Pausing the divisional plan for a day, here’s what I got from around the majors:

@Cards 7, Giants 1 (nightcap): No walks, 10 Ks in a CG for Adam Wainwright, now at 6 and 84 for the year. The qualified record SO/BB ratio is 11.00 by Bret Saberhagen, 1994 (143/13, in 177 IP). The best by a 200-K pitcher was 9.58 by Curt Schilling in 2002 (316/33). The highest with 150+ Ks was 10.28 by Cliff Lee, 2010 (185/18).

If Wainwright were to maintain this pace over 33 starts — which no one should expect — he’d finish with 245 IP, 231 Ks and 17 walks. Only one Cardinal has ever fanned more than 225 in a season.

• Cards are 37-18. Yeah, but let’s see ’em win something besides 9-inning games; they’re 0-4 in irregulars.
• Giants are 9-17 on the road. The ’87 Twins went 29-52 on the road, 56-25 at home (and 6-0/2-4 in the postseason) en route to the title. Tough row to hoe, though.

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D-backs 12, @Cubs 4: Hard to believe, but for a long time it seemed the Cubs would win this thing with just 2 hits. They scored 3 in the 1st on those 2 hits, a walk and a HBP, and then their next 16 men went down to Ian Kennedy. Samardzija fanned 11, but he walked 2 in the 7th, then James Russell blew the lead on a 3-run double after his own walk. But then Nate Schierholtz put an abrupt end to Kennedy’s streak with a tying HR in the home 7th. Eventually, there was Marmol, there was Goldschmidt, and a boatload of men crossed the plate, but it’s all a blur, really….

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@Braves 2, Nationals 1: Washington keeps trying to wish Henry Rodriguez into a big-league pitcher, but he keeps proving he’s not one. He’s walked 15% of all batters, or 6.0 BB/9. The only game situation suitable for him is when you desperately need a strikeout and don’t much care if he walks someone. But that situation usually means there’s a runner on 3rd base, and Henry’s wild-pitch rate is by far the highest in history, so now what?

It’s fitting that he and Marmol both lost on the same night, as they’re wildest pitchers around, and they’re both godawful. Marmol’s in the majors now just because, for a couple of years, he was able to strike out so many that it offset the ludicrous walk rate, and they gave him a contract based on that success; now he’s a $10 million albatross who’ll be signed to a make-good contract next year. Al Alburquerque‘s in the same boat, and he’s back in the minors now in spite of a career 1.90 ERA in 71 innings. What’s the excuse for having Rodriguez in the majors? What success has he ever had, at any level? You’ll think I’m wasting my anger on this — I’m not even a Nats fan or Cubs fan — but it’s an affront to what the major leagues are supposed to be.

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Brewers 4, @Phillies 3: A desperately needed strong start by Wily Peralta (7 IP, 2 runs), another big day for Lucroy (2 hits, 2 runs, insurance HR that proved decisive), and a skin-of-his-teeth save for K-Rod, with a major assist from a pinch-running pitcher and a blown call that couldn’t be helped. Cue up the replay debate!

Strategy corner: Down 2 runs in the last of the 8th, Ryan Howard drew a leadoff walk, and Charlie Manuel sent in a pinch-runner, who also happens to be a pretty awful hitter. Again: Down by two runs, with no outs in the 8th, Manuel pinch-ran for his cleanup hitter. The Phils didn’t score there. And sure as shite ain’t Shinola, that awful hitter was on deck when Domonic Brown came up with a base open and 2 down in the 9th. So K-Rod gave Brown a pass, although he was the winning run, and got Michael Martinez to ground out.

I get hung up on these things, so please help me think it through. I know Howard’s slow and has bad knees. I know the move might have improved the defense at two positions; Martinez went to RF, and Mayberry came into Delmon Young’s spot and played 1B. (I don’t really know if Mayberry’s a better defender than Howard, but most guys able to don the mitt would be.) But I can’t see taking out your cleanup hitter, down 2 runs, with no outs in the 8th. The Phils are already short-handed; I don’t know if they’re carrying 13 pitchers, but they used 4 bench players and apparently had no better option at the end than a career .188 hitter whose long minor-league record doesn’t suggest much more than that.

