@Tigers 7, Athletics 6 — If you must lose 3 out of 4 at home, this was the one to win — and this was the way to win it. In other news … as my dad used to say while theatrically throwing his hands up, “Oh, those bases on balls!”

This year’s 9th trailing-with-2-outs walk-off event was a 3-run homer by Torii Hunter. Grant Balfour began with a 3-run lead, but he walked Austin Jackson on 4 straight to start the 9th, and after 2 outs, the same again went to Prince Fielder. Victor Martinez fouled off a couple of 1-2 offers and looped a single to center, his 3rd hit of the game, cutting the lead to 6-4. Balfour’s 1-and-1 slider stayed belt-high to Hunter, who banged it but good. Hunter had made the last out of the 7th, pinch-hitting with 2 on and 6-3 score. It’s the 2nd walk-off this year with 2 outs and trailing by 2 or more

• The bad news for Detroit: Miggy’s strains flared up again.
• Martinez has never been an easy strikeout, but he’s ramped up his contact since leaving Cleveland. For 2010-13 combined, he has the lowest K rate (9.4%) of the 68 who’ve slugged .450 or better in 1,000+ PAs.
• V-Mart was 11-for-16 in the series, but just 2 RBI, including a solo HR.
• For Balfour, it was the first 4-run outing in his 85 save chances.
• What do you think — should Detroit’s comeback be viewed happily by their Central rivals, who are closer to a wild-card than to the division lead?
• Six runs off Max Scherzer were his most since June 6 last year, snapping a 46-game string that carried a 2.77 RA/9. That was MLB’s longest such streak in the last 2 years.
• Prince Fielder‘s home run #281 makes an even 600 for him and his daddy. On Tuesday, Prince passed Cecil’s total of 1,313 hits. Today, he had 3 hits, and scored 3 for just the second time this year. His pace of 82 runs would match the career low of his rookie year, and 25 HRs would set a new low.

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Orioles 3, @Red Sox 2 — Nailing down Baltimore’s first one-run win since July didn’t start pretty for Jim Johnson. A nubber ‘twixt pitcher and first became a gift hit when Johnson and Chris Davis didn’t dance the same steps. But Jonny Gomes rapped a quick 6-4-3, and Salty was caught spectatin’.

Chris Tillman’s 7 sturdies (8 Ks, no walks) protected the lead built by Manny Machado’s 2-run double. Two Boston boo-boos assisted that score: Jon Lester’s preceding walk to the lefty McLouth (career .221 vs. southpaws), and Gomes firing the carom well wide of the relay man, when a targeted toss might have caught McLouth scoring. Gomes had a tough night, logging the worst WPA by a BoSox this year (-0.415), going 0-4, twice leaving a man at 2nd, and the DP in the 9th. Brian Matusz blew away Big Papi to end the 8th with the tying run on 3rd. Ortiz is 1 for 19 in that matchup, 11 Ks and no walks.

• Machado drilled a Monster single in the 7th, a probable HR in most parks.
• Davis, flipped to 4th in the order tonight, doubled home Adam Jones after a rare walk.
• Shane Victorino pulled a screamer into the Monster seats, his 5th HR in 8 games (12 RBI, 10 runs). He’s been on fire for a month, even hitting .306/.923 going right-on-right since a hamstring twinge left him unable to hit from the other side. Shane has always hit better from the right side, with twice the home-run rate. Except for his rookie year, when he hit only right-handed and was hopeless against both kinds of slants, Victorino is 22 for 72 going right-on-right, with a .542 slugging percentage. It makes you wonder if his switch-hitting has been counterproductive.
• Gazing at Chris Tillman’s combined stats for 2012-13 brought a familiar feeling, which I finally pinned down. Here is Tillman’s line, inserted between two seasons by The Winningest Pitcher of the Nineteen-Eighties. It’s a darn good fit, except for innings per start:

• Don’t take this point too seriously, but Tillman has pitched well with low run support this year. In 9 games backed by 1, 2 or 3 runs, he’s averaged 6-1/3 IP and 2 runs allowed, helping the O’s go 4-5 in those games (4-3 scoring 2 or 3 runs).

