@Brewers 8, Braves 2: For 4 innings, Paul Maholm had a lead and a tight rhythm: out, on base, out, out. But when Chipper Jones‘s boot broke the pattern, all hell broke loose — an 8-run foam-over that featured both a sac bunt and an RBI double by Yovani Gallardo, who won his 7th straight decision.

• Remember when St. Louis had the NL’s top offense? Over the teams’ last 43 games, the Cards have averaged an OK 4.30 R/G, while the Crew has bubbled up to 5.67.
• Gallardo isn’t just consistent from year to year (ERA+ from 105-111 each of the last 4 seasons); he’s sneakily consistent in putting up Quality Starts. Would you have guessed that a guy outside the top 20 in ERA (3.72) is #1 in both number and percentage of Quality Starts? Gallardo has 24 QS in 30 starts, with a personal record of 15-3 and a 19-5 team mark in those games.

Tigers 8, @White Sox 6: The good news for Detroit is that the one team they must beat is the one team they can beat. Max Scherzer continued his mastery of the ChiSox (2.51 ERA and 5.1 SO/BB in 13 starts), allowing 1 run in 6 IP for his career-best 16th win.

A big moment of choice came with Prince Fielder up in the top of the 7th, 2 outs, 2 on, Tigers ahead 3-1. Robin Ventura summoned the rookie southpaw Leyson Septimo, but his first pitch got away and the runners moved up. Despite the open base, and a count that eventually reached 3-and-1, Ventura turned down the option of walking Fielder and bringing in a RHP to face the far less gifted Delmon Young. It’s not an open-and-shut case, but know this: On a 3-1 pitch, Fielder is now 38 for 101 with 8 HRs.

• Tigers are 12-5 vs. ChiSox, 63-62 against all others.
• Wait-wait-wait — Down to his last out, with the batter representing the tying run, Ventura looked down his expanded bench — which included Dayan Viciedo (20 HRs) and Gordon Beckham (15 HRs, including each of the last 2 nights) — and decided that Orlando Hudson gave the best chance? (Papa Grande and Todd Tichenor did not concur.)
• Yes, that was the Dan Johnson whose 9th-inning single kept the game alive.
• Scherzer had 7 Ks and no walks in 6 IP, but 32 foul balls(!) cost him a chance to go deeper, and so ended his 10-game streak of 8+ Ks. The other pitchers with streaks of at least 10 are Randy Johnson (high of 17 games), Pedro Martinez (16), Nolan Ryan (12), Sandy Koufax (11), and 10 each by Tim Lincecum, Curt Schilling and David Cone.
• Scherzer, the strikeout leader whom nobody talks about, is 6-0, 1.29 in his last 7 starts, and has 14 QS in his last 17 games (11-2, 2.56).
• Scherzer’s career rate of 9.28 SO/9 ranks 8th all-time among those with 100+ starts, between Koufax and Kershaw.

Athletics 4, @Angels 1: Payback achieved. A week ago, the Halos took a broom to the Coliseum, ending Oakland’s 9-game win streak, and followed up with a home sweep of Detroit that left the Angels just a game out of the wild card. Now they’re 3.5 games out. A.J. Griffin delivered the 3rd and best of Oakland’s rookie wins in this series with 8 scoreless, walkless innings, and the A’s once again notched a pair of late insurance runs off secondary relievers, which rendered Anaheim’s 9th-inning rally moot.

• Griffin’s 1.94 ERA would rank 4th since 1920 among the 933 first-year pitchers with 10+ starts, and would be the best such year in a DH league. A 13th-round draft pick in 2010, he’s the only player to reach the majors so far from that round — or from the 12th, 11th or 10th round.
• Seriously, has Mike Scioscia been watching Jason Isringhausen for the last month? Since August 1, Izzy has faced 50 batters: 22 reached base, 4 hit home runs, and just 8 struck out; 11 runs were charged to him in 9.2 IP, and he let in 5 of 7 inherited runners. This is the guy trying to keep it close in the 8th?
• Total innings for Ernesto Frieri in this series: zero. After Isringhausen gave up the 3rd run on a pair of doubles, he was replaced by Barry Enright, a career starting pitcher with 4.6 SO/9, who let in the last run on a fly ball and a single. I guess it wouldn’t be fair to the guests to bring in the guy with 14.5 SO/9 to try to strand a baserunner.

Giants 8, @Rockies 3: It was hardly vintage Freak, but San Fran fans are just happy he’s keeping them in the game.

• On August 19, SF trailed LA by half a game. Since then: 15-7 for SF, 7-14 for LA, leading to the Giants’ biggest division lead since 2003.
• At home this year, the Giants have scored 8+ runs in 6 of 71 games; in Coors Field, 6 of 9. They’ve averaged 8.44 R/G in Coors, 4.14 everywhere else. They’re 7-2 in Coors this year, 13-5 in the last 2 years.
• Having already set the record for most HRs by a Colorado catcher, Wilin Rosario is now closing in on the backstop RBI mark — 65, by Chris Iannetta.
• September baseball in the modern age: 9 different relievers pitched less than an inning, tying the season high. Six of those pitched for the Giants, who used 7 relievers for the last 3 innings; at no time had they less than a 3-run lead, and none of them faced the tying run.
• “What about Bob?” The Giants were Gregor, Marco, Buster, Hunter, Joaquin, Brandon, Santiago, Jeremy, Aubrey, Guillermo, Javier, Sergio, Hector, Brandon, Angel, Justin, Jose, Tim and George. Two Brandons, but nary a John in sight?

@Diamondbacks 3, Dodgers 2: LA’s offense stirred in the 1st, producing their first runs since Saturday and first multi-run inning since last Tuesday — and then took a powder for the rest of the game, generating just a pair of Luis Cruz singles in their final 28 PAs, with the last 16 going down in order. Still, Aaron Harang nursed a 2-1 lead into the 6th, when he issued a pair of 2-out walks. Decision time. Don Mattingly must have liked the numbers for Harang vs. Justin Upton — 4 for 25, one walk, no HRs — but the first-pitch cheeseball was ripped to left; tie game. Then Gerardo Parra foiled the LOOGY plan, and the Snakes had seized control.

• When you’re going bad, every little mistake bites you. On Upton’s 2-out hit, Shane Victorino had virtually no chance to throw out Paul Goldschmidt at the plate, but his throw went through anyway, and Miguel Montero lumbered over to 3rd on the play. Naturally, followed with a hard single to LF that likely could not have scored Montero from 2nd, but from 3rd he waltzed in with the lead run.
• It was LA’s 7th straight game scoring 3 runs or less, 4th straight without a HR, 3rd straight with 5 hits or less, and 2nd straight without a walk.
• OK, so the Phillies & Brewers are officially back in this race at 72-71, 3 games behind the Cardinals; and every time LA thinks they’re out, St. Louis pulls them back in. So what do you say of Arizona, 71-72 but with a soft schedule? They have 7 with COL, 3 with the CHC, 3 with SD, and 6 with SF, whom they lead 7-5 so far.

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August 14-15: The last time the Yankees won consecutive games, and the last time the Rangers lost consecutive games. New York then was 2.5 games ahead of Texas; but after respective stretches of 10-15 and 18-8, the Rangers now lead by 5 games in the chase for the AL’s best record. (Incidentally, during that 18-8 run, Texas actually lost 3 games off their division lead, with Oakland going 21-5.)