Howard’s spot was going to come up again if the Phillies got 3 more men on base in the 8th and 9th combined (with none lost on the bases). Pinch-running is a 1-run strategy, so Charlie must have been thinking, we’ll get that run here, then we just need one more in the 9th to tie it. OK, tying is better than losing … but now your cleanup hitter’s out of the game, replaced by a bum; and when you hit for the pitcher in the 9th, you’ve used your last bench player. If you’re playing to tie, how can you afford a pinch-running maneuver that burns two players?

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@Cardinals 8, Giants 0 (opener): Talk about a sudden squall: After 2 perfect innings, St. Louis jolted Matt Cain with a 9-hit, 7-run 3rd, with 2 outs made by the pitcher. Then he mowed ’em again in the 4th through 6th. Reminiscent of his May 16 game in Denver, down 0-6 after 3, but pitched into the 7th with no more damage and got a win. But it’s not so easy to get 8 runs off Shelby Miller (6-3, 1.82).

• Cain’s line is also eerily close to Wade Davis’s Friday start noted below. And it’s the second searchable start with IP=6, no walks, at least 9 Ks and at least 7 runs.
• STL has at least 4 innings of 7+ runs.
• Miller & Wainwright — that’s a nice tandem to throw in a doubleheader.

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@Indians 5, Rays 0: In 53 starts for Cleveland, it’s the 2nd time Ubaldo Jimenez went at least 8 innings, and his first with 7+ IP back-to-back. Jason Giambi hit his 434th HR, pushing the brotherhood up to 486 HRs. Eight shutouts for the Tribe, tops in the AL.

• Giambi has 14 hits, 5 HRs, 4 doubles, 19 RBI (just 1 RBI as a PH).
• Carlos Santana‘s tailspin reached 18 for 100, dropping his BA from .395 to .273. But he’s still had some walks and a bit of power in that stretch, and, well, .273 would still be a career high.
• After missing 117 games the last 2 years, Evan Longoria has played all but 2 innings this year. He’s still one of the game’s best all-around players, but I’ve hardly heard his name on TV this year. Neither he nor the Rays are flavor-of-the-month any more, I guess.

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@Twins 5, Mariners 4: First he went Blass, then he was blasted: Tom Wilhelmsen blew a 4-2 lead in the 9th, walking the first 3, and Ryan Doumit delivered the year’s first game-ending triple (subject to scorer’s revision), and the first in Target Field history. The rally wiped out a 2-HR day by Jason Bay, who went back-to-back with Kyle Seager in the 1st and hit a tiebreaking shot in the 7th. Minnesota was 1-11 with RISP before Doumit connected; he also doubled and scored the tying run in the 6th, and singled leading off the 8th with his club down 2. Aaron Harang backed up his shutout with another good game, but he gave away a run with a (cough) throwing error on a play at the plate.

• Wilhelmsen has blown 3 of his last 4 save tries, but this was the first real bad ‘un. The 3 runs matched his prior total this year.
• Doumit has 3 walk-off hits in his career; he needs a double for the cycle. He had been 0-for-13 in the 9th this year.
• Kevin Correia served 3 HRs for the 2nd straight game, now has 13 HRs and 12 walks in 70.1 IP.
• Caleb Thielbar earned his first MLB win with a scoreless 9th, hasn’t been charged with a run in his 7.1 IP. (And here’s the result of a “Caleb” search on B-R.)

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Tigers 10, @Orioles 3: Even if their grip on 1st place had not been at stake, this would have felt like a “need win” for Detroit’s ace. The rotation was nearly blameless in their 4-game stumble, but when a contender skids, the pressure falls on the big man.

Verlander has never lost to the O’s — now 8-0, 2.93 in 12 starts — but it was the lumber that eased the pressure. After three straight homers to open the 3rd, Jason Hammel was presumed guilty when his next pitch hit Matt Tuiasosopo, and Hunter Wendelstedt gave him the heave. Detroit put an “8” on the board before a man was out in that inning, so Verlander was able to punch the clock for 7 blue-collar innings despite 2 HRs by J.J. Hardy.

