Reds 4, @Nationals 3 (15 inn.) — With both sides running out of bodies, Todd Frazier’s 2-run shot broke a tie in the 15th, and the struggling Logan Ondrusek survived some loud outs in his second inning of work to preserve the win. The Reds weathered Washington’s winning bids in the 12th and 14th with great defensive plays, by Brandon Phillips and Billy Hamilton, each ending the frame with a man on third.

Mike Leake took a shutout into the 7th, but the Nats got a two-out run there, and Aroldis Chapman’s first one-run save try this year went flat. Danny Espinosa led off with a double on 3-and-1 (batters on that count are 7/14 career off Chapman), took third on a lineout to left, and scored on Scott Hairston’s deep sac fly, just the second ever off Chapman. By my count, he converted 12 of 17 one-run tries last year.

• Stephen Strasburg plunked a pair, and both scored, but that was all the Reds got in his 7 innings. Frazier scored the first run on a first-and-third ploy; what was Wilson Ramos thinking?
• BAbip off Strasburg was .376 coming into the game. The highest known qualified mark was .358, Kevin Millwood, 2008. Teammate Jordan Zimmermann is 2nd-highest this year at .367. Feels like some porous defense in D.C. (Or maybe not? Nos. 3-4 are Tim Lincecum and Madison Bumgarner, and the Jints have good D-metrics.)
• The Reds had lost Leake’s last five outings. Leake allowed 13 runs in 37 IP (3.16 RA/9), but Cincy totaled 10 tallies.
• Hamilton was caught stealing again, but not how you think — he was heading home. (No video clip?!?)

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@Cleveland 5, Detroit 4 (10 inn.) — Michael Brantley drilled a game-winning homer with two outs in the 10th, snapping Cleveland’s 4-game skid and Detroit’s red-hot streak. Brantley got a full-count hanger from Al Alburquerque with two outs, and rammed it into the right-field seats, building on his breakout year with his first walk-off bomb.

For the hosts, a loss would have cut deeply, due to the foe and the fashion. Cleveland lost the division by one game last year, largely because the Bengals mauled them by 15-4 in the season series. Tigers starter Drew Smyly represented an extra hurdle, as Cleveland came in 4-11 against lefty starters, and last in BA and OPS against southpaws. They worked Smyly hard and drove him out after five innings, 110 pitches, but they left nine on base against him and led just 3-1.

Corey Kluber was sharp through the 6th, handling all but Detroit’s two best with ease. But the lead slipped away in the 7th against the bottom half, with doubles by Alex Avila and Rajai Davis. Cleveland scratched back ahead in their half, with rookie Jesus Aguilar’s second RBI. Miguel Cabrera’s third hit opened the 8th and knocked out Kluber, but Brian Shaw cleaned that up. After their own two-out threat produced only two more strandees, Cody Allen came on for the save. But he threw a dead-straight fastball to pinch-hitter J.D. Martinez, who drove it beyond Michael Bourn’s reach for a tying home run, his first Tigers tater. Two Cleveland singles made a one-out jam for Joba Chamberlain in the home half, but Mike Aviles put a cherry on his 0-for-5 night with a tailor-made DP ball, stranding their 14th runner.

Scott Atchison navigated Miggy and Victor Martinez in the 10th, and Alburquerque got two quick outs against Cleveland’s top of the order. Then Brantley, the team leader in home runs and RBI. When he spat on a 2-2 slider and fouled off a full-count fastball, it seemed Alburquerque might let him stroll, and take the platoon edge against Ryan Raburn. But Al-Al has changed his past walk-prone ways, for better and for worse, and he came in with a high slider strike that was catnip to Brantley.

• V-Mart rocked his 11th, but the #1-2 men went 1-for-10 and were never on base when he big boys came up.
• Brantley’s 9 HRs are one short of his career high. His best slugging mark is .402, but he’s at .522 now.
• Al-Al walked or hit one of every six batters over his first three seasons. So far this year, he’s slashed his freebie rate by two-thirds, 4 walks out of 76 batters. But there is a trade-off, his opponents’ BA rising from .176 to .254. This would have been a spot to bury the slider and not sweat the walk; but that nuance might escape a pitcher whose entire big-league career has been threatened by control problems.

