Belated happy 40th to Jose Jimenez. But don’t expect a card from Randy Johnson.*

Dodgers 7, @D-backs 5 (14 inn.) — The past month’s biggest difference-maker did it again. Hanley Ramirez got his arms extended on the first pitch of the 14th, the fifth frame essayed by Josh Collmenter, leading L.A. to a 4th straight win and the once-unimaginable Land of .500. Another homer followed, from A.J. Ellis, hero of the 9th-inning rally that started when Adrian Gonzalez won a 2-out, 9-pitch battle with Heath Bell. The Dodgers survived the rockiest start yet by Hyun-jin Ryu (5 IP, 5 R), as the pen posted 9 straight zeroes.

• The Dodgers are 16-6 in Hanley’s run of 22 straight games played, starting all but one. He’s racked up 2.26 WPA in that span, nearly a full unit more than the other hotshot commonly credited with sparking the revival. Hanley’s season WPA (for 35 games) is far ahead of anyone else with 60 games or less.
• Collmenter, the “high-noon” hurler from Homer, MI, had not been tatered by a RHB since last August, a span of 166 PAs.

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Rockies 5, @Padres 4 — Colorado scored once each in five different innings, and the Friars’ late comeback ran out when Carlos Quentin (who had homered in the 6th) popped foul with the tying run on 2nd.

• Quentin’s combined numbers for San Diego show a .267 BA, 144 OPS+, and 27 HRs in 154 games — but just 77 RBI. Let’s go to the splits … Through 2011, Quentin was a career .286/.911 hitter with RISP, far better than his mark with none on (.225/.773). But since joining the Padres last year, the numbers have flipped — .318/1.014 with bases empty, but a meager .226/.704 in RBI spots.

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@Marlins 6, Braves 2 — Jacob Turner‘s 8th start went 7 IP on 2 runs, right near his average this year. He’s allowed just one HR, a solo by Paul Goldschmidt. With Jose Fernandez, Miami’s looking pretty good at the top of the rotation; now they just need 4 or 5 above-average hitters, to salt around the one they have now. Giancarlo is their only active regular who began today with an OPS+ 100 or better.

• Turner was 1 for 29 (16 Ks) before he tripled in the 4th — the first by a Marlins pitcher since an April 2012 drive by Anibal Sanchez, the man Turner was dealt for.

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Angels 13, @Cubs 2 –Eleven different Angels had a hit, including C.J. Wilson‘s first non-triple, and they got within 2 games of .500, their high-water mark since April 7. The Anaheimers bashed 8 extra-base hits off Jeff Samardzija (4.2 IP, 9 runs), with 2 HRs in the 1st and back-to-backers from Pujols and Hamilton in the 5th, the latter marking Josh’s first 2-HR game for the Halos. Brendan Harris greeted wild man Henry Rodriguez with a 2-run shot, and Rodriguez later walked in a run, retiring none of his 5 batters.

• 8 extra-base hits off Samardzija, the most off any pitcher in over a year.
• 11 XBH in all for the Angels, their most since 1980. This year, only Boston exceeded that mark.
• Cody Ransom doubled and homered for Chicago, his 9th in 96 ABs since the Padres waived him in April.
• Brooks Raley finished up with 4.1 IP in his season debut. He served 7 HRs in 24 IP last year, but was the only Cub not touched by the long-ball tonight.
• Mike Trout‘s 2 doubles and 4-2-3-1 left him at .320/.959. Last year, .326/.963. Some counting stats might fall short of his 2012 level, but he’s still a brilliant young player, who turns 22 next month.

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Blue Jays 5, @Indians 4 — Tied at 2 after 8 innings, the 9th was a lulu. The visitors struck for 3 runs after 2 outs and 1 on, then hung on to win by the margin of Michael Bourn’s compound error on the tiebreaking hit by Munenori Kawasaki. Bourn then started the Tribe’s last-second rally, Kawasaki’s 2-base error put the winning run on 2nd with 2 out. But Michael Brantley, whose 2-out hit tied things in the 8th (and made him 15 for 34 with 2 outs/RISP), flied out on the first pitch from Steve Delabar, the All-Star finalist.

