Orioles 7, @Yankees 3 — The rainstorm had moved off by game time, but Baltimore breathed lightning and thunder in a 7-run 7th, matching the biggest inning for both teams this year (scored and allowed).

Andy Pettitte turned over a 3-0 lead and 2 runners to Shawn Kelley, but two big blows made it 7-3 before the 2nd out. J.J. Hardy’s first-pitch drive to RF skipped off the top of the wall for a 3-run HR and the lead. A pretty bunt hit and a walk off Boone Logan made more trouble for Joba to deal with, and he didn’t deal with it well.

• “J. Hardy,” eh? Damn.

Pettitte brought a 27-6 starting record vs. Baltimore, with a 3.59 ERA in 41 starts. Counting postseason, the Yanks had won 32 of his 44 starts against the O’s. Baltimore had won only once in Wei-Yin Chen’s 5 prior starts against New York.

Joe Girardi will be questioned on taking out Pettitte. But it seemed like the obvious move; I would not have let him face Matt Wieters as the tying run, after throwing 93 pitches. Look at Pettitte’s splits for pitch #76-100 this year. And Wieters is a much better slugger against lefties. They should have made more hay while Chen struggled, but they missed on potential big innings. Derek Jeter went 0-4 with 3 Ks, and all he could do in 4 RISP chances was a bags-full sac fly. He’s 3-23 in his latest return, with 3 GDPs and 8 Ks, 2 RBI and 1 run.

• In the 1st, Robinson Cano whiffed with a man on 3rd and 1 out. That is not one of the RISP situations Cano has struggled in; he’s hit .375 career (97/259), or .323 counting sac flies as ABs. Ah, but against lefties, the latter mark is just .262 (28/107).
• With a southpaw going, Girardi started Vernon Wells in RF over Ichiro. Ichiro’s hitting .340 off lefties this year, .333 career. But Wells has hit .300 off southpaws this year, and Chen has a big platoon split. Wells watched strike three on a full count with bags full, ending New York’s scoreless 1st, after 2-out walks to Soriano and A-Rod.
• Soriano gave Pettitte a lead in the 3rd with a 2-out RBI hit, after Brett Gardner’s second leadoff double. Gardner’s just a .250 career hitter off lefties, but he’s not fooled by Chen’s slants; he’s 5 for 8 at this writing, including a homer.

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Digression: Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay referenced game 2 of the 1995 ALDS between New York and Seattle — a terrifically entertaining series all around, and this game in particular one of the most thrilling I’ve ever watched. Seattle scored first, on Vince Coleman’s homer(!), but New York tied in the 5th with a 2-out rally. Tino Martinez restored the M’s lead in the 6th with a 2-out hit, but was then caught stealing, and the Yanks answered with back-to-back jacks by Ruben Sierra and Don Mattingly, stirring the crowd of 57,126 to a frenzy. Seattle flipped the lead back with 2 in their 7th, but with 2 outs in the home half, Paul O’Neill connected off lefty Norm Charlton, who would last 4 innings with no other damage. John Wetteland came on in the 9th, 1 out and the lead run on 2nd, and fanned both hitters, then zipped through the 10th and 11th. With 2 outs in the 12th, Junior Griffey homered on Wetteland’s 46th pitch. But with 2 outs in the home half, 2 on via walk, Ruben Sierra lined a double to left, scoring pinch-runner Jorge Posada(!!), but a relay from LF Alex Diaz through Luis Sojo nailed Bernie Williams at home, and they played on. Mariano Rivera worked out of his only jam in the 15th (he went 3.1 IP with 5 Ks), and at last, Jim Leyritz won it with a 2-run HR off Tim Belcher — the first of Leyritz’s 8 postseason HRs and 20 RBI in just 61 ABs. Mo earned the win in his first postseason appearance; the 0.471 WPA from that day remains his postseason high.