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@Atlanta 9, Milwaukee 3 — Ryan Braun had cut the lead to one with a homer in the top of the 8th, and Jonathan Lucroy singled with one out. Rickie Weeks got a 2-1 count, but rapped into a 6-4-3, and then Atlanta blew the doors off. Wei-Chung Wang served up a 5-spot — 2 HRs, 2 singles, 2 walks, a HBP and a steal, 40 pitches to get two outs. Ryan Doumit started it off with a pinch-homer, and got to bat again in the inning, against Lyle Overbay — who popped him up.

• Doumit’s dinger was Atlanta’s first in the pinch since last June 10, when Evan Gattis clubbed his 4th of that year. Their PHs had 186 PAs since then, and were among the NL’s worst this year: 9 for 48, 2 walks, 3 RBI.
• At age 37 and 111 days, Overbay is the 23rd-oldest to make his pitching debut since 1914.
• Wang, the rule-5 draftee, has been a wasted roster spot: 7.2 IP, 15 ER, 5 HRs.
• Khris Davis losing his glove over the wall made this a highlight. But how the heck did Freddie Freeman golf that pitch out to left field? That’s just his 4th career homer to left field; 46 to CF, 27 to RF.
• No one could lay a glove on what Davis doled out.

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White Sox 7, @Royals 6 — Paul Konerko’s 436th homer completed Chicago’s comeback from a 5-0 hole in the 1st inning, and five ChiSox relievers were nearly flawless for the last five frames.

• Despite the Chi win, it looks like Scott Carroll’s moment has passed: A third straight “disaster,” totaling 18 runs, 31 hits in 13 IP. A 7% strikeout rate won’t work for long in today’s game.

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Astros 5, @Angels 2 — Dallas Keuchel’s bid for a second straight shutout fell one strike short, but he still won the third straight for both himself and his team, running his scoreless string to 20 innings. With two outs in the 9th, Keuchel ran a full count to Mike Trout, who beat out an infield grounder, just the Angels’ fourth safety, all singles. Albert Pujols singled off the third baseman’s glove on Keuchel’s career-high 128th pitch, ending the night’s work for the emerging staff anchor. Both runners would score, but the end of the null string took nothing away from Keuchel’s accomplishment.

• His last three outings: Beat Detroit, with 2 runs in 7.2 IP; shut out the Rangers; dominated the AL’s #2 offense. Last year, no Astro won three straight games with at least 6 IP in each.
• Houston’s first 3-game win streak left them at 8-9 this month. Their last full month at .500 or better was September 2010, at 14-13.
• Since Randy Johnson passed through Houston in 1998, the only Astro with back-to-back shutouts was Roy Oswalt (of course), in 2008. That’s also the last time an Astro had two straight scoreless games of 8+ IP.
• Garrett Richards was down 3-0 before he got an out, and took his first loss. Richards allowed 10 hits and fanned just one in 7 IP, his first time this year with less than 5 Ks.

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Assorted Cookies

The intentional walk to Evan Gattis in Sunday’s 9th inning was the 19th bags-filling IBB issued in the last year-plus by a team leading in the 9th or later. All 19 came with men on third and second, and all the games were within one run (15) or two runs (4) at the time. Since I’ve ragged on that ploy more than once, I thought it only fair to check the composite results. Let’s break them down by the number of outs at the time:

• No outs (2): Issuing team went 0-2, but they were already favored to lose each game even before the IBB. Neither walk played an obvious role in the outcome.
• One out (10): Issuing team went 7-3, preserving the lead six times. Just one IBB was followed by a run-scoring walk. No double plays, though.
• Two outs (7): Issuing team went 4-3, preserving the lead four times. One IBB was followed by a run-scoring walk.

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Chris Johnson has started 40 games [counting Monday] and has 9 runs, 9 RBI. He and Andrelton Simmons each have 26 starts with neither run nor ribby, 5th-most in the majors.

But what’s going on with Yunel Escobar, whose 33 starts with no run production are the most? Not counting his 3 HRs, he’s reached safely 52 times, but only scored three times. He’s on pace for 616 PAs and 22 runs, which would be all kinds of unusual. The fewest runs scored with 500+ PAs is 25 by Leo Cardenas, with the historically run-starved 1972 Angels (pre-DH). Leo’s ratio of 24.1 PAs per run is also the modern worst for 450+ PAs — but Escobar is at 28.5 PAs per run. Leo’s Angels averaged a scant 2.9 runs per game, while Yunel’s Rays are at 4.0 R/G.

