Here’s a full set of notes on a short slate, and then a three-day pass for your Game Notes narrator. He’s off to D.C., to play Uncle John with the next generation of Autins. See you again on Monday. Until then, keep hitting the cutoff man! Or woman.

@Royals 5, Red Sox 1 — K.C. kicked off a 4-game home series by beating Boston from start to finish, their 14th win in the last 16 games, to reach 59-53 — their best mark in 10 years at this point in the season. Bruce Chen has been Panama red-hot since stepping up to the rotation. He blanked Boston on 5 hits for 7.2 innings, improving to 5-0, 1.79 overall (65.2 IP), with a 1.14 ERA in 5 starts.

Lorenzo Cain led off the Royals’ 3-run 1st with a double off Jon Lester, and Mike Moustakas capped the uprising with a 2-out, 2-run single — his first 2-RBI hit off a southpaw in almost a year. Those 2 were unearned, from a Jonny Gomes drop, and Lester allowed only 2 hits thereafter through 7 IP, working past 2 more errors. Still trailing 3-0, the Sox put 2 on with 2 out in the 8th, chasing Chen, and it was time to find out if they could pull off their comeback magic against a major-league bullpen. But Shane Victorino popped out against Luke Hochevar; and in the home half, Billy Butler got friendly with the first pitch from Rubby De La Rosa, slugging his 10th HR. (Better luck next time, Jacoby.) Then Justin Maxwell picked out one in his own size, and Hochevar got to close it with minimal pressure, despite allowing his first run in 17 games.

• In 31.2 innings as a starter, Chen’s allowed 16 hits, 4 walks and 4 runs.
• Moustakas came in with career LHP marks of .218 BA and .605.
• Four players named De La Rosa (capital D, capital L) have been in the majors. All four are pitchers, all active this year, and apparently none are related. There were three priors named de la Rosa (P, SS and PH).

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@Pirates 5, Marlins 4 (10 inn.) — A sweep they sought, and a sweep they got. With the stands nearly full for a lunchtime start, the Bucs clawed out of a 4-0 hole against Jose Fernandez (who rang them up in their last meeting) and Miami’s bullpen. Their own routinely staunch relievers got it to extras, whence they cued Russell Martin for the walk-off whack and their 5th straight win. Martin leads all comers with 4 game-winning at-bats. Starling Marte and Neil Walker reached 4 times each, as did Miami’s Christian Yelich, with his first homer.

Gerrit Cole yielded all 4 runs in 5 innings, but he got off the hook and took no decision for the first time in 11 career games. Fernandez also went 5 and surrendered just 2 runs, but 4 walks ran his pitch count to triple digits, and he was excused on the verge of eclipsing last year’s total of 134 innings.

• The Bucs have a winning record against 15 of the 18 teams they’ve played, all but Atlanta (3-4), the Dodgers (2-4) and A’s (1-2), all division leaders. Only those first two have swept a series from Pittsburgh this year.
• Questions for the panel: Did Neil Walker hold back some of his force on this home-plate collision? And do you think wipeouts at home have declined since Buster Posey’s injury? I think yes and yes, and I think that’s good — but I also think catchers shouldn’t completely block the plate, as Jeff Mathis did here. Maybe he had no choice, given where the throw came. You tell me.

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@Giants 4, Brewers 1 — Tim Lincecum was Freakishly good once again, stifling Milwaukee on one hit for 8 innings, as the Giants garnered a series split. A 3rd-inning double by Juan Francisco (1-2 count) and a walk to Jeff Bianchi (4 straight after 0-2) were the only blots on Timmy’s ledger, and he threw a season-best two-thirds strikes in earning his first win in 4 starts since the no-hitter. Brandon Belt’s 3-run blast gave Lincecum an early cushion, and Marco Scutaro had 3 hits to pull out of a skid that threatened to drop his BA under .300 for the first time since early May.

• Lincecum got pummeled in his first go post-no-no, but the last three have been vintage: 22 IP, 3 runs, 11 hits, 4 walks and 23 Ks.
• Belt snapped a 5-game dinger drought for the Giants. Their 68 HRs rank 29th, same for their 7 HRs worth 3 runs or more.
• The Giants have scored 4 runs or less all 8 games this month (20 runs total), but they’ve split those by letting in the same total.
• These two Gomez grabs aren’t textbook routes, but you can see how much ground he covers to both sides.
• Milwaukee’s Rob Wooten ran his career-long string to 8 scoreless games, with 5 singles and a walk in 9.2 IP.

