@Red Sox 4, Royals 3: A late comeback made 7 straight wins for Boston, their best since 2011. KC stopped the Clay Buchholz scoreless streak at 22 innings, but he went 8 IP on just 104 pitches to win his 4th straight start. The last BoSox to win his first 4 games with 7+ IP was Pedro, 2000 (5 straight). Sawx have allowed 3 runs or less in 8 straight, their longest since 2007. As a team, they have 156 Ks in 143 IP. Is this sustainable? Foes have hit .266/.782 with bases empty, but .142/.468 with anyone on.

• Looks like Kelvin Herrera‘s home-run kryptonite has officially expired. With 2 outs in the 8th, Daniel Nava turned the game around with a 3-run shot. Herrera has whiffed 12 of 32, but allowed 4 HRs — as many as he gave in 84 IP last year.
• After KC’s only LH reliever had gotten a DP from Big Papi, the righty Herrera was brought in expressly to get Mike Napoli out with a man on 3rd. But he walked Napoli on 4 pitches. Huge mistake: SWH Nava has been much better from the left side, while Herrera has been vulnerable to lefties.
• Nava was having a choppy day to that point: On base twice, but hit into a DP, and got picked off 2nd as the tying run with no outs in the 7th.
• Lorenzo Cain had his 4th straight multi-hit game in a losing cause, and it was a monster — 4-for-4, 2 doubles, and a HR in the 9th, scoring all 3 Royal runs. Cain had 11 hits in the previous 7 games, without scoring. He came into this game with just 2 XBH.
• Mike Moustakas flied out in all 4 trips, twice with Cain on 2nd. He’s still seeking his first HR this year and has 1 RBI in 13 games. He’s not striking out, but he’s hitting everything in the air.

@Pirates 3, Braves 1: At least one “unproven” closer is thriving. Jason Grilli stayed perfect with his 6th save, and 5th protecting a lead of 2 or less. He has continued the stunning transformation that began in 2011 with the AAA Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, where he’d gone in the faint hope of resurrecting his career at age 34. After he pitched well there, with an enhanced K rate, the Phillies still didn’t want to promote him, so they cut him loose and the Bucs snapped him up. From that day hence, Grilli’s 33.6% K rate ranks 9th among pitchers with 60+ innings. His 32 Holds last year ranked 5th in MLB, with just 3 ER in those games.

• Alas, one of the things that got Grilli noticed in his first year with Pittsburgh — stranding inherited runners — is a task he’s been spared as his role escalated to “setup man” and now closer. In just 28 games in 2011, he inherited 19 runners and let in just 2. Last year, he inherited but 6 runners, and none so far this year.

Plenty of first-pitch strikes for Paul Maholm, but finishing wasn’t so easy. His slim lead got away in the 6th when an 0-2 count turned into a walk, followed by an RBI double on 0-1, and a HR on 1-2.

• Not to overanalyze one bad inning, but in a broad sense, I still wonder if Maholm’s outstanding results since joining Atlanta are more than a short-sample fluke. In 15 starts for the Braves, he has a 2.84 ERA and ERA+ over 140, compared to prior career marks of 4.30 and 96. More intriguing, his K rate has spiked from 14.4% of batters all the way up to 21.8%. He had 5 Ks tonight, including 3 straight to dance out of trouble in the 5th.
• And just to make it all a bit more confusing, right before the trade to Atlanta, Maholm reeled off 6 straight excellent starts, allowing 5 runs over 44 innings — but still with a subpar K rate. Jonah Keri recently had an interesting passage about documented changes in Maholm’s pitch patterns starting in 2011, concluding that the “result has been an uptick in strikeouts and a drop in walks since 2010.” Not exactly: Maholm’s 2011 K rate was actually below his prior career average. Maybe it was the seeds planted in 2011 that bore fruit after the 2012 trade, but I’m still a long way from grasping just why Maholm has been so good since then, and from knowing what to expect the rest of this year.

Indians 19, @Astros 6: Not to be outdone by Porcello, Philip Humber allowed 8 runs and got just 1 out against Cleveland. Sound familiar? Humber was the last pitcher strafed for 8+ runs in no more than one-third of an inning, in a relief stint last September. Sunday is the anniversary of Humber’s perfecto; he allowed 9 runs in his next start, and it’s been one long slog since, with a 7.26 ERA in 107 IP.

• Humber had pitched well in his first 3 starts, but his mates totaled 1 run. He’s the first Astro since Nolan Ryan ’82 to lose 4 starts in the team’s first 17 games. Ryan was 0-4, 7.97, then went 16-8, 2.74 the rest of the way.
• Nick Swisher (7-3-4-2, 3 doubles) is the first since 2009 with 7 ABs in a regulation game.

Yankees 5, @Blue Jays 3 (12): In pressure moments, it’s hard to resist the urge to hurry. With 2 on and no outs in the 12th, Aaron Loup got a gift when Ichiro’s hard bunt hopped into his glove with time to get the lead runner. But he came up firing towards 3rd, committing before he realized that Brett Lawrie wasn’t back to the bag yet. And there’s a lot of foul ground down the lines in Toronto.

• At what point should a top-flight bat-misser like David Robertson just try to throw it right down the middle? In the 8th with a 3-0 lead, 2 out and 1 on, Robertson had a 1-1 count on Adam Lind (not the tying run), but missed with his next 3 and walked him. A steal and 2 singles ensued, tying the game.

Nationals 7, @Mets 6: Bryce Harper’s decisive HR (lift-off!) came against Josh Edgin, the would-be lefty specialist who’s allowed 4 HRs in 80 PAs to lefties.

