Rays 6, @Yankees 4: Three runs in the 5th (aided by 2 wild pitches) and a typical Price-is-right performance against the Bombers helped Tampa close their gap to 3 games in the division and WC2 races. Curtis Granderson homered in the 5th (just out of his counterpart’s reach) and Alex Rodriguez went deep in the 8th, but each one also made the last out of the other’s home-run inning, with the tying run on 2nd and lead run on 1st.

• Since 2009, when the southpaw aces joined their current rotations, Price is 7-3 against the Yankees (team 11-6), while Sabathia is 3-8 vs. the Rays (team 6-12). Price is 5-1 in their head-to-head meetings.
• Sabathia had just 3 wild pitches in his previous 57 starts over 2011-12.
• Fernando Rodney got 5 outs for his 43rd save, coming on with the tying run aboard in the 8th.
• More Jeter milestones: Passing Mays on the hits list; 100th game-ending out.

@Athletics 3, Orioles 2: After Chris Davis tied the game with his 26th HR in the 5th, the A’s came right back with 3 quick hits in the home half, with Jonny Gomes cashing in Adam Rosales‘s leadoff double. Tommy Milone earned his 13th win (and 4th in his last 5 outings) with 6.1 steady innings, collecting 3 GDPs and profiting from a 4th (induced by Pat Neshek) that quelled an Oriole uprising in the 7th. Baltimore got the tying run aboard to start the 9th, but with Davis at bat, pinch-runner Xavier Avery was thrown out by Derek Norris to end the game (with a nice tag by Stephen Drew).

• Besides keying the go-ahead rally, Rosales was the pivot on all 4 DPs (none of them easy), giving him 46 DPs and no errors in 536 career innings at 2B.
• Since being called up in August, Neshek has allowed just 6 hits and 1 run in 14.1 IP, holding righties to 3 for 39. Ironically, Oakland purchased his contract from Baltimore on August 3 after he’d piled up some tasty stats at AAA, including 7.0 SO/BB.
• Oakland is 46-19 since July 1. Their season record is .500 or better against all 7 AL playoff contenders.
• The O’s missed a chance to take sole possession of 1st place. Their remaining schedule: 2 @OAK, 3 @SEA, 3 @BOS, 4 TOR, 3 BOS, 3 @TBR.

Tigers 4, @Indians 0: In the 5th inning and again in the 6th, Justin Verlander escaped from 3rd-and-2nd jams (no outs and one out, respectively). With 2 on and 2 out in the 7th, he fanned Shin-Soo Choo on 3 pitches, ending his night with 7 scoreless innings (77 strikes, 33 balls). Detroit’s 2-out, 4-single rally in the 1st proved decisive, and Miguel Cabrera added a 2-out RBI hit in the 2nd, getting pitched to with 1st base open.

• Detroit’s remaining schedule: 2 @CLE, 1 @CHW, 3 OAK, 3 MIN, 4 KCR, 3 @MIN, 3 @KCR.
• If he stays on a 5-day schedule, Verlander has 3 starts left: 9/19 vs OAK, 9/24 vs. KCR and 9/29 @MIN in game #158.

White Sox 6, @Twins 0: Like shooting lutefisk in a barrel, Chris Sale beat the Twins for the 3rd time in as many tries this year, allowing a total of 2 runs on 11 hits in 20 IP. Chicago is 12-4 against the Twins

• Against losing teams, Sale is 11-2, 1.99; against teams at .500 or better, 6-4, 3.63.
• If both stay on a 5-day rotation, the Sale-Verlander matchup that was rained out on Thursday would be reprised in a potential division tiebreaking game. Sale is 0-3, 6.00 against the Tigers; Verlander is 2-0, 1.69 against the ChiSox.
• Chicago’s remaining schedule: 2 @MIN, 1 DET, 3 @KCR, 3 @LAA (ooh!), 3 CLE, 4 TBR (oooh!!), 3 @CLE.

@Braves 2, Nationals 1: Kris Medlen struck out 13 in 7 IP, one shy of this year’s NL high and one more than the career mark he’d set two starts before, but he did not win his 7th consecutive start. Bryce Harper tied it in the 6th with a leadoff HR on a high curve, his 19th this year and 7th in his last 16 games, so Atlanta had to go down to the wire to snap their 3-game losing streak and move 3.5 6 games up in the WC-home-field race.

