@Yankees 5, Indians 4: On a day that left a big hole in the pinstriped rotation, Freddy Garcia and Robinson Cano made sure that the Wins column, at least, got filled. Garcia cleaned up the last of a mess made by 3 pitchers in the 5th, when Cleveland grabbed the lead, and retired all 7 men he faced through the 7th. Cano got the lead back with his 10th June HR, a 2-run drive in the 6th on a 1-and-2 pitch from Ubaldo Jimenez.

• It got a little dicey in the 9th, but Rafael Soriano converted his 17th save in 18 tries. He hasn’t allowed a home run in his 31 games this year, the longest one-year streak of his career.
• Besides his overall control problems, the failure to dominate hitters when ahead in the count has been the biggest problem for Jimenez this year. On PAs settled with the count in his favor, he’s allowed a .259 BA — higher than on a hitter’s count (.242), with virtually the same SLG. The AL average in pitcher’s counts is .204. On an 0-2 count, hitters are 8 for 33 against Jimenez (.242/.636 OPS) with 11 Ks (33%); the AL average is .149/.382, with 47% Ks. In his best year, Jimenez allowed just 4 hits in 65 PAs on 0-2 (with 63% Ks), and a .154 BA when ahead in the count.
• To be fair, the pitch Cano hit out was pretty much on target, off the plate away, and Cano did not have an opposite-field HR this year. But when he’s in a zone like these last 10 games — 7 HRs, 1.463 OPS, just 4 strikeouts — Cano can hit any pitch in any location.
• Jason Kipnis doesn’t even have 500 career PAs yet, but he leads the Indians in Hits, HRs, Runs, RBI, Steals (18/1) and Total Bases, and is hitting .380 with RISP.
• The perils of falling off in your delivery.
• CC Sabathia is expected to miss just 2 starts with a mild adductor strain, but you never know; anyway, it will be the first time since 2006 that he’s missed a turn in the rotation. This could be the first year since 2006 that CC falls short of 230 IP; he’s the only pitcher to reach that mark in each of the past 5 seasons.
• The Bombers are 17-7 in the starts by CC & Andy, 29-21 with other starters. (Nova 12-2, Hughes 8-7, Kuroda 7-8, Garcia 2-2.)
• This isn’t the first year Cano’s hit poorly with RISP. His career BA is .324 with the bases empty, but .261 with RISP (counting sac flies as ABs, as they should be), and his HR rate per AB is 50% higher with nobody on.

Nationals 11, @Rockies 5: You can’t predict baseball, exactly, but some things are much more likely than others. Through Tuesday, the Nats hadn’t scored more than 10 runs since May of last year. And now they’ve done it twice in a row for the first time since 2005, their Washington inaugural.

• Most teams have an unlucky pitcher, and Jordan Zimmermann (4-6, 2.77) has filled that role for the Nats. Even with this win, he’s just 12-17 since 2011, despite a 3.03 ERA (and his own robust batting). I checked the pitchers since 2011 with at least 20 games of 6+ IP and 2 runs or less. Zimmermann has 22 such games, with a 9-6 record; had he the average win frequency and W% of that group, his record in those games would be about 14-2.
• The big-league debut of Edwar Cabrera, one of Colorado’s top pitching prospects, was rocky from the outset and reached a peak in the 3rd, when he yielded HRs to 2 of the first 3 men, then issued a 4-pitch walk and departed. He was charged with 7 runs in 2.1 IP, tying the franchise debut record shared by 2 others; he tied another debut mark by allowing 3 HRs. Let’s hope it’s just a bump in the road for a young man with outstanding minor-league stats, including 11.1 SO/9 and a 4.0 SO/BB ratio in almost 500 IP.
• Stable rotations: Washington is one of 10 teams that have used no more than 6 starting pitchers this year; the Reds & Marlins have used just 5. The only team since 1967 to use just 5 starters all year was the 2003 Mariners, who won 93 games but missed the playoffs. Colorado has used 11 SPs this year, 2nd-most in the majors.
• Dry humor? Nine out of 81 games of 11+ runs this year have occurred in Coors Field, as well as 5 of the 29 games of 13+ runs. At home this year, the Rockies have scored 6.1 R/G, but allowed 6.6; away from Coors, they’ve scored 3.7 R/G and yielded 4.8. At their present overall rate of 5.78 RA/G, they would allow 937 runs this year, their most since 1999 and 3rd-most in club history. The one-year park factor in Coors this year is 119; it was 116 last year, 118 in 2010. The humidor isn’t working as intended; is there a Plan B?