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@Mets 2, Rockies 1 — New York scratched out 2 runs from a sacks-full start in the 4th, and Dillon Gee sprinkled 7 singles through his 7.2 stanzas, as the Mets pulled off their first full-bodied home sweep of the season. Colorado dropped 9 of 10 on this road trip, totaling 15 runs in the last 9 games and 3 in this series. Corey Dickerson’s solo shot in the 4th gave the Rox their first lead in 5 games and the only extra-base hit of this contest, but the Mets came right back in their half against spot starter Jeff Manship, with 2 hits and a walk to set up, and a slow tap and sac fly for the lead. Gee left (I know that sounds backwards) after a 2-out hit in the 8th, having thrown only 22 balls to 29 batters. Scott Rice walked PH Tulo on 4 pitches, and David Aardsma fell behind 2-0 before getting the out. LaTroy Hawkins closed without incident for his 2nd save in 3 days.

• Aardsma has stranded all 11 runners bequeathed to him, the most among those with a perfect mark. (Tampa’s Joel Peralta has stiffed 19 of 20.)
• Hawkins trails Rivera, 35-2, in the saves race (40-and-up division), but he’s had a better week than Mo.
• Don’t know if the Mets feel any cross-town motivation, but just 4.5 games separate the Gotham clubs.

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Tigers 10, Indians 3 — When a 6th-inning “steal” is booked as defensive indifference, you know that it’s gotten late early out there. Zach McAllister self-destructed in Detroit’s 6-run 3rd, with 4 walks dotting back-to-back 2-run doubles, all capped by a two-error play. The bulge was 8-0 before anyone reached against Max Scherzer; he allowed 4 hits and a walk in 7 innings for Detroit’s 12th win in a row, his 17th of the year and 4th straight since the Break. Asdrubal Cabrera stopped Scherzer’s scoreless string at 16 whole innings with an RBI double in the 4th, and hit another in 6th.

• It’s the 4th time this year Detroit scored exactly 10 runs in a Scherzer start; they also scored 17 for him, and are 2nd to St. Louis with 24 blowout wins (5+ run margin). On the other hand….
• In the last calendar year (33 starts), Scherzer is 23-2 with a 2.51 ERA, 0.93 WHIP and 5.0 SO/BB (218.1 IP, 153 hits, 49 walks, 246 Ks). He’s gone 43 starts without yielding more than 5 runs, the longest such streak of the last 2 years (4 more than Hiroki Kuroda).
• Victor Martinez went 2-for-3 with RISP, now 14 for his last 30 in that respect.
• Hernan Perez is the first Tiger to score from 1st base on a single since … ? None in the last 2 years, at least. (Of course, Miggy’s hit would be a double for anyone but an injured truck-horse.)
• OK, Ryan Raburn fanned Matt Tuiasosopo … but he did have the platoon edge.
• Detroit’s last 4-game sweep in Cleveland was 1988.

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Dodgers 5, @Cardinals 1 — A.J. Ellis cracked a 3-and-1 pitch for a 3-run homer with 2 outs in the 5th, and Hyun-Jin Ryu held the NL’s top offense to an unearned run through 7 innings, exploiting their hidden(?) weakness.

• The Cardinals are 12-17 against left-handed starters (54-31 vs. RHSPs), and came in batting .242 against all southpaws (.285 the other way). Yadier Molina (.364) was the only one hitting above .291 vs. lefties.
• Yasiel Puig runs good routes. Do you think he’s ever seen this play?

Remember the Miracle Braves? Neither do I, but we’ve seen the books. Ninety-nine years ago, they started off 30-41, last in the NL and facing their 12th straight losing year. And then they got hot. They crossed .500 at 46-45, and just kept blazing, finishing 94-59, or 64-18 since their low point. The 2013 Dodgers began 30-42, last in the NL West. They, too, went over .500 at 46-45, and are now 64-50 (one better than those Braves at the same point), and 34-8 since their low point. But with 9 extra games on their schedule, the Dodgers would still have to go 36-12 from here to match the .780 W% of Boston’s 64-18 close-out. That would give them 100 wins even, which would also edge out those Braves’ season W% of .614. If the Dodgers do that — or just win the World Series — it’ll be one for the books.

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@Phillies 12, Cubs 1 — The Phillies scored 9 runs off Jeff Samardzija for their 2nd August win, and Jeff’s 2nd such blowup in his last 6 games. Ethan Martin went 5 solid innings for his first career win in his 2nd outing. He’s the third Ethan in major-league history, and the first pitcher.

• What’s the ERA impact of two 9-ER games? Over 200 IP, 18 ER adds 0.81 to an ERA, but to call that the difference is to assume that those outings would have been scoreless. If we compare to allowing, say, 3 ER in each of those games, the 12 marginal runs add 0.54 to the ERA.
• I couldn’t help seeing this blog opening line on top of Ethan Martin’s B-R page: “With the Phillies’ playoff chances fading fast…” Um … Playoffs? They were 18 games out of 1st place when that line was published, 11.5 games out of the 2nd wild card, with a handful of teams between them and a berth — including the Mets, for cripes’ sake. If we’re sticking a fork in the Yankees (and we are), the Phillies are done to a crisp.