• They scored this an error, and I guess a good throw would have just nipped the runner, even with a tag needed. But it does show you the speed of the game. If you watch the slo-mo from about 0:50, you can see what a good jump Simmons got — moving forward as the pitch was delivered and smoothly shifting into full speed as soon as he saw the ball was grounded — and what a quick release Desmond made after charging the medium-speed roller; he just missed his target.
• Craig Kimbrel was that close to a golden inning. He struck out each of the first two men on 3 pitches and had an 0-and-2 count, but Danny Espinosa fouled one off before accepting his fate and donning the golden sombrero. In the last 2 years, Kimbrel has faced 3+ plus batters and fanned them all on 12 occasions, more than the next two men combined. He’s on another hellacious run, striking out 36 of 56 batters over his last 15 games, to bring his SO% to an unprecedented 51% of all batters faced. The corollaries of that include a .120 batting average (22 for 184) and 0.663 WHIP; the latter would be an NL record, the former a MLB record (min. 50 IP).

@Dodgers 8, Cardinals 5: As September 4 dawned, LA trailed STL by a half-game for the final wild card. Incredibly, despite losing 7 of 9, they still control their fate: This comeback win, powered by Luis Cruz ‘s 2-out, 3-run blast in the 6th on the first pitch from Edward Mujica, left them 1 game behind the reeling Cards (3-7 since that date), and with 2 more chances to beat them this weekend.

• Mujica had been brilliant since joining the Cards on August 1, letting in 1 run of his own and 1 of 7 inherited runners in 19 innings, with 12 holds in 13 chances.
• Cruz’s 4 prior HRs all came on the road.
• Remaining schedules: Cards — 2 @LAD, 3 HOU, 3 @CHC, 3 @HOU, 3 WSN, 3 CIN. Dodgers — 2 STL, 3 @WSN, 3 @CIN, 3 @SDP, 3 COL, 3 SFG.

Phillies 12, @Astros 6: After blowing a 4-0 lead Thursday when their offense shut down for the last 6 innings, the Phils came out firing — Jimmy Rollins‘s 20th HR opened a 4-run 1st — and they left little on the table, scoring in 4 more innings while going 7-15 with RISP. Philly returned to 3 games back in the WC race.

• Rollins needs 24 Total Bases to pass Ed Delahanty for #2 on the Phils’ career list.
• Just to stir up a little trouble … The Phillies are 34-21 in games started by Ryan Howard this year, 599-440 (.577) in his career. In Chase Utley‘s starts, they’re 629-484 (.565).
• Say it five times fast: Chuckie Fick. (Yes, he’s a nephew of Robert.)
• For the 2nd straight year, the Astros will have only one player qualified for the batting title; this time, Jose Altuve. Every other team in club history had at least 3. There have been 10 other teams since 1901 with just one qualified hitter. (The Play Index returns no “zeroes” in this search, but I’m not sure if that’s meaningful — there are some searches where it just doesn’t identify zeroes.)
• Phils’ remaining schedule: 2 @HOU, 3 @NYM, 3 ATL, 3 WSN, 3 @MIA, 3 @WSN.

Mets 7, @Brewers 3: After being swept in a homestand against two teams already locked into the postseason (yes, Braves fans, I am trying to jinx you), while scoring 9 runs total with just one crooked-number inning, the Mets tallied twice in each of their first two tries against Milwaukee and added 3 in the 6th, slowing the sausage race for at least one day. The Crew remained 3 behind STL in the [compulsory compound adjective deleted] loss column, but with no games left against the teams they’re chasing.

• Jonathon Niese‘s full-count walk to Carlos Gomez in his final inning of work ended his 17-game streak of 2 BB or less and 6+ IP, the longest in franchise history and the longest by 4 in MLB this year. In 28 starts, Niese has 20 QS (7th in the NL) and a 71% QS rate (8th) — the same as Stephen Strasburg, FWIW. Niese also went 2 for 3 with a run; he’s 11-51 this year, with 7 runs (2nd among all pitchers), 6 walks (3rd) and a .298 OBP (T-2nd).
• Milwaukee, the NL HR leader with 180, had hit 36 HRs while winning 18 of their last 23 games and 107 HRs in 72 home games, but on this night the park contained them, and instead the Mets connected twice.

Angels 9, @Royals 7: Trailing 7-5 after 7, the Halos tied it on Kendrys Morales‘s pinch-HR (he elevated a high fastball on the first pitch from the vertically limited Tim Collins), then went ahead on a bags-full walk to Torii Hunter, the first batter faced by Jeremy Jeffress. A gift run in the 9th made for a low-tension save for the unusually well-rested Ernesto Frieri, and the Angels moved within 2.5 games of the wild card.

• Angels PHs had been 8 for 56 this year.
• Anaheim’s remaining schedule: 2 @KCR, 3 TEX, 3 CHI, 3 SEA, 3 @TEX, 3 @SEA.