Some more notes from Sunday games, not worth a separate post. New content is above the solid line.

— Baltimore’s 1-0, 10-inning win was the first MLB game since 1982 in which both teams pitched 10+ innings and allowed 3 hits or less. (That ’82 game is well-known to Mets fans, as super-spot-starter Terry Leach tossed a 10-IP 1-hitter in his 2nd career start — one of his 3 shutouts in 21 career starts.)

— LA’s 7-6 win over Chicago was the 2nd game this year that featured 4 blown saves (both involving the Cubs), and the first since 2008 to do so without extra innings.

— Kenley Jansen has “blown” 6 of 27 save tries, for an ordinary 78% conversion rate despite extraordinary raw stats (.143 BA, .496 OPS). Is he prone to blowups? Not at all; he’s just been put into more tight situations. Jansen leads all MLB relievers with 32 high-leverage appearances, comprising 64% of his games. More than half his save tries (14 of 27) started with a 1-run lead; the 5 “failures” include 2 in which the tying run and/or go-ahead run was already in scoring position when he entered. Of his 6 total BS, just twice did he let the opponent get the lead;  the other 4 games turned into wins for both LA and Jansen.

— Anthony Rizzo‘s tying HR off Jansen ultimately went for naught, but he ranks 17th in WPA per game among all players with 30+ games.

— A near-impossible situation led to Vinnie Pestano‘s first blown lead since April 14. He entered with a 1-run lead, no outs, men on the corners and Prince Fielder at bat. Pestano retired 6 straight batters, but Fielder’s fly ball scored the tying run and he was hung with a Blown Save — despite logging the highest WPA (0.232) of any pitcher in the game for either side and the second-highest WPA of any BS in the last 2 seasons. Pestano had stranded all 14 inherited runners before Sunday.

— Austin Jackson became the first in over a year with 2 triples and 3 XBH in a game.

— From 2005-11, no qualified CF attained the “golden slash” of .300 BA/.400 OBP/.500 SLG. This year, three CFs are on track to do it: Jackson (.322/.409/.518), Mike Trout (.346/.407/.597) and Andrew McCutchen (.368/.429/.627).

— Let’s make it a Jackson trifecta. Modern career leaders in BAbip (1,500+ PAs): (1) Ty Cobb, .383; (2) Austin Jackson, .377; (3) Shoeless Joe Jackson, .366; (4) Rogers Hornsby, .365. Since 1940, Jackson is #1, 18 points above #2 Rod Carew. If anyone has a solid read on Jackson as a hitter, I’d love to hear about it. I can see that he’s trimmed his K rate from 26% of PAs in 2010-11 to 22% of PAs this year, and jacked his walk rate by more than half. But mysteries remain.

— Relievers’ fielding hardly matters … until it does. Arizona setup man David Hernandez has handled just 2 chances this year, and his compound error on this one helped cost them a ballgame.

— Matt Harvey tied Jake Peavy‘s Petco Park record by allowing 7 extra-base hits (2 HRs, a triple and 4 doubles). In that light, it wasn’t an awful outing by Harvey — 5 runs in 5 IP, one single, one walk, 5 Ks. He twice escaped from man-on-3rd/no-outs peril, and he joined Tom Seaver & Bill Denehy as the only Mets with 5+ SO in each of their first 3 games. His 32.4% K rate (23 Ks in 71 batters) also puts him in elite company among first-years with at least 3 starts: only Kerry Wood, Stephen Strasburg and Francisco Liriano reached 32%.

— San Diego totaled 9 XBH, the highest in Petco in the last 2 seasons. (BTW, I’m aware that Petco uses another capital letter in their name, but I’m through with that crap. I’ll do my best to properly capitalize the inherited last names of people; every other proper noun gets an initial capital, like it or not. The end.)