• Gio Gonzalez blew a 3-0 lead, letting in 5 runs after 2 outs in the 4th. After a leadoff triple, he walked John Buck on 5 pitches. but got the next 2 on groundouts, leaving men on 2nd and 1st. He loaded the bases on a 4-pitch walk to Lucas Duda (14 walks in 57 PA, .492 OBP). Then Colin Cowgill singled for 2, Ruben Tejada fouled off 4 full-count pitches before walking to reload, Justin Turner singled for 2 and the lead, and Daniel Murphy’s hit brought one more.
• Sometimes, momentum isn’t tomorrow’s starter, but today’s reliever. The big rally gave the Mets a chance to build on Matt Harvey’s series-opening win. But if you didn’t smell Adam LaRoche’s right-back-at-ya 3-run HR after Aaron Laffey walked Jayson Werth with 2 outs and none on, you must have been upwind of the Mets bullpen. They have stunk — NL-worst 5.47 ERA and next-to-last 19% K rate.
• LaRoche’s HR was his 200th, and the end of the line for Laffey’s current tenure. He was DFA’d after the game.
• Wait-wait-wait: The #1 team in MLB scoring average is the New York Mets?

@Rays 1, A’s 0: This game saw 8 singles, 3 walks, 4 DPs, and one AB with a man in scoring position.

• Matt Joyce added his name to the ranks of Reid Brignac, Evan Longoria, Carlos Pena, Travis Lee, Steve Cox and Fred McGriff, the Rays with a HR in a 1-0 win. Longo and Brignac hit walk-offs.
• Fernando Rodney worked past a dropped pop-up for his first no-hit, no-walk appearance, throwing 11/16 strikes. Last year, his strike rate was far better than ever before, but it had had been just 57% in his first 5 games this year.

@Orioles 7, Dodgers 5 / Orioles 6, Dodgers 1: Nolan Reimold used the whole field in the opener. He pulled a HR to LF in the 4th during Baltimore’s comeback from a 4-0 hole, then slashed a go-ahead 2-run double to RF in the 8th after an IBB to Chris Davis. LA had tied the game in the 7th, but with 2 on and 1 out, Brian Matusz came on to whiff Andre Ethier (whose 3-run jack had started the scoring) and got out of the inning tied. Ethier went 0-3 against lefty Wei-Yin Chen in game 2, with a GDP in the 6th when he stood as the tying run. Opponents will feed southpaws to Ethier every chance they get.

• 2 HRs off Josh Beckett, now 6 HRs in 25 IP. Foes are hitting .379/1.127 with men on base, an ominous echo of last year’s struggles (.320/.894).
• Game 2 was LA’s 2nd in the last 3 with no extra-base hits. They’re next-to-last in the NL in that department, leading only Miami.
• LA’s pitchers (.222, 2 XBH) are outhitting the left side of their infield (.155, 2 XBH).
• And the hits just keep on coming.

Twins 2, @White Sox 1 (10): Jeff Keppinger, getting rare action at 1B, couldn’t dig out a low throw from Alexei Ramirez, and the deciding run scored. Vance Worley, scoured for 9 runs in 1 inning his last time out, blanked Chicago for 7 IP after a leadoff HR in his first truly good start this year.

• Alejandro De Aza hit that leadoff HR, then whiffed in his next 4 trips. The last man to fan 4 times against the Twins was … De Aza, last Sept. 12. He has 4 HRs, but just 3 walks.
• ChiSox are last in the AL with a .273 OBP.
• Adam Dunn is 0 for his last 29. His start this year is much worse than the same point in his abysmal 2011 season — BA .098 to .158, OBP .154 to .314. Last year, Dunn led all players with 157 full-count PAs, which was 18% more than the #2 guy. He has just 9 full-count PAs through 16 games this year, with 6 Ks, 1 walk and no hits.
• Keppinger, who went 0-5 and made the game’s last out, is in perhaps his worst stretch ever, batting .159 with no walks in 70 PAs. He has 9 games of no times on base in 4+ PAs, the most ever through 17 team games (or at least since 1916; total tied by Ivan de Jesus 1981, Bert Campaneris ’69 and Jimmy Jordan ’34).

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Friday leftovers

@Pirates 6, Braves 0: Pedro Alvarez found the pavement in his first AB, his 2nd colossal HR in 2 games — then whiffed in his next 3 trips, now 6 for 52.

@Rockies 3, D-backs 1: 3 hits by the Rox ties the lowest by a winning team in Coors Field. Jhoulys Chacin reached 3-0, 1.46, but left with an oblique strain in the 7th.

@Astros 3, Indians 2: The teams went 0-for-13 with RISP and scored all their runs on HRs.

• We’re sureRick Ankiel‘s not a pitcher any more? He’s 6 for 31 with 20 Ks and no walks; ‘course, 4 of the hits are HRs. Call him Earl Wilson.

Marlins 2, @Reds 1: This eventual game-ending HR off Aroldis Chapman sailed over the head of a guy who scored on the only walk-off he’s yielded.

• Career ABs against Chapman settled on a 3-1 count: 6 for 13, 3 HRs. After a 3-1 count: 6 for 36.
• Since the start of last year, Miami’s only walk-off HR was a Giancarlo slam last Mother’s Day against the Mets. Four teams have none in that span: Astros, Cardinals, Giants and Mariners.
• Mat Latos in 26.1 IP: 29 Ks, 26 hits. There’s been just one 200-IP season that averaged both a hit and a K per inning.
• Kevin Slowey‘s runs allowed: 1, 1, 2, 1. Miami’s runs scored in those games: 0, 0, 1, 2.