• Hammel’s frustration might have dated to last July 13: He was facing Detroit when he suffered an injury that kept him out for 2 months of his best season.
• Those home-run triplets weren’t who you might guess: Victor Martinez (3rd), Jhonny Peralta (6th) and Alex Avila (5th).
• Backbreaker slam by Miguel Cabrera — a line drive, to borrow Broun’s theme, with a brand new gland — was just his 4th career granny in 153 PAs. He’s not exactly choking, though, with a .379 BA in those spots (and that’s counting sac flies as ABs). He’s hit 7 of his 17 HRs with 2 strikes this year.
• Prince finally joined the fun in the 6th, ending a 20-game HR drought.
• Manny Machado held hitless 2 straight games, first time this year.
• Who’s an historical match for Hardy, a good-glove SS with pop, but poor on-base skills? Hardy had a career .311 OBP and .427 SLG in over 4,000 PAs before today, so I searched for shorstops with OBP of .320 or less but SLG of .420 or more, and 3,000+ PAs. Nada. Similarity Score tabs Eddie Bressoud, but that’s based on unadjusted stats; Eddie didn’t really have much pop outside of Fenway, and his OBP was closer to league average. Jose Hernandez is a good offensive match, not quite the glove man. Juan Uribe?
• Am I forgiven now? Miggy has 3 HRs, 10 RBI in 9 games since the infamous “projection.” That’s 65 RBI through 54 team games, which projects to — oh, never mind.

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Royals 4, @Rangers 1: It took 83 outings, but Robbie Ross finally tasted big-league defeat. The Lexington lefty had been charged with 1 run in 24 IP this year, and had been one of the most valuable relievers ever since making the 2012 club in spring training, with a 1.71 ERA and 3.5 WAR, trailing only Kimbrel and Chapman.

KC had him bound and gagged in the 10th, filling the sacks with no outs. He nearly Houdini’d, whiffing Moustakas and Cain, to bring up the rookie LHB David Lough, normally a platoon player. But the 2-and-1 fastball rode in and ricocheted off Lough’s left arm, sending him to the clubhouse while plating the go-ahead run. George Kottaras insured the lead with a 2-run double, breaking KC’s 0-for-10 with RISP, and Greg Holland swept up, giving June a good start for the Royals after an 8-20 May.

James Shields went 7, and allowed 3 of his 5 hits with 2 gone in the 4th for the only Ranger run. A.J. Pierzynski‘s footprint was all over this game: He ended that 4th-inning rally, then let in the equalizer with a 2-out passed ball the next inning. A.J. had a 1-out single in the 7th, but he got happy feet, and was cut down rather comically in his first SB attempt since 2010. And his sky-high pop with 2 outs in the 9th might have won the game, had Mitch Moreland been running full-out instead of taking things for granted.

• In the 20th year of Rangers Ballpark, this was the 50th time that neither side had more than 1 extra-base hit; each had a double. Also, the 5th time in this park that the Rangers were held to 1 run or less in extra innings.

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@Athletics 4, White Sox 3 (10): Oakland had left so many runners in regulation that Hector Santiago might have felt just fine with bags full and 1 out in the 10th, after an IBB to Cespedes and a standard pass to Donaldson. After all, he had escaped a similar 9th in with no outs, getting a 6-2-3 DP from Norris and then fanning Sogard after a pass to Crisp. And when Keppinger snared a liner by Moss, the stage was set for another daring escape.

But there’s a reason the A’s lead the majors in walks. Josh Reddick, struggling mightily after last year’s breakout, still knew where the pressure lay. He took a strike from Santiago, then waited out four straight misses, the last one not even close, to forge this year’s 2nd game-ending walk and Oakland’s first since 2006.