— Jason Bay went hitless in 3 trips, including 2 against Jason Marquis, previously his patsy. He’s hitting .154 for the year (6 for 52 since his latest DL stint), and has at last been given the ultimatum: production or pine, no in-between. The only Met ever to bat under .160 in 150+ PAs was catcher Norm Sherry, and he never played in the majors thereafter.

— Aesthetically, I just can’t stand watching Cameron Maybin play the outfield. When he catches a routine fly ball, he looks like one of those old string puppet/toys where you press the bottom and the figure flops around.

— One of the most consistent SPs this year has been Kyle Lohse: 17 QS out of 23 games (6th in NL QS%), at least 5 IP in every game with no more than 5 runs allowed. At 33, he’s on track for career highs in IP and Wins.

— Mitchell Boggs has crafted a scoreless streak of 20.1 innings. The stats aren’t dominant — 12 Ks, 16 hits, 3 walks — but as my poker pals used to say, “cards speak.” He’s been especially good with inherited runners, stranding 27 of 31 — the 7th-best NL rate among the 45 who’ve inherited 20+.

— I cried because I had no shoes … Cliff Lee, meet Marco Estrada: on track to be the first ever with zero wins despite 10+ starts and a SO/BB ratio of 4 or better. Estrada has 13 starts (plus 6 relief games) and 5.2 SO/BB, with a record of 0-5, 4.13. As a starter, he has 73 Ks and 12 walks in 71.2 IP. His basic run support of 4.75 R/G is utterly bogus, as the Brewers scored the bulk of those runs after he left the game; Estrada ranks dead last out of 133 MLB starters in run support while in the game.

— Belated Happy 56th Birthday to Dave Rozema, the best young control pitcher in modern history. Out of 235 seasons of 200+ IP by pitchers age 22 or under, Rozema owns the #1 and #8 control marks: He led MLB at 1.40 BB/9 at age 20, and followed up with 1.76 BB/9 at 21. He’s the last Tiger with 15+ wins in his first season.

Belated notes from Saturday games:

— Felix Hernandez snuffed the Yankees on 2 hits in a 1-0 win, the first SHO against them this year and his second career 2-hit shutout against the pinstripers. In the DH era, only three others have two such games vs. NYY: Roy Halladay (2008, ’09), Jim Palmer (1973, ’78) and Nolan Ryan (1973, ’75). Hernandez and Halladay own the only such games since 2005; Palmer ’78 had the last 1-0 CG win over the Bombers. The last individual no-hitter against the Yanks was in 1958 by Hoyt Wilhelm.

— Melky Cabrera homered and drew 4 walks as SF beat Colorado, 11-6. Other Giants with such a game since 1918: Barry Bonds (4 times), Will Clark (1988), Jack Clark (’84), Hank Thompson (’54) and Mel Ott (’29). The Giants scored 10+ in consecutive games for the first time in almost 2 years.

— His ERA doesn’t show it, but I think Adam Wainwright is all the way back. Here are his “three true outcome” rates and his ERA for 2009, 2010 and this year:

• SO/9: 8.2, 8.3, 8.5
• BB/9: 2.5, 2.2, 2.1
• HR/9: 0.7, 0.6, 0.7
• ERA: 2.63, 2.42, 4.03

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Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the interwebs….

@Tigers 10, Indians 8: Three runs down, two outs and none on in the 10th. The odds of a comeback win can only be expressed in scientific notation, but they get a lot better when the closer loses the plate and walks the #8 and 9 hitters. Chris Perez had just 8 walks in 39.1 IP this year and hadn’t walked 2 in a game since Opening Day, but his wildness set up his 3rd blown save in 32 tries.

• Detroit tied it on a double by Austin Jackson and a single by Omar Infante, the 4th hit for each, then won it on Miguel Cabrera‘s 27th HR, which also pushed him back into the MLB lead with 91 RBI.
• Jackson also tripled twice, while Infante had a HR and a double, and each scored 3 Runs.
• Another of the games that comprise the Max Scherzer enigma: 5 IP, 9 Ks, 1 walk, 10 hits, 4 Runs. He’s tied for the MLB lead with 160 Ks, averaging 11.3 SO/9 and 3.5 SO/BB, but his 4.72 ERA would tie the highest ever in a qualified season with at least 10 SO/9.