@Braves 6, Diamondbacks 4: Arizona couldn’t convert their early scoring chances against Tommy Hanson when the game was close, going 0 for 7 with RISP through the 6th, plus a foolish caught stealing by Gerardo Parra after a leadoff single when they were down 4-0. By the time they brought the lumber in the 7th, Atlanta was up 6-0, partly from a ragged 5th that spat out 3 runs on just a single. Trevor Cahill walked 3 and threw away a grounder in that inning, and also walked the leadoff man in the 6th ahead of Chipper‘s first HR since May 4.

• Brought to you by the letter K: Craig Kimbrel blew away 3 batters on 12 pitches for his 22nd save, again tops in the NL. He has faced exactly 500 batters in his career and whiffed 214, or 42.8%, and has gotten 56.8% of his outs by K. Kimbrel and Kenley Jansen (41.2%) are the only pitchers with at least 100 IP who’ve struck out at least 1/3 of batters faced, and the only ones to get at least 46% of all outs by K (with Jansen at 55.3%).
• In his first game since last July 20, Stephen Drew had a single in 4 trips and handled 3 chances cleanly. The following is not meant to imply anything, but these are facts: After Drew went down last year, the Snakes (who were 52-46) went 42-22 and captured the division. Drew was hitting .252 with a .317 OBP; filling in from that point on, Willie Bloomquist hit .261/.315. The two shortstops had virtually identical DP rates last year. So far this year, Bloomquist has a 91 OPS+; Drew’s career mark is 98.
• There’s been so much up and down attention to Jason Heyward, perhaps we should step back for a moment and simply note that a 22-year-old right fielder hitting .282/.354/.520, with team highs of 12 HRs and 133 OPS+ and good defense, is quite a valuable piece. I don’t want to overheat this comparison, but: Through age 22 (2 seasons, 1,351 PAs), Albert Pujols amassed 11.5 WAR. To date, Heyward (1,357 PAs) has 11.4 WAR. Yes, Heyward gets more of his WAR from defense than did Albert, and yes, those numbers are less certain — but both Total Zone and BIS rate him consistently outstanding in RF.

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@Giants 3, Dodgers 0: For the first time since April 10, LA is not alone atop the NL West. Erstwhile ace Tim Lincecum, the worst of SF’s starters thus far, broke his 6-decision skid, winning for the first time since April 28 with his first scoreless outing since last August 13 (24 starts). Lincecum helped his club complete a shutout sweep of their southern rivals, the only time since at least 1918 that they’ve blanked the Dodgers 3 straight games. LA managed 16 hits and 3 doubles in the series.

• Not since at least 1918 had LA been blanked for a whole series of 3+ games. Their last 3-shutout streak against one team was June ’37, Brooklyn Dodgers vs. Boston Braves (3 of a 4-game set). Their last 3-SHO loss streak of any kind was in August ’07.
• The last 3-shutout win streak by SF was in July ’88; the one before that was in May ’54, which is also their last shutout series sweep.
• LA’s last 30 games: 12-18, batting .234 with 7 HRs, .308 OBP and SLG. Giants: 19-11.
• SF leads the NL with 9 shutouts, trailing the Angels by 1.
• Since 1986, there’s been just one shutout streak longer than 3 games: The ’95 Orioles ended the year with 5 in a row.
• Injury to insult: Andre Ethier, team leader in RBI, Runs, Hits, Total Bases and Extra-Base Hits, left the game in the 1st inning after straining a side muscle on a check swing. An MRI will help determine if Ethier lands on the DL. He’s missed just 1 game this year.