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Indians 4, @Tigers 0 –Mike Aviles broke up a scoreless game with his first-ever grand slam, after Joaquin Benoit had walked the bags full, and the Indians salvaged their last game with the Tigers this year. The third walk was an IBB to Jason Kubel, after a sacrifice put 2 in scoring position with 1 out. Benoit was 4-0 this year and hadn’t let go a lead nor put Detroit behind in a game all year — but he’s now allowed 5 career slams in 111 PAs, including a 2011-04-29 walk-off to Carlos Santana.

• It was just the second 9th-inning slam in MLB this year, and the first since 2007-04-11 in a scoreless game in the 9th or later. It’s the first such 0-0-breaking slam for Cleveland or against Detroit in the searchable database, stretching back to 1945.
• First shutout on 11+ hits involving an AL team since 2006-06-05. Second such against Detroit in the database (since 1916), the other by Robin Roberts on 1964-07-17. Fifth such for the Indians, last on 1976-06-12.
• Cleveland’s last shutout of Detroit was 2010-09-29, when Mitch Talbot (7 IP) bested Max Scherzer in the start of a doubleheader sweep

Danny Salazar’s rematch with Detroit had no Miggy to stir the pot, nor Austin Jackson, who also homered off Salazar that night. The Tigers threatened a few times, but Danny went 6 shutout innings on just 77 pitches, no walks. Detroit missed a big chance in the 3rd: Andy Dirks doubled to deep CF with Alex Avila on 1st and 1 out, but Avila stopped at 3rd, then was thrown out at home on a grounder by Jose Iglesias, and they didn’t score.

• Among 284 regular players (250+ PAs), Avila is 10th-worst in rate of extra bases taken on teammates’ hits (19%).

Justin Verlander shook off a slow start and went 7 scoreless stanzas on 116 pitches, 6 Ks and 2 walks. He fanned Kubel in the 7th on three swing-and-misses with a man on 3rd and 1 out. But the first 2 innings seemed a capsule view of Verlander’s season: He got 2 strikes on 8 of the first 9 batters, but fanned only one. He threw 34 strikes out of 52 pitches — just 4 misses, 8 looking, and 22 contacted. Here’s what the others did after 2 strikes:

• 4 fouls, walk.
• 3 fouls, popout.
• Walk.
• 1 foul, lineout.
• 1 foul, flyout.
• 1 foul, single.
• Groundout.

Cody Allen got the Tribe out of trouble in the 7th, getting 2 outs with 2 on to preserve the all-oval scoreboard. Nick Swisher started a nice 3-6-1 DP in the 6th, with Salazar getting over quickly, just like it says in the P.F.P Manual.

Nick Castellanos made his MLB debut, flying out as a pinch-hitter. Detroit’s top pick in 2010, Castellanos has hit .303 in the minors, and was leading the AAA International League in runs, total bases and doubles (2nd in RBI, 4th in HRs) before the call-up. At 21, he was the 2nd-youngest hitter in the I.L., after Xander Bogaerts. Castellanos attended Archbishop McCarthy HS in Florida, the same school that produced Alex Avila and Danny Farquhar (see Late Saturday Mariners note, below).

• Aviles mooted this note, but anyway: Detroit’s last extra-innings shutout of Cleveland was in 1965, with Mickey Lolich going the 10-IP distance and winning on Dick McAuliffe’s double off starter Jack Kralick. The last for the Tribe vs. the Tigers was July 4, 1962, Jim Perry going 10 and starting the winning rally off hard-luck Hank Aguirre.
• Despite losing, Detroit’s 15-4 mark against Cleveland is their best W% ever in that season series. They twice notched a 17-5 mark, including 1915, when the Tigers went 92-40 against everyone but pennant-winning Boston (to whom they lost 14 of 22 despite outscoring them 101-91, with eight one-run losses).
• Someone on Baseball Tonight said, “The Indians aren’t going away.” OK, breaking a 5-game slide is a positive step, and sure, Tampa’s slump has left the door open. But they’re 4 losses back of the Rays, one back of Baltimore, and tied with New York. The Tribe do have a good schedule left, 15 of 26 at home, and just 3 with a real contender. If they do make the tourney, it will come by further abuse of the weak teams: Cleveland is 40-17 against losing clubs, but 32-47 vs. teams at .500 or better. It’s not just the Tigers (4-15), but the BoSox and Yanks (1-6 each), the Rays (2-4) and the Braves (0-3). They’ve handled the Rangers (5-1) and A’s (5-2), but they really haven’t shown they can hang with the best clubs.