Pirates 6, @Reds 2: A.J. Burnett cooled off the smoking Reds, who had won 15 of 16 and 22 of 25, as Pittsburgh salvaged the series finale. Burnett, who allowed just 3 hits, ran out of gas with 2 gone in the 9th, walking 2, but Joel Hanrahan closed it out. The Bucs went just 1-11 with RISP, but prospered on sheer numbers (15 hits) and solo HRs by Neil Walker and Andrew McCutchen.

• Cutch had no HRs and 1 RBI in his prior 16 games, despite batting .340.
• Hanrahan got one out and never faced the tying run. Does anyone really think that’s worth a Save?
• Burnett improved to 14-3 (3-0 vs. CIN) and trimmed his mulligan ERA to 2.42.

@Yankees 6, Mariners 2: Batting 9th, backup catcher Chris Stewart scored 3 Runs for the first time in his career, becoming the first Yankee backstop to do it in almost a year. Boone Logan bridged the gulf left by Freddy Garcia‘s minimalist outing, retiring 6 straight Mariners to set up the finishers.

• A 12-game hitting streak that lowers your BA and OBP? Ichiro Suzuki now has exactly one hit in each of his 12 games with New York, with no walks and 1 HBP. (The Play Index seems to be swamped right now, so I can tell you only that no one else in the last 2 years has more than 10 straight games of H=1.) Ichiro has batted .2609 for NYY, .2612 for SEA.

@Red Sox 6, Twins 4: This time, Minnesota’s 3 in the 9th were too little, too late, and Alfredo Aceves came on to close it out cleanly against the bottom of the order. Franklin Morales came through with another strong spot start (1 R in 6 IP); he’s 3-1, 3.07 in 6 starts, with 35 Ks and 11 walks in 32.1 IP. Carl Crawford paced the attack with 3 hits and 2 Runs

• Boston is 4-1/2 games out of the wild card, but they’re 28-32 in Fenway — on track for their first losing record at home since 1997.
• Nick Blackburn began the day with a 7.43 ERA and left it with a 7.42 mark in 17 starts. That would be the worst ever by a Twin/Senator with that many starts.
• Saturday’s hero, Joe Mauer, went 0-4 over all and 0-3 with RISP.
• A promising start to the Minny 3rd went pffft when Darin Mastroianni got picked off 1st with Ben Revere on ahead of him, 1 out and Mauer at bat.

Orioles 1, @Rays 0 (10): “Taylor Teagarden: He only hits game-winners.” The backup catcher was 1 for 25 with 13 strikeouts since hitting a walk-off HR in his season debut, but his 2-out, 2-strike double brought in Mark Reynolds with the game’s only run. David Price went 7 scoreless, but his bid to become MLB’s first 15-game winner was foiled by a matching effort from Miguel Gonzalez.

• Fourth extra-inning 1-0 game this year; first such win for Baltimore since 2007. They have just 6 shutouts this year, but twice have gone back-to-back.

@Braves 6, Astros 1: Chipper Jones started a tiebreaking 3-run rally with a single in the 6th, and Atlanta cruised on home against the dispirited Astros. Houston missed a chance at their first series win and first consecutive wins since late June. Kris Medlen allowed a run in 5.1 IP in his 2nd start and cut his season ERA to 2.37 in 64 IP; he’s yielded just 2 runs in his last 26.2 IP.

• More milestones for Chipper. He scored his 1,600th run, tying Ed Delahanty for #47 on the career list. His 1,609th RBI left him tied for 31st with Goose Goslin. His 544th double passed Tony Gwynn for #27, and he passed Sammy Sosa in total bases (4,705, #33).

