I’m back, and ready for the stretch run! By the way, Theodore Roosevelt Island is my new favorite spot in D.C.

@Dodgers 8, Rays 2 — Clayton Kershaw picked up his shortstop on both ends, with 8 innings of 3-hit ball (getting a DP right after 2 of the 3 Dee Gordon errors), while stroking the game’s biggest hit, a 2-out, 2-run single in the 2nd after Gordon whiffed with 2 in scoring position.

• Since June 22, the Dodgers have five win streaks of 5+ games, going 37-8 since a 30-42 start. At 67-50, they’re 2 games ahead of the Miracle Braves at the same point (65-52 after a 30-41 start), and 4.5 games behind Atlanta for the best record in baseball this year. Some related notes from David Schoenfield.
• Kershaw leads the majors with 182 innings, 1.88 ERA and 190 ERA+. He trails Miguel Cabrera in total WAR, 6.6-6.5 (tied with Mike Trout). He would be the first qualified Dodger with a sub-2 ERA since Sandy Koufax’s swan song, and just their 2nd with such a season in the live-ball era.
• With about 8 starts left in his age-25 season, Kershaw is already 10th in WAR for ages 21-25 in the modern era. With one more WAR this year, he’ll pass Roger Clemens and Robin Roberts for the #7 spot in that age group.
• The Correction Reaper has come for Alex Torres: 5 runs and 5 hits in 3.1 IP over 2 games, rocketing his ERA from 0.26 to 1.43.

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Rangers 6, @Astros 1 — Martin Perez came within a strike of his first shutout, broken up by Chris Carter’s home run. Perez dominated Houston with 80 strikes in 115 pitches for his first complete game, in his 17th start.

Dallas Keuchel fell one strike short in his bid for Houston’s first CG this year. Keuchel trailed 2-0 with 2 outs and 2 on in the 9th, but he hit Craig Gentry with a 1-2 pitch, and then suffered 2 hits plating 4 runs. It might have become the first time since last August that opposing pitchers each had a 9-inning CG — but then, without the extra cushion, Perez might not have been allowed to finish.

• Texas has won 12 of 13 to erase a 6-game deficit and move a game up on Oakland, who are tied with Tampa for the wild card.
• Against lefty starters, the Rangers have hit .287 and slugged .445 (going 23-13 in those starts). But against lefty relievers, they’ve hit .210 and slugged .311.
• Perez and Anibal Sanchez are the only Venezuelans with a CG this year. King Felix, who led the AL with 16 CG over 2010-12, has yet to go the route this season.
• Ron Washington started Jurickson Profar at SS and Elvis Andrus at DH. Playing the bat but not the glove of Andrus is puzzling; he’s hitting .257 with a .628 OPS overall (.258/.669 against lefties), and if he were needed as a defensive replacement, they would lose the DH spot.
• Adrian Beltre‘s last calendar year:
  — .332 BA (2nd among the 146 batters with 502 PAs);
  — .963 OPS (3rd); and
  — 42 HRs (just 3 others have 40+).
  Since 2010 began, Beltre is 3rd in total WAR (25.0, trailing Cabrera and Cano); he’s also 3rd in WAR over the last 10 years, behind Pujols and Utley, and ahead of all pitchers in both spans. Soon he’ll pass Scott Rolen for #8 in WAR among all 3rd basemen, and he might also catch Ron Santo for the #7 spot this year. This would be his 4th qualified season hitting at least .320 with 20+ HRs, which only Cabrera and Chipper Jones can match among 3Bs. He’s already 8th all-time in games played at the hot corner, and among all-time 3Bs he ranks 8th in hits, 7th in HRs and total bases, 5th in doubles…. You see where this is leading.

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@Reds 3, Padres 2 (13 inn.) — San Diego sent 17 men to the plate with someone in scoring position and got one hit, a non-scoring single. Cincinnati went 0-2 with RISP, but they got Xavier Paul’s tying 2-run HR in the 8th, and Joey Votto’s winning sac fly, set up by Shin-Soo Choo’s double after a walk to Jack (.213, no HRs) Hannahan.

