More Julio — yay!

Blue Jays 2, @Rangers 0 — Drew Hutchison finished off a 3-hit shutout in his 20th career game, besting Yu Darvish to be the second Texas visitor this year to do what none could in the prior two.

Darvish and Hutchison matched goose eggs through the 7th, no man reaching second for either side until the home 6th. Hutchison’s first walk set up that little threat, but he got out of it. Toronto’s catcher, Eric Kratz, began the 8th with a surprise bunt hit (see 0:53), and Anthony Gose reached on a mirror image on the very next pitch. Melky Cabrera doubled to chase them home. Hutchison’s pitch count was low, and he went for the shutout. Rougned Odor beat out an infield hit, bringing up Shin-Soo Choo and the top of the order. Choo had been the big out of the 6th, flying deep to center on a 3-1 pitch. Now he lined one into center, but Gose (who made seven putouts) was there again. Elvis Andrus flied likewise, and Adrian Beltre popped to second.

• How unexpected was the Kratz bunt? He’d never bunted a fair ball before, in almost 450 plate appearances, per B-R splits.
• Kratz made an amazing throw to nip Leonys Martin stealing after a leadoff hit. Martin had been caught just 12 of 60 prior tries. Hard to imagine a closer play yielding a conclusive ruling on review; looks like the judgment came down to the lack of visible base compression by the time the tag was made.
• Hutchison’s the 4th this year to hurl a shutout by his 20th career game (Tanaka, Roark, Gray). There were six last year, five over the prior three seasons.
• Unlucky eleven? Yu Darvish is 3-5 in his nine games of exactly 11 Ks, despite a 2.63 ERA. All other pitchers with exactly 11 Ks are 56-14 during Yu’s career, none with more than one loss.

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Oakland 11, @Cleveland 1 — Oakland’s 8-run 2nd inning featured Josh Reddick’s grand slam and a 3-run shot by Josh Donaldson, who had their last slam in June of last year. By my accounts, it’s the first time since September 2011 that one team hit a granny and a threebie in one inning. Sonny Gray turned the early bulge into his first win this month, now 5-1 with a 2.10 ERA.

• No harm to Oakland’s sky-high run differential, now 216-135, or 5.14 to 3.21 per game — best in the bigs, by far.

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Reds 3, @Phillies 0 — With Joey Votto missing his first game to have his knee checked out, catcher Devin Mesoraco started in the #5 hole for just the third time ever (never higher). How’d that work out? His 3-run jack with two down in the 1st raised blisters on his red-hot numbers: 23 for 50 this year, 4 HRs, 16 RBI, all in just 14 starts.

• Season-high 8 Ks for Alfredo Simon helped build his first scoreless start in 27 career tries. No strikeouts in his last two starts, one good, one not.
• Votto’s prognosis: So-so.

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Tigers 1, @Red Sox 0 — Detroit scored in their first at-bats, and Max Scherzer steered that lead through narrow straits in the 6th inning. Two on, no outs, count full on Grady Sizemore, Max induced a 4-6-3 DP. Big Papi got a wide berth, and Mike Napoli took strike three to end the threat, and maybe Scherzer’s night, at 103 pitches. But no, he went back for the 7th. A leadoff hit brought a familiar queasy feeling. Evan Reed pushed that tying run to second on a balk, then clipped Xander Bogaerts. But he punched out Jackie Bradley, and when A.J. Pierzynski was announced, the lefty Ian Krol came in and rolled Detroit’s third double play. Joba Chamberlain and Joe Nathan brought it home with six straight outs, the closer fanning Ortiz before sealing Scherzer’s 6th straight winning start.

If you thought a lone 1st-inning run could never stand all night in Fenway, you’re not far off. By my check, the last time was April 29, 1990: Jose Canseco’s single scored Rickey Henderson, and Dave Stewart bested Roger Clemens for his 5th straight win that month, en route to his 4th straight 20-win season. They’d meet again that fall.