On 1-and-2 from Joe Smith with the bags full, Kawasaki lined a single to left-center. Bourn bobbled, kicked, then threw to the wrong base, and Emilio Bonifacio scored all the way from 1st base. Bonifacio had broken up Justin Masterson‘s 1-0 shutout in the 7th with a 2-run hit after a pair of 2-out walks. Brantley got the Cleveland ace off the hook, driving in Bourn (3 hits, 2 runs and a steal) with 2 outs against Brett Cecil, the Blue Jay’s second straight rough outing since being named an All-Star. Toronto had 6 hits, no HRs, but 3 of the 7 walks given by Cleveland came home.

• Esmil Rogers shook off his first bad start with 6 innings of one-run ball.
• Delabar’s one-pitch save was the first since last April. Here’s my goofy fave among the recent ones.
• Bonifacio had been 3-24 with 2 or more on base, and his lone 2-RBI event was a homer.

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@Pirates 5, Athletics 0 — Francisco Liriano earned his 9th win in just 12 starts (all decisions) and cut his RA/9 to a flat 2 runs per game with 7 dominant innings, stopping the A’s cold and snapping the Bucs’ 4-game skid. Jose Tabata led the 12-hit attack with an icebreaking RBI double, a single and 2 runs, and Pedro Alvarez drove in 2 with singles. Coco Crisp had 3 of Oakland’s 5 singles. They had 2 ABs with someone in scoring position: GDP in the 1st, groundout in the 3rd.

• Alvarez’s last 51 games: .303 BA, 18 HRs, 47 RBI, OPS over 1.000, Bucs 33-18.
• Welcome to the majors, Sonny Gray! There have been a few who went by that monicker, but young Master Gray appears to be the first with Sonny as his legal first name.

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Nationals 5, @Phillies 1 — Anthony Rendon homered, doubled and scored twice, and Gio Gonzalez outpitched Cliff Lee, winning a matchup of lefties who own 20-win seasons. Lee tied his career high of 4 HRs allowed and took his first loss since May 1, while Gio won his 4th straight outing with his 8th straight QS (2.00 ERA in that span). The Nats went back-to-back to open the 5th and 6th innings, starting with Rendon. Darin Ruf hit his 1st for the Phils.

• In 46 ABs over the last 2 years, Ruf is 16 for 46 with 4 HRs. He burned up the AA Eastern League last year, leading with 38 HRs, 104 RBI and a 1.028 OPS. What was a 25-year-old doing at AA? The Phillies are known for bringing prospects along slowly (see Howard and Utley), plus Ruf’s power took a while to develop. And, of course, he’s been blocked by their short-sighted commitment to Howard.

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@Yankees 8, Royals 1 — The new-and-improved Ivan Nova bulldogged through 8 innings, finally nicked with 2 outs in his final frame. Two swings produced 7 Yankee runs, with their 2nd slam this year coming from Lyle Overbay. Before tonight, New York was hitting .215 with the bases full (17-79, .560 OPS), with 2 doubles and one HR by Mark Teixeira.

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@Tigers 8, White Sox 5 — Piranha’ed on Tuesday by Chicago’s 19 singles, Detroit flashed their own pepper power, spraying 13 bingles after Prince Fielder‘s early homer. The meant-to-be big three of Miguel Cabrera, Fielder and Victor Martinez had 3 knocks apiece, with V-Mart running his hit streak to 12 games, and Miggy notching his 93rd ribby in game #90.

• Bruce Rondon‘s still not ready for prime time, shaving a 5-run lead down to 3 in his inning’s work, with a HR, a double, a walk and a wild pitch. His strike rate’s still just 58% since being recalled from AAA.
• Cabrera trails Manny Machado in 3-hit games by 14-13 this year, but while Manny has 2 HRs & 13 RBI in his, Miggy has 12 HRs, 34 RBI.

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@Cardinals 5, Astros 4 — Matt Carpenter hammered the 4th pitch from lefty specialist Wesley Wright, turning around a one-run game and sending the Cards towards a mini-sweep and their 5th straight win. All three Matts tag-teamed to pin the Astros: Adams (4-0-2-1 in his semi-weekly start), drove in the first run in the St. Louis comeback, and Holliday‘s 2-out hit scored 2 tying runs in the 5th. Shelby Miller walked 5 in 5 innings, but Houston went 2-14 with RISP, and Carpenter started a game-ending DP with the winning runs aboard.