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@Yankees 5, Tigers 4 — About Mariano Rivera:

• It’s the first time Mo has blown 3 saves in a row. He’s blown 2 in a row 8 other times.
• It’s the first time he allowed multiple home runs in a save chance. Twice before, he allowed 2 HRs in relief, once when he entered a tie game (Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria), and once in a blowout win (Mike Stanley and Ed Sprague). He also had a pair of 2-HR games among his 10 starts in 1995.
• It’s the 6th time Rivera allowed a HR in consecutive appearances, and the 4th as a reliever. The last time was exactly 2 years ago, to the games — 2011, August 9 (Bobby Abreu) and August 11 (Russell Branyan), against the Angels.
• This is the first time Mo allowed a HR in consecutive blown saves. Once before, he gave up a HR in consecutive save chances — August 15-16, 2003 — but he converted one of those.
• Miguel Cabrera’s Sunday HR was the 9th off Mariano on a 1-2 count, out of about 860 PAs settled on that count.
• In Rivera’s 78 blown saves, the Yankees are 33-45, and Mariano’s record is 18-25.

About Miguel Cabrera:

• With 2 HRs in 7 PAs against Rivera, he’s tied with 4 others for the career HR lead. Evan Longoria has 2 in 17 PAs, Aubrey Huff 2 in 21 PAs, Edgar Martinez 2 in 23 PAs, and Rafael Palmeiro 2 in 34 PAs.
• Both Palmeiro and Cabrera have just 1 strikeout against Mo. They’re also the only ones with two 2-strike HRs off Mo.
• Cabrera’s .459 OBP this year would be the AL’s best since 2001 (Jason Giambi, .477). The last AL player at .450+ was Manny in 2002.
• Miggy and Chris Davis are on pace for 50 HRs/153 RBI and 58 HRs/150 RBI, respectively. There are only eight 50/150 seasons in MLB history — 2 each for Ruth, Foxx and Sosa, one for Hack Wilson and A-Rod — each in a different year.

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@Nationals 6, Phillies 0 — Stephen Strasburg crossed off a trio of “to-do” items — pitch into the 9th inning, complete a game, and book a shutout. Strasburg needed just 99 pitches to blank the Phils on 4 singles and a walk, with 10 strikeouts, in his first win since July 7. The Nats had scored 3 runs or less in losing his last 5 starts.

• All four Strasburg games of 8+ innings came this year.
• Seven pitchers younger than Strasburg have a shutout this year — Shelby Miller, Randall Delgado, Matt Moore, Chris Sale, Wily Peralta, Matt Harvey and Chris Archer (2).
• Jayson Werth is hotter now than in the anomalous year that landed him his absurd contract — 47 for his last 106 with 9 HRs, now hitting .328/.931 for the year. He was at .265/.756 when this torrid stretch started on July 4.
• Washington’s won 3 in a row, but they’re still 8 games out of a wild card, with 45 to play, and only 3 left against either current wild-card holder.

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@Royals 4, Red Sox 3 — K.C. took 3 of 4 at home for their 7th straight series win. They’re 11-7 against the AL’s three division leaders, and they sit 4.5 games from both wild cards. They get 3 more at home to Miami before starting a 5-game set in Detroit on Thursday.

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@Rockies 3, Pirates 2 — Pittsburgh has been swept in 3 series this year, all on the road. They haven’t lost 3 in a row at home all season.

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Orioles 10, @Giants 2 — One remarkable aspect of Chris Davis’s 109 RBI through 117 games is that he bats 5th, right behind Adam Jones, a slugger with a so-so OBP and 85 RBI of his own. The Orioles rank 1st in HRs and RBI from the cleanup spot, with a .327 OBP that’s below the AL average. Yet they’re also 1st in RBI from the #5 spot (by a margin of 105-77). A partial explanation for Davis’s RBI count (besides, y’know, the 42 HRS): Their table-setters have been good (tied for 5th in OBP from the #1-2 spots, 1st in doubles), while their #3 men haven’t cleared the decks at all (last with 47 RBI).

