@Rockies 9, Padres 1: Colorado’s 5th straight win matched their longest streak of last year. Three straight home games yielding 3 runs or less is a first since June 2011. And four straight starts of 6+ IP and 2 runs or less … they didn’t have even two in a row like that after June 3-4 last year.

• Wilin Rosario has hit 33 HRs in his first 124 games caught, 138 games played. That’s 4 more HRs than any other catcher within his first 150 games played. Coors helps, of course — but he also has 13 road HRs in 238 PAs, which is about the same as Piazza’s career HR percentage.
• Yonder Alonso took a solid 62 walks last year, but none in 6 games so far this season.

Diamondbacks 8, @Brewers 7 (11): The 9th-and-11th heroics of Norichika Aoki and Jonathan Lucroy went for naught, when the shorthanded Crew tried to coax extra outs from their beleaguered closer. John Axford had survived two long drives in a 1-2-3 10th, but the ones that began the 11th did him in — a double on 0-2, and a HR on a 1-2 hanger.

• Eric Hinske has 8 pinch-HRs since 2010, one behind Scott Hairston. But click those links to see their career numbers in that role.
• Rickie Weeks‘s year-opening hit streak curled up and died with a whimper, watching strike 3 with the tying run on 3rd, 1 out and a pitcher forced to hit next.
• First career assist by OF Logan Schafer, won’t be his last. Forget the throw — I could watch the set-up and transfer all day and never stop nodding. Put it in the textbook! (And now we know how Miguel Montero made 13 outs on the bases last year, 3rd most in the majors, with 8 of those at the plate, 2 more than anyone else.)

• Heath Bell: 15 batters, 8 hits, 1 walk, 2 HRs, 3 Ks — but he’s 1 for 1 in save tries!

• John Axford: 16 batters, 8 hits, 4 HRs, 4 Ks — You’re off to a bad start when a 2-run inning lowers your ERA.

@Rangers 7, Angels 3: Yu Darvish was about as imperfect as possible while still getting a win. He found trouble instantly, loading the bases with no outs in the 1st and giving 2 runs. He bailed himself out of 2-on jams in the 2nd and 3rd with 2 Ks in each, including a 3rd-and-2nd, no-out quagmire, and got his final, qualifying out with the tying run on 2nd, after yielding 3 hits in the frame.

• Angels went 1 for 10 with RISP, now 5-45 on the year.
• Was there a football game somewhere in Texas, or was it just the school night that trimmed the attendance? After near-sellouts for the first 2 games, the Sunday night series finale (and Yu’s follow-up) had about 7,000 empty seats.
• Six games means next to nothing, but fantasy owners are fretting over Mike Trout‘s start — 7 for 28, no HRs, no steal attempts.

Cardinals 14, @Giants 3: Matt Cain’s other game yielding 9 runs was five Aprils back, also against the Cards in 3.2 IP. If my eyes don’t deceive me, no one else from either squad played in both games; Yadier got that day off in 2008, and Panda debuted in August ’08.

• The 4th inning got away from Cain on a 1-out, 2-run, lead-changing double to the deepest corner by Matt Adams, St. Loo’s burly rookie 1B. He has 3 hits in each of his 2 games this year, and has hit at every level of the minors.
• The last Giants starts giving 9+ runs were by Barry Zito, 2010, and Barry Zito, ’09. (In case we’d forgotten.)

@Dodgers 6, Pirates 2: Three scoring hits by Adrian Gonzalez produced his first 4-ribby day for LA, and Hyun-jin Ryu weathered a choppy 1st to retire 17 of his last 19 ‘burghers and notch his first MLB win. He even dodged the “run-it-out” foofaraw by whiffing in both his trips.

• You’d think it can’t get any worse for Pedro Alvarez — 2 singles in 22 trips, 10 Ks, no walks. But when you’ve whiffed in 31% of your career PAs (10th all-time for a 1,000-PA non-pitcher), nothing is remotely certain.
• Except for their game 2 win, the Bucs have not led after any full inning, and in all 5 losses they’ve trailed for good by the 3rd inning.
• Pittsburgh’s 6 straight games with 6 hits or less matches the searchable season-starting record shared by the 2011 Rays and 1916 A’s. (The Rays recovered to win 91 games and the wild card; the A’s went 36-117.) But they’re only halfway to one record streak of scoring futility: The 1988 Orioles scored 3 runs or less in their first 12 contests, and lost them all.
• May 17-19, Astros @ Pirates: get your tickets now. No, really — I bet they’ll be fun games.

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P.S. Justin Upton tied his big brother for the Golden Sombrero lead. Only one other, Dayan Viciedo, has a game of 4+ PAs and all strikeouts thus far.