Yoenis Cespedes was all over the place, in every sense. He doubled home the first run in the 1st, then popped out in the 2nd with men on the corners. He opened the 5th with a single, but was picked off; the A’s would score in that inning, but stranded a man on 3rd with 1 out. Then he ended the 6th and 8th with a total of 3 men in scoring position. And with all that, he was still scary enough to draw an IBB in the 10th, which helped produce the winning run.

• Also heavily invested was Jed Lowrie, who reached in 5 of 6 trips from the leadoff spot and ended Chicago’s 9th with an all-too-easy lineout DP. The dangers of putting a man in motion….
• The A’s have won 13 of 15, and trimmed the Texas lead from 7 to 2 games. They have a winning record in all these splits: vs. LHSP and RHSP; home and away; April, May and June; regulation, extra-inning and shortened; one-run and blowout; interleague.
• But they do have one hill to climb: they’re 22-5 against losing teams, but just 11-19 against those .500 or better.
• ChiSox haven’t homered in 5 games, all losses. They’re 3-15 when Hawk doesn’t get to say his line.
• A correction may have been due in Sean Doolittle‘s .172 BAbip, or maybe he just made some bad pitches, but for the second straight outing, he allowed 3 hits and 2 runs.

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@Rockies 7, Dodgers 6: Last raps means a lot in Coors Field, where seesaw games are the norm. Colorado rallied to tie in the 7th on Cuddyer’s clobber, waited out J.P. Howell‘s stellar stint (7 outs, 4 Ks, no men reached safely), then won it with 3 straight 2-out hits off his successor, Matt Guerrier, with honors for Dexter Fowler. It’s the Rockies’ 4th walk-off this year, all on singles. Colorado had lost 6 of 7 and were in danger of falling to .500 for the first time since Day Two.

• Tim Federowicz drove in 3 for LA with a double and his first career HR. He was hitting .418/1.348 in 21 games at hitter-friendly Albuquerque.
• Zack Greinke‘s last 3 starts: 6 Ks out of 56 batters, 7 walks, 28 hits in 13.1 IP.
• Carl Crawford doubled in his first 2 trips, but he tweaked a hammy on the second one. And the saga continues….

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@Marlins 8, Mets 1: Mets fans are too smart to believe in “springboards.” The Amazin’s shrugged off their inspiring interlude, and for the 2nd straight game, a young Marlins righty blanked them for 7, until the outcome was settled. NYM brass gave some convoluted explanation for why non-prospect Collin McHugh took the start that Jon Niese skipped, instead of the awaited Zack Wheeler. But the question is moot; you can’t win if you can’t score.

Miami matched their season’s 2nd-best run total. They’ve won 2 series this year, both against the Mets, beating them 5 of 8 overall and thrice with Jose Fernandez starting. The 20-year-old Cuban used but 87 pitches to level his record at 3-3 with a 3.34 ERA, and did his best work on John Buck (9 pitches, 3 Ks); he also went went 3-1-2-1 at bat, with his first double. David Wright’s slump reached 14 games (9 for 53, 3 RBI, 3 walks).

• Chris Coghlan is 18 for his last 50, with a HR and 3 triples, 24 times on base … and 3 runs.
• Will New York’s CF carousel spin again, now that Ankiel’s local line looks more like what got him flushed by Houston? Mets central patrolmen have hit a combined .191 with 10 walks and 53 whiffs.

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Red Sox 11, @Yankees 1: It didn’t figure to be a good night for Phil Hughes, as current BoSox carried a combined .321 BA/1.008 OPS against him. Mike Napoli’s slam in the 3rd made him 5 for 9 with 2 HRs off Hughes, and the righty was rousted in the 5th to prevent their meeting again. The revitalized Yanks got 6 singles off Felix Doubront and nothing off 3 relievers, and Youk & Teix reached twice in 8 trips and fanned all the rest.

• Daniel Nava handled Ellsbury’s leadoff chores with 6-2-4-4 panache, matching Jacoby’s season high in Runs and doubling his RBI best. Nava has a .398 OBP, 31 runs and 37 RBI in 50 games.

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Friday chatter

Two is the Loneyest number since the number one.

I was mentally ready for the O’s to hurt Detroit in a lotta different ways — but I didn’t expect to see Dickerson go for 2,000 yards.