• Adam Jones is on track to join Brady Anderson as the only Orioles/Browns center fielders with a 100-Run/100-RBI season. Anderson did it in 1996, with 50 HRs.

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@Braves 9, Marlins 4 — Freddie Freeman crashed a 3-run HR for a 4-3 lead in the 5th, after Justin Upton inexplicably bunted into a force play with 2 on and no outs. Atlanta later broke a tie with 4 in the 7th, as they trimmed their magic number to 31 with 44 games to play.

• With RISP, Freeman is 43 for 95, .453. With 2 or more on base, he’s 28 for 54.
• Freeman is generally viewed as an RBI man, but he stunk in that role over the prior 2 years, batting .219/.733 with RISP in 2012 and .267/.727 in 2011, both times well below his overall season marks.
• In 15 games leading off, Jason Heyward has a .439 OBP and 18 runs, and the Braves are 13-2.

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Mets 9, D-backs 5 — New York scored 4 unearned runs in the 1st (3 on Paul Goldschmidt’s error), and were never headed. Ike Davis is on a walking spree. Three walks Sunday gave him 22 in his last 22 games, and at least one in his last 8 starts (14 total). Since returning from the minors on July 5, Ike has just 1 HR, but he’s 25 for 82 (.305) with 28 walks, for a .482 OBP.

• Wilmer Flores hit his first home run. After an oh-fer debut, he has at least one RBI in 5 straight games (9 total). He’s the fastest Met ever to reach 5 games with an RBI. Flores, who turned 22 last week, was leading the PCL with 86 RBI in 107 games before his call-up.
• The Mets have gone 5-3 since David Wright’s injury.
• Goldschmidt has drawn 18 walks in his last 20 games, double his prior season rate, and he’s already topped last year’s total (67-60). The careful treatment may intensify with another DL stint for Eric Chavez, the only Diamondback who has sustained production from the cleanup spot (.320 with 22 RBI in 25 games). Goldy has hit .236 in those last 20 games, but he’s remained productive, with 6 HRs and 14 RBI, and a .391 OBP leading to 15 runs scored.

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@Indians 6, Angels 5 — Cleveland returned from the dead with 6 runs and 3 HRs in the 6th and 7th innings, redeeming another poor outing by Justin Masterson. Michael Bourn drove in the go-ahead run with a single on the only pitch thrown by southpaw Nick Maronde, who was summoned just for him. Four Tribe relievers blanked the Angels over the last 5 innings, with big bailouts by Rich Hill and Matt Albers to keep the deficit at 5-0 before the comeback.

• Josh Hamilton‘s last calendar year: .235 BA, .299 OBP, .751 OPS, 173 Ks in 151 games. Out of 146 batters with 502 PAs in that span, Hamilton is #134 in BA, #128 in OBP.

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@Mariners 2, Brewers 0 — Felix Hernandez blanked Milwaukee for 8 innings, after they had opened the series with a pair of ten-spots. In his 12 wins, Hernandez has an 0.91 ERA, trailing only Kershaw (0.80) in that split among the 36 pitchers with 10+ wins. His performance broken down by run support:

• 0-2 runs (10 G) — 3-3, 2.43 ERA
• 3-5 runs (7 G) — 3-2, 2.02 ERA
• 6+ runs (8 G) — 6-0, 2.32 ERA

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Twins 5, @White Sox 2 — Casey Fien is the 2nd pitcher in searchable history with a 5-batter appearance of 3 strikeouts and 2 home runs. The first to do it was Francisco Rodriguez, nine days before.

• For this 4-game series, Alexei Ramirez moved to the #3 spot in the order, coming in with 1 HR and 29 RBI in 112 games, but responding with 2 HRs and 5 RBI.