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Cardinals 7, @Pirates 2 — As in their last visit to Pittsburgh, Joe Kelly tamed the Bucs’ bats for 6 innings and helped the Cards win the finale, and this time escape with a share of 1st place. Kris Johnson‘s first MLB start was a rough go, with 3 hits and 2 walks before the second out. Pete Kozma’s whiff got Johnson through that inning with “just” 3 runs in, leaving 2 in scoring position. But after Kelly worked through his own 1st-inning jam, his mates knocked Johnson out in the 3rd with 3 hits and 2 more runs before the first out, and the result was never in doubt after that. Kelly is 7-1, 1.97 in 11 starts.

• The Cards’ 3 leading hitters (Molina, Craig and Carpenter) had 2 hits apiece, with Carpenter’s 44th double and Craig’s 97th RBI.
• Pedro Alvarez is hitting .199 since the Break.
• Next up: Pittsburgh visits Milwaukee, St. Louis and Texas, then home to the Cubs (4), Padres (4) and Reds, before a last trip to Chicago and Cincinnati. For the Cardinals, 4 in Cincy and 3 home to the Bucs ends the “contenders” part of their schedule.

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@Red Sox 7, White Sox 6 — Hey, remember when Boston had to sweat the 9th inning? Koji Uehara hasn’t even let a man on base in his last 5 saves. David Ortiz had 3 RBI for the first time since July 10, and Jacoby Ellsbury scored 2 and drove in 2, as the BoSox finished off a sweep and their 7th win in 8 games.

• Uehara has issued 9 walks in 61.1 IP, two of them intentional. Besides the IBBs, he’s had exactly one other 3-and-0 count, which ended in a strikeout. He hasn’t had one 3-ball count in his last 7 games, throwing 83% strikes in that span, and 73% for the year — 2nd to Edward Mujica of all those with 50+ IP. At the time of a PA’s resolution, Uehara has been ahead three times as often as he’s been behind — and when behind, he’s allowed just 5 hits in 30 ABs.
• This goofy play came in the 4th, as Boston boosted their lead to 7-4.

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@Athletics 5, Rays 1 — Tampa’s dog days spilled over to the new month. A 2-base throwing error on Gold Glover Evan Longoria put the go-ahead run on 3rd base in the 3rd, and Brandon Moss brought him in with a single. A.J. Griffin gave only the obligatory home run in his 7 IP (MLB-high 33rd), and the late Rays relievers let the deficit widen from one to four. Coco Crisp homered again, his 6th in 11 games, and the A’s won their 6th of 7 and second straight series against likely playoff teams.

• Ironically, the loss went to Alex Torres, who probably made the greatest contribution to Tampa’s chance of winning. He came on in the 2nd and stranded a man on 3rd, then pitched 3 more innings with only the unearned run off Longo’s error.

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Twins 4, @Rangers 2 — Texas picked a bad time to lose a home series to Minnesota. Their lead’s down to 1 game as they head into Oakland. Besides 6 games in that rivalry, the Rangers still have 3 with the Pirates, 4 in Tampa and 3 in KC.