Ten games of 10+ Ks by Detroit starters, out of 66 by all teams. Rangers next with 7, Mets with 5.

Tigers have lost 3 games they led after 8 innings, out of 40 by all teams. But 3 games is 3 games. More troublesome is their 2-6 record when tied after 8. That ties in with their complete offensive collapse in the late innings. For innings 1-6, Detroit’s hit .309/.848 as a team. But the spigot shuts off in the 7th, .212/.614 thereafter. They haven’t scored after the 6th during their 4-game stumble.

Jacob Turner‘s 7 scoreless IP was the 3rd such start for Miami this year. The Brewers and Blue Jays have none.

Todd Helton‘s pinch-HR off Brandon League was the 10th tying or go-ahead shot this year by a PH in the 9th or later. The last 3 years averaged 17 such. Helton’s blast completed a comeback from down 0-5 in the game, and culminated an 11-pitch battle, tying for the 2nd-longest this year that ended that way; Paul Goldschmidt used 13 and 11 pitches for HRs earlier in May.

I’ll need the video to understand LA’s go-ahead run in the 10th:

• ESPN’s play-by-play says, “L Cruz lined out to pitcher, C Crawford scored, S Schumaker to second.”
• Retrosheet’s PBP says, “Lineout: P-1B; Crawford Scores; Schumaker to 2B.”
• The AP story says, “In the top of the 10th, pinch runner Carl Crawford scored from third on Luis Cruz’s hard comebacker that bounced off the left heel of Betancourt (1-3) and dribbled toward the third base side….”

… and the AP had it right; it wasn’t a lineout. But they might have mentioned that after deflecting it, Betancourt fielded the ball threw out Cruz at first base. Retrosheet has it half-right (P-1B), while ESPN is plumb wrong.

With just 43 PAs, Scott Van Slyke ranks 3rd on the Dodgers WAR Batting Runs. He and Kershaw are tied for 7th in Offensive WAR.

An out-of-body experience for Chris Carter: 4 PAs, no whiffs (4th such game this year). Houston took the lead for good on 2 sac flies in the 4th.

Texas’s 4-run 3rd: 2 outs, then 2 infield hits, a grounder through the middle, and a 3-run Cruz missile on a 3-and-1 count. Ahead in the count, Cruz is hitting .469/1.658 (9 HRs in 67 PAs); when behind, .129/.301 (1 HR in 88 PAs).

Wade Davis had 8 Ks and no walks in 5 IP, but still got hammered for 6 runs on 10 hits. It’s the only searchable start of exactly 5 IP, no walks, at least 8 Ks and 10+ hits.

The Royals have 5 HRs in their last 20 games, going 4-16. Their 29 HRs are last in the AL, half the average; next-worst is 46 by the Twins.

Before all the zeroes went up on the board, San Diego tied the game in the 5th on what might be, all things considered, the most ill-advised throw you’ll ever see by a MLB position player. I’ve never seen the like: Fielding a relay home that tailed far towards 1B, J.P. Arencibia threw towards 3B, on the run in the opposite direction and while stepping over the bat. The ball wound up where you’d expect, and Jedd Gyorko trotted in. Arencibia wanted to keep the tying run from reaching 3rd with 1 out, but #8 and the pitcher were coming up next. Arencibia went 0-for-6 and was caught stealing to end the 13th when Colby Rasmus whiffed on a full count.

Gyorko finished a .303/.907 May.

The Pads won in the 17th on a nice piece of hitting by Jesus Guzman, his first game-ending RBI and first in extra innings. Tyson Ross inherited bags full and 1 out in the 6th, game tied, and got a 3-2-3 DP on Melky with a 2-and-0 count. Cabrera and Bautista went a combined 1-for-15 at the top of the order, with a GDP each.

Recent call-up Nick Vincent crafted 3 scoreless frames. I guess he had a bad spring training? Hard to see how he opened the year at AAA after what he did last year — 1.71 ERA in 26 IP, 1 run in 22 IP in the 2nd half.