@White Sox 4, Angels 2: A.J. Pierzynski pinch-hit a turnaround HR in the 7th on a 2-0 pitch from Jason Isringhausen — his 5th straight game with a HR, tying the longest mark by a catcher since 1948, and extending his career HR high to 21. Chicago maintained their game-and-a-half lead in the Central, while the Angels remained 6 back in the West and fell a half-game off the wild-card pace.

• Francisco Liriano (5 IP, 1 R, 1 walk) had another solid outing in his 2nd start for the ChiSox, but left after being hit in the thigh by a one-hopper. He is not expected to miss any time.
• Pierzynski is known as a free-swinger, averaging just 26 walks per 162 games. But when he does get well ahead in the count (2-0 or 3-1), he’s deadly: .423 BA (113-267) with 17 HRs.
• The known record for a catcher HR streak is 6 games by Walker Cooper in 1947. One of the 10 players with 5 straight surprised me: Jimmie Foxx, 1940. Of his 108 games behind the plate, 42 came in that season, and all of those in a stretch from July 31 to Sept. 12 when he played no other position and hit .316/1.080, with 40 Runs and 42 RBI. (Boston’s primary catcher, Gene Desautels, hit .225 with no HRs in 71 games, quite typical for him.)

@Nationals 4, Marlins 1: Stephen Strasburg bounced back from the worst game of his career (6 R in 4 IP) with 6 shutout stanzas, regaining a share of the MLB strikeout lead at 160, and also drove in the first 2 runs in Washington’s 4-run 2nd.

• Sean Burnett tossed a clean 8th, trimming his WHIP to an even 1.00. He has preserved 27 of 28 leads this year.
• Strasburg is 12 for 35 with 7 RBI, a HR and 4 doubles, and a .975 OPS. He was 1 for 26 before this year.
• Nats are 4-0 since the return of Jayson Werth and 22-9 in his games this year.

@Royals 7, Rangers 6 (10): Dubious strategy and late mistakes doomed Texas. Ron Washington called a suicide squeeze with a man on 3rd and no outs in the 9th, but Elvis Andrus couldn’t get wood on a slider in the dirt, leaving the rookie Mike Olt like laundry on the line. Olt struck out with the sacks full to end the top-10th, then made a wild throw in the bottom half to let in the winning run, right after SS Alberto Gonzalez (who replaced the injured Andrus) had booted a sure DP grounder.

• Jeff Francoeur had a good game (5-2-2-1, HR), but Royals RFs are still last in the AL in OBP and Runs, next-to-last in RBI. We warned you.

Giants 8, @Rockies 3: Tim Lincecum walked 5 in 6 IP but yielded just 1 run and won his 2nd straight start; Melky Cabrera scored 3 times while padding his MLB hits lead; and SF swept to maintain their slim edge in the West.

• Colorado’s homestand ended 1-8 with 76 runs allowed, bumping their home average to 6.74 R/G. The Giants had scored 19 runs during a 1-7 stretch and hadn’t scored 8+ in 14 games, then tallied 8+ in each game of this series and 35 total.
• Cabrera has 52 Runs in 53 road games, hitting .369 with 9 of his 11 HRs.

Blue Jays 6, @Athletics 5: Toronto dug out of an early 4-1 hole, starting the comeback with Edwin Encarnacion‘s 29th HR and capping it with a 3-run 5th that began with 2 out and none on. Batting cleanup for the first time this year, Yunel Escobar answered an IBB to Encarnacion with a 2-run turnaround single on a 1-2 pitch.

• Casey Janssen converted his 14th straight save since taking over as closer on May 9. He has a 1.11 ERA and 0.74 WHIP in 32.1 IP since then, and a 2.22 ERA and 0.98 WHIP for 2011-12.
• Oakland had won 10 straight one-run contests.
• Your ordinary, everyday game-tying-double(?)-turned-game-ending-DP.
• Here’s a play I’ve got to see: Toronto’s first run is described as “A Gose sacrificed to catcher, R Davis scored” — from 2nd base. Yep, it happened. Attaway, Rajai!