There’s a logical explanation, of course: Escobar has mainly batted 8th, and Tampa’s #9-1-2 hitters have been dreadful.

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Matt Shoemaker‘s shot at the bigs was a long time coming, and there’s not much cause to think that he’ll last. But no matter where his career goes from here, he can always say that he beat Cy Young Award winners back-to-back (Cliff Lee and David Price).

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What’s driving the Angels‘ high-scoring offense, #2 in the AL at 5 runs per game? The combined output of Trout ‘n’ Albert is no more than expected, Josh Hamilton’s played just eight games, and DH Raul Ibanez looks like the end has come at last. Third base acquisition David Freese stunk before getting hurt, and his fill-ins have been even worse, giving the Angels the lowest BA and OPS at that spot in a decidedly down year for the group. (Four AL teams have sub-.200 BA from 3B, and four have sub-.600 OPS.) J.B. Shuck, a solid contributor last year, played his way back to the minors.

The pleasant surprises:

— RF Collin Cowgill failed trials with three teams in the last three years, hitting .236 with a 72 OPS+, and at 28 he seemed stuck with a “four-A” reputation. But Hamilton’s injury gave Cowgill another shot, and he’s given LA the on-base skills and speed that he’s long showed in the minors, with a .398 OBP so far and an outstanding rate of extra bases taken. (He also leads AL right fielders in range factor, no mean feat with Trout leading in putouts; the Angels are #1 in outfield defense by BIS and Total Zone ratings.)

— 2B Howie Kendrick seems at first glance to be doing what he usually does, batting .299 with decent extra-base hits. But he’s taking walks at more than twice his career rate, for a .374 OBP, 45 points above his norm — putting him on pace for 101 runs, 15 above his career high. He’s also stealing more than ever, with nine steals already (career high 14). Kendrick currently rates as their second-most valuable player by offensive WAR and total WAR.

— Catchers Chris Iannetta and Hank Conger are both batting above career norms. Iannetta hasn’t hit this well since 2008, his first full year, while Conger is finally showing what made him a .297 hitter in the minors, as opposed to .225 in the bigs through last year.

— May call-ups C.J. Cron and Grant Green are a combined 27 for 79 (.342). Green is a native infielder who’s hit around .300 at each minor-league level, now filling LF, and the Angels are 8-2 in his starts. Both had poor K/W ratios in the minors, and will probably come back to earth soon.

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On counts of 0-2, 1-2 and 2-2, Victor Martinez is 20 for 59, with 8 HRs. On ABs that began 0-2, he’s 8-24, 3 HRs. On all two-strike counts, his .359 BA and 1.063 OPS are tops among regulars, the latter by almost 100 points.

So, I’ll hold out my plate for another serving of crow. I was among the many Tigers fans last year who pined to see V-Mart benched at midseason. He had hit .225/.615 through 77 games — as a DH — in his return from a lost year. He was 34 years old, with no defensive value, and he was a rally-killer, with 13 GDPs. But Jim Leyland stuck with him. And since then, Martinez has hit .362/.955 in 132 games, counting the playoffs.

Career BA as Tigers, since Al Kaline’s debut 60 years ago (1,000+ PAs): #1-Cabrera, .327; #2-Martinez, .316. BA leaders for all MLB since 2011: #1-Cabrera, .338; #2-Braun, .320; #3-Martinez, .316.

Now, in all frankness, V-Mart’s offensive value in the last year-plus has been less than his BA suggests, as he’s hit just .263 with men in scoring position, .325 with bags empty. And I still wouldn’t want to give him another big contract this fall. But I sure am enjoying his renaissance.

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Last year, the Yankees were outscored by 21 runs, but finished at 85-77. This year, they’ve been outscored by 8 runs, but are 23-20 and holding first place.