• Alex Presley went 4-1-3-1 in his Twins debut, and promising catcher Josmil Pinto went 4-1-2-1 with a double in his MLB debut.
• Glen Perkins bagged his 32nd save, one off the southpaw lead. He’s had a better year (32/35) than the more celebrated Aroldis Chapman (33/38).
• Jurickson Profar’s just 20 years old, so let’s not be too hard on his .233 average. But the strike-zone command that he showed in the minors (12% walks/14% Ks) hasn’t shown in the bigs yet (8%/19%), nor has his SB ability (1 for 5).

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@Rockies 7, Reds 4 — Michael Cuddyer’s 4-1-4-3 paced the offense (HR, 2 doubles), and Adam Ottavino earned the win with 3 scoreless innings after Tyler Chatwood stuck in his thumb and pulled out a dumb injury. The Reds lost their third series in a row, and Mike Leake’s last 4 starts have seen 19 runs in 21.2 IP. Shin-Soo Choo homered, doubled, singled and stole, and Brandon Phillips reached 3 times (with his second 2-walk game of the year), but Votto and Bruce went 0-8 (0-4 with RISP). Phillips has scored 7 runs in 4 games since moving to the #2 hole.

• Congratulations, Todd. That’s a nice piece of hitting.
• Chris Heisey had 4 hits for the first time, but no runs or ribbies. It’s the 18th such game in the majors this year, the first by a Red in over 2 years. Reed Johnson takes the prize so far with 3 extra-base hits out of 4, but no scoreboard impact. (Atlanta won that game anyway, with 3 HRs. Carlos Gomez also had 7 total bases without denting the dish.)

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@Dodgers 2, Padres 1 — Wait, didn’t we just see this game? Pads score first, L.A. ties up against the starter, takes the lead off a reliever, Mark Ellis has a big hit, Puig does something special, Dodgers starter goes 7 IP on 7 Ks…. It must be a rerun.

• Dodgers are 19-4 in Greinke’s starts, and he’s 2-2 when backed with 1 or 2 runs.

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Marlins 7, Braves 0 — Nathan Eovaldi got pulled after 8 scoreless innings, so Miami’s still seeking a CG shutout this year. But it’s the 12th quality start in 14 games by Eovaldi, including two bagel games against Atlanta.

• Alex Wood laid his first egg, 7 runs against 7 outs — a far cry from his other meeting with Eovaldi.
• Jake Marisnick hasn’t hit much, but he has 5 CF assists in 29 games. This one preserved the shutout; nice form, Jake.

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Royals 5, @Blue Jays 0 — Ohhhh … so this is where Greg Holland was needed. Never mind my remarks about Saturday’s game.

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@Nationals 6, Mets 5 — Washington dug out of a 5-3 hole with 3 runs in the 8th, the last two on 2-out hits, to salvage a win from this 3-game home set. Ryan Zimmerman’s 3rd hit tied it, a grounder up the middle gloved on the grass scoring Denard Span from 2nd, and Jayson Werth’s second double, a liner skipping to the RF wall, brought Zimmerman all the way home. New York had led from the top of the 1st, but the Nats scored the last 4 runs off 3 Mets relievers. The hosts rapped 16 hits, the Mets 13 (with 5 doubles and Matt den (Upper) Dekker’s first career HR), and each side hat at least one hit in each of the inning until Rafael Soriano’s clean 9th.

• At 69-67, Washington trails Cincinnati by 6.5 games in the wild-card race. Their remaining schedule has 10 home games, 16 away, none against the Reds, and concludes with a 6-game trip to St. Louis and Arizona.

Through Saturday, the Nats led the Mets in BA (.249-.240), slugging (.395-.375) and OPS (.705-.685). But the Mets have outscored them, 4.04 to 3.92 R/G. The Mets are below NL average in BA, OBP and SLG, both overall and with RISP — but they’re a hair above average in scoring. One piece of the puzzle is baserunning, where the Mets have been arguably the best in the NL, if not the majors. New York ranks 1st in percentage of extra bases taken (46%; Nats are 8th at 40%), while making the fewest outs on bases (36; Nats 12th with 49). They’re 4th in steals (Nats 8th), 3rd in success rate (Nats 9th). As WAR sees it, the Mets are 2nd in baserunning value, +8 runs, while the Nats are minus-3.