• Scherzer allowed 3 hits in his 6 scoreless innings. Despite his stellar strikeout rate (2nd-best of active starters with 500 IP), he’s never flirted with a no-hitter, or gone more than six innings on just one hit. His 2-hit outings include two of 8 IP and two more of 7+.
• Napoli walked in his first two trips, nine total pitches. Maybe some history with Max? Nope — a single and a walk in 18 prior meetings.
• How long since Detroit won 1-0 in Fenway? Their last two both beat Reggie Cleveland.

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@Rockies 3, Padres 1 — Did they shift this tilt to San Diego at the last minute? No hits for anyone until the home 4th, scoreless through that inning. Rockies broke through in the 5th, when Jedd Gyorko muffed a two-out grounder by the pitcher. Jorge De La Rosa held the Pads without a hit through six. Chris Denorfia ended that drama with a leadoff triple, but De La Rosa pulled through with a pair of at-’em balls. His sac bunt in the bottom half set up Charlie Blackmon’s insurance ribby, and though the Pads put the tying runs on base in the 9th, LaTroy Hawkins held on and Colorado reached 14-5 at home.

• 8th start ever in Coors with one hit or less in 7+ IP; De La Rosa is the first with two of those. Last year and this, he’s 13-1 in 18 home starts, 2.76 ERA.
• You’d never guess that Jordan Pacheco had thrown out just 1 of 17 prior pilferers.
• In 19 Coors games this year, just two had had no score through three innings.
• Last shutout in Coors (team or player) was last July 2, by Clayton Kershaw.

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Orioles 4, @Royals 0 — Chris Tillman finished his first-ever shutout with three straight grounders, an odd ending for one of the extreme fly-ballists in the game. Nelson Cruz drove in two more, and Chris Davis reached three times, including his 3rd home run. Tillman completed nine innings for the first time in 93 career starts.

• Low-powered KC ought to be a good match for Tillman, whose main weakness is the gopher ball — no? No, indeed: In four prior starts, 8 HRs and 20 runs in 20 innings. He’s the only pitcher since 2009 against whom KC has twice hit 3 or more home runs.

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Dodgers 7, @D-backs 0 — I never said that Yasiel Puig lacked talent.

• Scott Van Slyke is batting .269, slugging .635. Reminds me of someone who logged the highest SLG by a qualifier batting under .270.

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@Nationals 5, Mets 2 — Not even Rafael Soriano’s gifts — two walks with two outs in the 9th — could lift the punchless Mets quite high enough.

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White Sox 7, @Astros 2 — Collin McHugh was at it again, with 6 Ks and one hit through five. But with one out in the 6th, his control wavered: a full-count walk, a plunk on 0-and-2, and two straight balls to Adam Dunn. Danger zone.

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Brewers 4, @Cubs 3 — Jean Segura started and finished Milwaukee’s offensive output with singles in the first two frames, leading a season-high 4 runs off Jeff Samardzija (though only two were earned). Chicago cut the lead to one with homers in their 2nd and 3rd against Kyle Lohse. But he got DPs to end each of those innings, then put them down in order through the 7th. No Cub reached second base after the 3rd. Will Smith earned his 11th hold, tied with Kevin Siegrist for MLB honors, and Francisco Rodriguez earned his 17th save (8th starting with a one-run lead), after a couple bumps in his road.

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@Twins 5, Mariners 4 — Brian Dozier has rare power for a second baseman. Seven of his 10 HRs this year have come in 21 games at Target Field. Josh Willingham’s the only man with more than 15 dingers in a season there (21 in 2012), and last year’s high was nine.

• Dozier’s scored 38 runs in 40 team games, a pace of 154. Just for fun … the modern record for a second baseman is 156 by Rogers Hornsby, 1929. Only three others have gone past 140, one since 1936 (Craig Biggio, 146 in ’97).
• So how does Dozier do it? Thirty walks juice his .250 BA to a .369 OBP. Twelve steals in 15 tries helps a bit, and his rate of extra bases taken is off the charts: 2nd among qualifiers last year at 62%, and this year he’s up to 73%.

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Marlins 7, @Giants 5 — Christian Yelich started the game with a home run, and began Miami’s winning 9th with a walk, scoring his 4th run to lead the Marlins on a day when their best pitcher underwent surgery and their best hitter went 0-for-5. Casey McGehee, the most successful cleanup man with one home run, drove in two more runs with singles, including the tie-breaker.