• Chris Carter hit his 18th, and reached 122 strikeouts.

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Mets 7, @Giants 2 — Zack Wheeler pitched well against the team that drafted him #6 overall four years ago, and chipped in his first double, RBI and run, as New York swept in San Francisco. Matt Cain got just 2 outs and walked 3 in his shortest outing ever; he’d never been pulled for cause before the 3rd.

• Preseason odds that the Mets would go to the Break with a better record than the defending champs: Off the board. We’re not there yet, and it says more about them than us, but we’ll take it.
• S.F. are the 8th club to 50 losses this year. They’d been very consistent in the first 90 games each of the last 4 years, with 49 to 50 wins each year.
• Marlon Byrd‘s 15 HRs is already his second-best total, and 11 on the road is almost twice his prior high. His one prior year with more than 12 HRs was 2009 with Texas, and he hit 14 of 20 at home. He has 32 RBI in 32 road starts, his OPS near 1.000.

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Reds 6, @Brewers 2 — Mike Leake has kept his team in ‘most every game, and they’ve returned the favor, scoring at least 2 in all 18 starts. They’ve scored 1 or none 17 times for others, 6 times for Homer Bailey.

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@Orioles 6, Rangers 1 — Back from a bout of oblique pain, Wei-Yin Chen bobbed and weaved through the Rangers for seven rounds, disguising his left hook to record 4 punchouts.

• If Manny Machado should fall one double short of any milestone, remember this play. The scorer glossed over a significant bobble by CF Engel Beltre in fielding the ball off the wall, giving Manny a triple. Do you agree with that scoring?

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@Rays 4, Twins 3 (13 inn.) / @Rays 4, Twins 3 (Thurs.) — Can’t keep up with the streaking Rays. Scant hours after Wednesday’s walk-off, they were already gunning for Moore, and getting it. Eight straight for them, and 5 straight starts won by Matt — his second such streak this year alone.

• No “I” in “Tampa Bay Rays,” either: They may not have offensive stars, but the Rays’ 5th-ranked offense is very well rounded — top-5 in BA, OBP, OPS/+, HRs, walks — and RISP average.
• Somehow, I missed the breaking of Caleb Thielbar‘s career-opening scoreless streak on Monday. Ben Zobrist‘s homer laid it to rest just shy of 20 innings, and made Alex Torres a winner. Torres and Thielbar are nos. 1 and 2 in opponents batting average, .071 and .092 (min. 20 IP).

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Random note: On Tuesday, Josh Satin batted 5 times, swung 5 times (3 fouls), and had no balls in play — 3 walks, 2 whiffs, scoring twice. Since 1993, players with exactly 5 PAs, 3 walks and 2 Ks have gone 74-25. Suspecting a sample-size fluke, I expanded the range to the whole searchable era, 1916-present. Players with 5 PAs, 3 walks and 2 Ks have gone 165-72, a .696 winning percentage. Apparently, getting on base is important.

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* Jose Jimenez wound up pitching mostly in relief during his 7-year career. But in his one year of starting, he hurled 2 shutouts in an otherwise forgettable campaign (5-14, 5.85).

The shutouts came 10 days apart, June 25 and July 5, 1999 — first a no-hitter, then a 2-hitter (hits in the 5th and 6th). Each was a 1-0 victory over Randy Johnson and the Diamondbacks.

In the first of these duels, Johnson took a 4-hit shutout to the top of the 9th, when he issued his only 2 walks (including McGwire). He fanned Eric Davis for the 2nd out, his 14th K. But on a 3-2 count, Thomas Howard grounded Johnson’s 123rd pitch through the left side, and Darren Bragg scored the lone run. Jimenez then set down the Snakes in order, completing the Cardinals’ first no-hitter since Bob Forsch in 1983. In the rematch, Howard once again drove in the only run with a 2-out hit, this time in the 4th inning.

Those were 2 of Johnson’s 3 career CG, 1-0 losses — and the only complete games Jimenez ever threw.