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@Braves 3, Indians 1 — Kris Medlen strung up 7 zeroes for the first time this year, and Brian McCann’s 3-run shot with 2 outs in the 3rd propelled the Braves towards a sweep. Craig Kimbrel’s 3 groundouts sealed it.

Andrelton Simmons doubled to start the 3rd, but the inning went backwards when Medlen’s bunt got Simmons cut down at 3rd, and Jimenez struck out Jordan Schafer for the second time. Then Justin Upton, hitting .224 with 2 outs this year, knocked a single to center, and McCann’s blow followed.

• Schafer whiffed 4-for-4, the 4th such game by a leadoff man this year. But he still had a hand in the win. That’s the first time this year that Brantley’s made an “out on the bases” (not counting 3 caught stealing). Five qualified hitters still have perfect scores on the paths: Paul Goldschmidt, Joe Mauer, Brandon Crawford, Nate Schierholtz, and Adam Dunn(?!).
• Ubaldo Jimenez has whiffed 10 twice in a row, but he lost both.
• BA for non-pitchers, with 0, 1 and 2 outs: .265, .261, .245. Upton’s at .286, .280, .224.
• Probably just a blip, but … Through August 7, Kimbrel whiffed 41% of all batters (72/177). In his last 10 games, he’s fanned 22% (8 of 36). On the other hand, 31 outs, 5 singles and no walks.

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Angels 2, @Rays 0 — Jason Vargas slipped out of a bases-full jam in the 1st, and went on to log 7 two-hit innings, handing the Rays a 4th loss in 5 games. Tampa’s 11-13 in August, averaging 3.5 R/G; they scored 4.6 R/G through July.

• The Rays have excelled with RISP generally, but not with the sacks full — 11th in AL OBP, 13th in OPS. With 3 on and 2 outs, they’re just 6 for 47.
• Two walks for Mike Trout, who leads the AL with 80. He also leads the AL in times on base including errors, thanks to 10 ROE (none for Miggy).
• The two AL wild-card leaders start a 3-set in Oakland on Friday, Rays leading the A’s by one loss and the Orioles by four. In the one-wild-card era, pursuers would have rooted for Oakland to win 2 of 3. But with two wild cards, the best outcome for Baltimore et al. is a Tampa sweep. The matchups are Price vs. Parker, Cobb vs. Gray, and Hernandez vs. Griffin. (And we’re no longer allowed to ask, “Who Hernandez?”)
• The PED culture was bad. But this culture is even more prevalent, and just as insidious. My commuter train already has a “quiet car,” no cell talk allowed — and you can bet I’m there every ride, even if I have to stand. If there was a Cell-Free Zone at the ballpark, that’s where you’d find me.

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@Nationals 9, Marlins 0 — Winning 8 out of 9 has pulled Washington within 6 losses of Cincinnati. The Nats do have an easy schedule, but no games with the Reds or the Pirates, and they’re 10 full games behind St. Louis, where they play 3 in the final week.

• Three of Washington’s eight shutouts have come against Miami, two of them started by Gio Gonzalez.
• Jayson Werth, NL batting champion? He’s tied for 2nd in BA, 4 points behind Yadier Molina; he’s technically 2 PAs short of qualifying, but he’ll make that up in 3 games if he stays healthy. Werth is also 4th in slugging, with a chance that the current top two will drop out due to qualifying issues: Carlos Gonzalez hasn’t played since August 4, and Troy Tulowitzki is already short of the qualifying total, but is listed (like Werth) due to the “add hitless ABs” provision. Neither CarGo nor Tulo is exactly an iron man. Of course, neither is Werth, plus he’d still need to catch Paul Goldschmidt, who leads Jayson by .551-.540.