@Royals 5, Rays 4: Billy Butler‘s 15th HR broke a tie in the 8th, as KC completed a rare home sweep.

• Jonathan Broxton‘s 19th save was also his 10th when protecting a one-run lead; 7 more came with a 2-run margin; another with a 4-run lead but the tying run on deck with no outs in the 9th. He has just one save of the rocking-chair, up-by-3/none-on variety, and has pitched a full inning in all 19 saves.
• KC’s last 30-HR man was Jermaine Dye in 2000; the last with 25 was Carlos Beltran in 2003. Butler’s personal best is 21 HRs.
• Alcides Escobar (3-2-3-1, HR, 2B) has hit in 11 of 12 games, 20 for 45, now batting .315 for the year.
• Five-and-dime: Tampa Bay is 5-10 since their last day in first place.

Athletics 2, @Mariners 1: Oakland’s 2 hits were both HRs, including one by Coco Crisp on the game’s 2nd pitch. Jarrod Parker (7 IP, 1 R, 9 Ks) has allowed 2 runs over his last 3 starts, and today’s HR was just his 3rd in 73.2 IP. Parker left with a lead thanks to a long drive in the 7th by Yoenis Cespedes, who’s making a habit of big late bombs. Of his 9 HRs, 3 have won the game or given his team a lead in the 7th or later, and another 2-run shot tied a game in the 14th.

• First time since 2011-07-21 that a team won with 2 hits or less, and the first win since 2007-05-31 with 1 or 2 hits and H=HR.
• Hisashi Iwakuma went 3.2 sharp innings, but took the loss on the only hit he allowed. He fanned 3 in a row in the 5th: Brandon Inge, Brandon Moss and Brandon Hicks. Not a good night for the Three Brandigos, who went 0 for 9 with 5 Ks and an error by Inge that let the tying run on base in the 9th. That runner got to 2nd with 2 out, but Ryan Cook put away Ichiro Suzuki on all strikes to end the game.
• Parker has gone 6+ IP on 1 run or less in 8 of his 12 starts, trailing only R.A. Dickey and Zack Greinke (9 each), and tying Jered Weaver and Dwight Gooden for the quickest career start since 1918 in that regard.
• Seattle has scored 2 or less 31 times, most in the AL and 2 less than San Diego.

Astros 1, @Padres 0: Continuing the theme, Houston got just 2 hits, but one was a HR by Matt Downs, carrying a .172 BA into a rare start. Downs led off the 3rd by driving a 3-and-1 pitch far and away to left-center. Their next 18 men went down in order, but Lucas Harrell made it stand up with his first shutout and CG.

• Last time out, Harrell was in Clayton Richard‘s role of hard-luck loser, allowing a run on 2 hits with 9 Ks.
• Downs is 2 for 6 on a 3-1 count this year, both HRs.
• First Astros 1-0 win on a HR since 2006-06-07.
• No 2-hit wins in MLB for almost a year, then two in one day. You … can’t … predict …
• Don’t miss Jim’s comments on a real box-score rarity in this game.

Pirates 11, @Phillies 7: Not to be outdone by the Brandons, Pittsburgh staged their version of the Scottish play — HRs by Andrew McCutchen, Casey McGehee and Michael McKenry, in support of winning pitcher James McDonald, who also had an RBI hit. (Alas, they released the homerless Nate McLouth 3 weeks ago. But why don’t they recall Daniel McCutchen, pitching well at AAA? And by the way, Oakland released another Brandon earlier this year.)

• Utley‘s return: 5-1-3-1, HR in his first AB. But can he pitch in relief?
• Carlos Ruiz is no longer hitting .350. He’s leading the majors at .364.

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Help fill in the (large) gaps with your own observations of the fun & freaky!