• Bless you, Orel Hershiser: “I think the ‘Verducci Effect’ has been debunked.“
• On the 40th anniversary of Orel’s debut, John Kruk remembered his first game — pinch-running on Opening Day in L.A., getting caught stealing 2nd with a man on 3rd, for the first out of the 9th with the Padres down by 2 runs. WPA rates it the biggest play of the game.

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Giants 8, @Diamondbacks 2 — A long time ago, Yusmeiro Petit was a hot Mets prospect, fanning 200 in 139 IP in his first full minor-league season. We shipped him to Florida in the Delgado deal, and some fans worried that we’d let go of a future star. But as Petit rose, so did his ERA: around 2.00 for the A levels, 3.05 in AA, 4.34 in AAA, and 5.43 in the bigs before Sunday. Then he set a career high with 10 Ks, and chipping in his first RBI since 2006 with a rare hit that raised him to 4 for 70.

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@Astros 2, Mariners 0 — Brett Oberholtzer outlasted Hisashi Iwakuma in a duel that wound up as the rookie’s first shutout, and the first by an Astro this year. Jose Altuve and Jason Castro led off the 8th with doubles against reliever Charlie Furbush, Brandon Barnes’s bunt brought the security run, and Oberholtzer set down 11 of the last 12 Mariners, including powerful Kendrys Morales and Franklin Gutierrez as the tying run in the 9th. The M’s mustered 4 singles and a walk, and got just one man past 1st base, that with 2 outs.

• Every September brings superficially impressive rookie outings, and we usually take them with a grain of salt, especially against second-tier foes. But Oberholtzer had earlier back-to-back starts of 7 scoreless innings against high-scoring Boston and Baltimore, and in his next game held Texas to 2 runs in 6.2 IP. He’s now allowed 10 runs (9 ER) in 41 IP over 6 starts, a 1.98 ERA and 4-1 record. He’s the only Astro this year with more than one scoreless game of 7+ innings. Of the 40 pitchers with 3 or more such games this year, only Oberholtzer (3 of 6) has fewer than 12 starts.

The shutout makes Oberholtzer the 3rd pitcher this century with 3 scoreless outings of 7+ innings within his first 9 career games, joining Dontrelle Willis and Zach Duke. Oberholtzer is the first Astro ever in that company, and the 8th ever to throw a CG shutout within his first 9 games. (Of the prior seven, only Joaquin Andujar (19) and Tom Griffin (10) topped 2 career shutouts. Randy Niemann had 2 shutouts in his first 7 games, but never had another. Bo McLaughlin had a 10-IP shutout in his 3rd game, another SHO in game 13, and never another. Taylor Buchholz did it in his 9th game, never another, and Paul Siebert in his 2nd game, never another. Kirk Saarloos added one more to his 5th-game shutout.)

• Iwakuma’s seven zeroes trimmed his ERA to 2.92 this year and 3.02 career.

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Angels 5, @Brewers 3 — In a game played under 1979 precepts, Mike Scioscia used his top strikeout artist at the moment of greatest impact — 1 out in the 8th, bases loaded. Ernesto Frieri punched out Jonathan Lucroy in a 12-pitch, 9-foul at-bat (with only 1 ball), then blew off Khris Davis on 3 swings, and closed out the save with 2 more Ks — 23 strikes in 26 pitches, and an old-fashioned 5-out save.

• J.B. Shuck doesn’t get many extra-base hits, but this was a big one. (Not such great work by Yuniesky Betancourt, though.)
• Mike Trout tripled, doubled and singled, topping last year’s extra-base total, and drew his AL-high 82nd walk. If Trout keeps his OPS+ over 180, this would be the first AL season since 2002 with two qualifiers that high.
• Carlos Gomez hit a tiebreaking 2-run shot, tying last year’s career high with #19 — 15 of them solos. His RISP split is one reason I don’t like him for MVP. 