• Yelich is the first Fish leadoff man since 2010 to score four.
• McGehee’s 18 for 42 with RISP, 12 for 26 with two or more aboard, and 10 for 22 in 2-out ribby spots.

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Rays 3, @Angels 0 —

Last time we had six shutouts in one day was last July 27 — seven shutouts, including four 1-0 games. Other recent days with six: 8/28/2012, 8/14/2012, 5/14/2011, 5/7/2011, 8/22/2010, 9/30/2009, and 7/10/2009 — the last time on a Friday.

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Andrelton Simmons is certainly the best shortstop I’ve seen since Ozzie. The beauty isn’t just his wide range, sure hands and cannon arm, but how fluidly these amazing plays come off.

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Late Thursday

@Angels 6, Rays 5 — Grant Balfour was off the field (and off the hook) by the time Mike Trout won it with a 3-run bullpen fly-over. But Tampa’s overcaffeinated closer was still the narrative’s main ne’er-do-well. Starting the 9th ahead 5-2, the recently aptronymic Balfour walked the 8th- and 9th-place hitters — the latter with four straight after an 0-2 start — to further scar his ugly walk rate (14 walks in 15.1 IP, just 11 Ks). Collin Cowgill punched a two-strike single through a vacated right side, and Balfour’s mess was left to Brad Boxberger.

• As bad as Balfour’s been, this was the first game Tampa lost when leading after 8 innings, or even 7 innings. And the first time Balfour’s walked his first batter.
• “Conger, Trout Hook Rays” — Tune in for Tim’s postgame Salmon-alysis.

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Johnny Cueto has allowed 10 runs in 72 innings, or 1.25 runs allowed per 9 innings (RA/9). Here’s how that mark (rather than ERA) would stack up in MLB history:

It would be the best RA/9 ever in a qualified season. The current record is 1.36 by Dutch Leonard in 1914 (earning 9.3 WAR). Four others qualified with less than 1.80 RA/9: Bob Gibson‘s 1.45 from 1968 (11.2 WAR), Walter Johnson‘s 1.46 in 1913 (modern record 14.6 WAR thanks to 346 IP), Dwight Gooden‘s 1.66 in 1985 (12.1 WAR, tied for live-ball record), and a 1.67 by Greg Maddux in ’95 (9.7 WAR.

Five relievers have logged a lower RA/9 with at least 70 innings, led by a 1.04 mark for Rollie Fingers in 1981. Closers also had three of the other four (Dennis Eckersley, Fernando Rodney and Koji Uehara), and setup man Eric O’Flaherty had a 1.11 RA/9 in 2011. The record for 80+ IP is 1.31 by Eric Gagne in 2003.

More Cueto stuff:

Six straight games with 8+ innings — Since 2008, only Cueto and Cliff Lee (10 in 2010).

Starting the year with nine straight games of 7+ innings — Most since Roy Halladay did 13 in 2009

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Giancarlo Stanton has received 9 intentional walks. Without attempting any judgment, here are the situations, the results, and the net change in Win Expectancy for the team giving the walk, measured before the IBB and then at inning’s end:

• -23, one out, Miami +4 in the 2nd // 2 runs, including Stanton // -3%
• -2-, two outs, Miami +1 in the 2nd // no runs (base hit, but runner out at home to end the inning) // +3%
• –3, two outs, Miami +2 in the 4th // no runs // +2%
• –3, one out, tied in the 3rd // 1 run // -2%
• -2-, one out, Miami -1 in the 8th // 2 runs, including Stanton // -51%
• -2-, one out, tied in the 8th // no runs // +15%
• -2- no outs, tied in the 10th // no runs // +30%
• -2-, one out, tied in the 9th // 1 run (walk-off win) // -31%
• -2-, one out, Miami +2 in the 3rd // 1 run // -5%

In total, 10 men were on base before the IBB, and seven runs scored after the IBB. Net change in Win Expectancy was -42% for the pitching team.