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Finally, my Mets anti-rant: With so many valid critiques one could lay on the Mets, I’m puzzled by how many inane ones find a media outlet. The more of these I hear, the more I actually appreciate Terry Collins and Sandy Alderson. Here are some points from an ESPN Insider column today about Mets “roster blunders“:

On the trade of Ike Davis: “Davis had hit .274/.376/.397 for the Pirates, good for a 121 wRC+. Since the trade, Lucas Duda — the player whom the Mets chose to keep — has hit .237/.326/.329, which equates to just an 88 wRC+ (33 percent worse than Davis). It’s a small sample size, but given how much time the team took to make the decision, you would hope they would have gotten it right, and so far, it does not appear that they have.”

Indeed, 90 plate appearances is a minuscule sample on which to judge a trade. And while Davis has hit .263 with a 116 OPS+ for Pittsburgh, he has one HR and 7 RBI, and poor clutch hitting has yielded -.409 WPA for them. None of those numbers are meaningful yet — but I can imagine what locals would be saying if we had kept Ike and received the 5-for-25 with men on base that he’s given the Bucs.

This critique misses the true point: Neither Davis nor Duda deserve to be regular first basemen. But the Mets had both, and their career batting numbers are much the same. What to do? Both reach arbitration this fall. Davis will command more salary, since he already gets twice Duda’s wage, and he has a 30-HR year on his log. But was there any reason to think that Davis was worth a few million more than Duda, going forward? I say no; this was just a sound business decision.

I mean, Ike Davis … geez … We had to send him back to the minors last year. And when he came back a month later, he drew a lot of walks — and had 4 HRs, 17 RBI in 170 PAs. And then he got hurt again, missing the last month. We cannot cry about trading Ike Davis! After one month! When he’s hit ONE home run for his new team! Oy! (And this is how you lead your critique of Mets roster blunders? Double oy!)

On the overcrowded outfield: “Collins is seemingly obsessed with [Eric] Young Jr. — and hitting him in the leadoff spot — even though he is the worst of the four by any objective standard. … The team should be using him as a defensive caddy and pinch runner for Granderson.”

I agree that Young should not play regularly for a team that dreams of 90 wins. But these details are all wrong.

First, while Young has been mediocre as a leadoff man, he’s still been more effective — just as a hitter, with no regard to his speed — than the other guys Collins has tried since Jose Reyes left:

• Young leading off for the Mets: .316 OBP … .640 OPS … 86 Runs and 38 RBI per 650 PAs
• Others combined, since 2012: .303 OBP … .634 OPS … 74 Runs and 38 RBI per 650 PAs

Second, the Mets have won far more often with Young leading off than with anyone else. From the start of 2013 through Sunday 5/18, the Mets had played .520 ball with Young starting at leadoff (64-59), and .366 with all others (30-52). This year alone, they’re 18-15 with Young leading off, 2-8 with others, mainly Juan Lagares; I love me some Juan, but he’s no leadoff man.

Who should lead off? I might use Daniel Murphy; but I can’t wait for the vitriol when we put our best clutch hitter at leadoff. (Murph has a career .320 BA with RISP, or .310 if you count sac flies as ABs.)

Lastly, the idea of Young as a defensive caddy for Granderson is laughable. Young is a poor defensive outfielder; career stats and the eye test confirm this. And while I don’t think Granderson has a right-fielder’s arm any more, Young certainly doesn’t.

On Curtis Granderson: “We have passed the point in the season where you can say ‘It’s early.'”

Maybe so. But I can’t help thinking of Victor Martinez, missing a whole year, then stinking it up for a solid half-season before he found it again. It’s not a perfect analogy, because Granderson did get back for about 50 games last year after his injuries, with mixed results. But another point may have been lost in the recent hubbub over Curtis homering two straight games in Yankee Stadium, while he’s hit just one at home: In his two 40-HR years for the Yanks, Granderson was no short-porch phony. He hit 37 road HRs those two years; his power is real. Career-wise, he has more homers on the road, and a better BA and OPS.

Yes, odds are that he’s in decline, at age 33. But if you want someone on this roster to hit the ball out of Citi Field, Curtis is your best bet. He has to play regularly all year, unless he keeps floundering and the Mets luck their way into playing meaningful games in the second half. And there are signs that he’s hit in bad luck so far. His BAbip is a ludicrous .235 this year; .303 career, .302 last year. He’s striking out less than in his big-homer years, and his line-drive rate is slightly higher. In the big picture, 43 games is still early.