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Late Saturday

Angels 6, @Brewers 5 — One out from defeat and with no one aboard, the Halos got a pinch-double from Josh Hamilton and Hank Conger’s pinch-clanger off the RF pole. If my P-I-searching eyes haven’t failed me, that was:

• The Angels’ first behind-to-ahead pinch-HR in the 7th inning or later since 2000 (when Scott Spiezio delivered a walk-off for rookie skipper Mike Scioscia).
• The second behind-to-ahead pinch-HR with 2 outs in the 9th or later this year in MLB (and the first that didn’t happen with me in attendance).
• The first time since last August 18 that any team had two pinch hits in an inning when trailing with 2 outs in the 9th or later.
• The first time since 2009-06-23 that two such pinch-hits led to a tying rally.
  
• The first time since 2006-06-22 that two such pinch-hits came in a team win. (If you follow just one of the links, this is the one — particularly the bottom of the 8th & top of the 9th.)

P.S. Spiezio’s 2000 game-winner scored Edgard Clemente, nephew of Roberto, in his last MLB game. Edgard once was a promising prospect, hitting .300 with some power at high-A, age 19 (youngest in the Carolina League), and a good .848 OPS the next year at AA, one of four 20-year-olds in the Eastern League (along with Torii Hunter, Luis Castillo and Javier Valentin). But he never commanded the strike zone, with 81 Ks against 9 walks in 270 big-league PAs, including 27-0 in his last season — the 6th-most Ks with no walks for any non-pitcher season. Edgard was still active last year in the Mexican League.

• Jonathan Lucroy might get some notice one of these days. For 2012-13 combined, he ranks 6th in WAR among catchers, and 4th in OPS+ among those with 700+ PAs. Neither Lucroy nor Carlos Santana has been an All-Star yet; the other 7 catchers with at least 5.5 WAR over the last 2 years have each been selected at least once in that span.
• I’m definitely pulling for Scooter Gennett, the only man from the 2009 16th round to reach the bigs so far. (But where are you, Riaan Spanjer-Furstenburg? How do you go from hitting .359 in rookie ball to out of the game in just 2 years? Oh, how I dreamed of seeing the first jersey with a double-deck name….)

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Mariners 3, @Astros 1 — Sure, it’s a meaningless game, but I still have to marvel at Jake Elmore being caught stealing for the last out of the 8th, down by 2 runs. Jake’s one career steal so far came earlier in this game, while the CS was his 5th.

• But maybe Bo Porter considers the developmental opportunity more important than the game situation. Elmore swiped as many as 32 in a minor-league season, but his success rate needs work. Humberto Quintero’s career 33% CS rate provided a suitable challenge for Elmore, who tried three and was “caught” twice (safe one of those times on a dropped throw).

I decided to root for M’s closer Danny Farquhar after hearing some local radioheads do an incredibly juvenile riff on his last name. So now I’ve noticed his extremely high strikeout rate — 37.4% (71 of 190 batters), 6th-best this year for 150+ BF. Farquhar’s totals for MLB and AAA this year include 101 Ks and just 21 walks in 66 IP, with 3 HRs. Oddly, that high K rate comes from a guy listed at just 5′ 9″ tall; even Billy Wagner was listed at 5′ 10″. Farquhar would be the first pitcher 5′ 9″ or less with more than a 36% K rate and 150+ BF, besting Tom Gordon‘s 35.8% in 2001.

Alas, for my dear man, the Ks have not stacked up to great success thus far, due perhaps to bad luck with the BAbip fairies (.364), especially with men on base (.444), plus a slight tendency to walk the leadoff man (6 of 47, more than twice his un-IBB rate otherwise). He did just that Saturday with a 2-run lead — just the sort of thing that would aggravate Ned Yost’s condition — but he overcame his missstep by overpowering the next three Astros on two whiffs and a tap-back.