NL East crown. The Phils still had a shot at the wild card, trailing Houston by one game with six left. But two straight one-run losses at home to the Mets dropped them 2.5 behind. Philly won their last four to pressure the Astros, whose lead fell to one game with two straight home defeats by one run to the Cubs, including Brad Lidge’s first blown save since June. But they had aces up their sleeve, as Roger Clemens and Roy Oswalt pulled them through the last weekend to claim the playoff berth.

Hudson’s other two 8.2-IP efforts both came with Atlanta, against his current team:

• In 2007, Hudson led 4-0 in the 9th, but then walked the first two, starting with Omar Vizquel. A two-out hit scored one, before Bob Wickman coughed up the rest of the lead, with a tying pinch-hit by SF folk hero Bengie Molina. (Atlanta won it in the 13th inning, but not without facing Bengie again as the potential winning run.)
• In 2011, Hudson led 5-2 after allowing a run in the 9th, and got the second out on strikes, with one man aboard. Then, and this is just my best guess, Fredi Gonzalez suddenly realized there was a phony “save” chance, so he summoned Craig Kimbrel for the final out. (Seriously, is there another explanation for how that 9th inning went down?)

Since 1988, the only pitcher besides Hudson with consecutive 8.2-IP efforts is someone I wouldn’t have guessed until I’d run out of durable starters: Bruce Chen. On August 27, 2000, not long after he was first dealt from Atlanta to Philly, Chen was tied 1-1 when he walked Barry Bonds, putting two on with two outs. Chris Brock get the last out, and Bobby Abreu won it in the 10th with an inside-the-park home run, his first walk-off. Five days later, September 2, Chen outlasted that year’s ERA champ, Kevin Brown, but got pulled for a righty after 108 pitches when Adrian Beltre came up with two outs and a man on. Those were the only times that Chen ever went exactly 8.2 IP. Ten years later, in his last start of 2010, Chen finally bagged his lone shutout, a two-hitter against the AL East champion Rays.