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Royals 3, @Twins 1 — K.C. finished 15-4 against Minnesota. They have 29 games left: 14 among the Mariners, ChiSox and Blue Jays, 15 among Detroit, Cleveland and Texas. The playoffs are out of reach — too many teams to pass for the wild card, and too hard to make up the 8 losses that separate them from Detroit, even with 6 games head-to-head. But a finish of 17-12 or better would bag at least 86 wins for the year, more than any Royals team since 1989.

• One and done: All three games in this sweep were settled by “N to 1.” The Royals have allowed exactly one run in 4 straight games, the first such streak since Baltimore did it two Augusts ago, all against Minnesota. These Twins have also scored one in 4 straight; but those Twins did it 5 straight, which is tied for the longest such searchable streak. Five is also the known mark for allowing exactly one run, last done by the 2003 Dodgers.

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@Mets 11, Phillies 3 — Carlos Torres allowed one run in 6.2 innings, whiffing 6 without a walk and facing 2-plus-the-minimum until his last inning. New York scored in each of their last six times up, the 11 run total matching that of their last 5 games, and more than 3 times their post-Break average of 3.5 runs. Birthday boy Anthony Recker mashed a high 2-run blast and scored 3 times, more than any such celebrant this year. Ethan Martin took the loss despite 9 Ks in 4 IP, tying the most ever in an outing that short.

• Before this year, the 30-year-old Torres had averaged 3.8 walks per 9 IP in over 700 minor-league innings, and 4.9 BB/9 in almost 100 MLB innings. Something has finally clicked for Torres: After cutting his walk rate to 2.4 in 12 AAA starts, he’s walked only 7 in 55 Mets innings — 2nd-best in MLB for 50+ IP this year. His 68% strike rate ranks 3rd, tied with Colon, Zimmermann and Iwakuma.
• Matt den Dekker went 0-for-5 in his big-league debut, tying Tito Navarro and John Gibbons in Mets history. Navarro’s career wound up 1 for 17, his one hit a game-winner. Gibbons wound up 11 for 50: He went 2-31 in 1984, but 9-19 in ’86, with 5 extra-base hits — his 1.388 OPS the best of any final season of 20+ PAs. The last 0-for-5 debut was in 2010, by Chris Heisey. Don’t sweat it too much, Matt; one future star debuted with an 0-for-6.
• It’s official: RH reliever Vic Black is the PTBNL in the Mets-Pirates trade. The last pick of the 2009 first round, Black had a 2.02 ERA over the last 2 years at AA/AAA, with 12.5 SO/9, 30 saves and a 1.11 WHIP. His control still needs work (4.2 BB/9), but that’s a nice piece to add with the longer-term prospect Dilson Herrera in a late-August deal of two rent-a-players.
• Speaking of birthdays, I was in Section 121 of New Shea today, celebrating a godson’s 16th. As the game grew lopsided, I made two silly predictions for Jonathan’s benefit: (1) that lumbering Lucas Duda would steal, after a leadoff single; and (2) that Eric Young would hit the first inside-the-park grand slam in Mets history. Duda did run, but the pitch was fouled off, and then he stayed put. Young hit a stand-up triple — but at least one fan contingent was madly waving him in. Duda has 2 steals in 321 career games; Young has one IPHR in 374 games.

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Late Wednesday

@Rockies 5, Giants 4 — After fanning Buster Posey to end the top of the 6th, Jhoulys Chacin had 8 Ks, a no-hitter, and a 1-1 tie….

• Rex Brothers closed it out, with 2 Ks. His 1.43 ERA would be the first sub-2.00 mark by a Colorado pitcher with 50+ innings. Just 4 such seasons had ERAs of 2.70 or better.

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The bullpen slippage for this year’s Orioles is as much in the setup men as in closer Jim Johnson. In 2012, when leading after 6 innings, they went 65-4 (.942), bagging about 5 more wins than suggested by the rest of the league’s percentage. This year (through Wednesday), they’re 51-14 (.785), about 4 games worse than the rest of the AL.

The overall AL W% when ahead after 6 has declined from .882 to .843, a drop of about 3 wins per 70 games. The NL has held steady, .880-.878.