Dodgers 7, @D-backs 6 — L.A. overcame the Snakes’ 6-run 3rd inning and celebrated their NL West clincher, the first of the races to be formally settled. Hanley Ramirez drove in 4 with two HRs, tying the game in the 7th on a 2-strike hanger from Chaz Roe, and A.J. Ellis clocked the first pitch of the 8th for the deciding run.

Arizona rapped 7 hits in their big inning, capped with Wade Miley’s 2-run double, but got just 2 singles over the last 6 frames. Kenley Jansen struck out Goldschmidt on 3 pitches and Prado on 4, in a one-two-three save.

• Jansen has whiffed 37% of his batters this year — down from 41% in his first 3 seasons, but still plenty to support an 0.86 WHIP, as he’s logged a career-best walk data of 2.0 BB/9 and 6.6 SO/BB.
• Every time Hanley sits out, he seems to come back with a flourish. Today’s outburst came after he missed Wednesday’s game. On Tuesday, after sitting out 4 in a row, he reached 4 times and scored 3. On Sept. 4, after a missed game, he had 2 hits and a run. Sept. 2, he had only a walk and a sac fly in 5 trips, after sitting one out. But on Aug. 23, after missing one, his 2-run HR off John Lackey carried a 2-0 win. And on Aug. 14, after missing 9 starts in a row, he had 2 hits, a run and a double.

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@Red Sox 3, Orioles 1 — Stephen Drew’s 2-run homer gave John Lackey an early lead, and he went the distance on 2 hits to clinch Boston’s postseason berth. Adam Jones crushed his 32nd HR with 1 out in the 7th, busting the no-no, but Lackey let no other reach 2nd base in his first 9-inning effort in 4 years. He threw first strikes to 25 of 31 batters, and gave 2-out walks in the 3rd and the 6th.

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Rangers 8, @Rays 2 — Three solo home runs in the 3rd put Texas back on top for good against Matt Moore, after a rocky start by Yu Darvish. They added 2 in the 4th the old-fashioned way, on 2 infield hits, a walk and a double-steal. The result left these teams once again tied for the two wild-card spots, and disappointed the Indians, who would have grabbed a seat with their win and a Rangers loss. The Orioles are 2 games behind, but control their fate against Tampa, with 4 games starting Friday. The idle Royals host the Rangers this weekend, starting 3 games off the pace.

Darvish took the mound with a 1-0 lead but without his control, and the Rays forged ahead helped by 3 walks and a hit batsman. The Rangers’ early run built on an E-6 and Moore’s 14th wild pitch, tops in the AL. Geovany Soto turned the game’s mojo around in the Tampa 2nd, which began with Yunel Escobar’s single. He ran on a full count to David DeJesus, and a K/CS ensued. Ben Zobrist worked the 4th walk off Darvish, but Soto nabbed him, too, running on 0-2 to Matt Joyce. Mitch Moreland fired the first home-run salvo, tying the game, and then Elvis Andrus and Alex Rios went back-to-back, Rios after spoiling three 1-2 offers.

• Darvish walked 6 in 5 innings, as in his Sept. 4 start against Oakland, but this time he got away on 2 runs, helped by Soto’s arm and by GDPs in the 3rd and 4th innings.
• Moore had never before served up 3 taters in one game, and had yielded just 4 HRs in 10 prior Trop tilts this year. He had not given a run to the Rangers in two prior starts, one in the 2011 playoffs.

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@Indians 2, Astros 1 (11 inn.) — Matt Carson, who came on for defense in the 10th, slapped a 2-out hit through the right side, scoring Yan Gomes for a hard-fought win over MLB’s worst team. Carson came up for the first time after Mike Aviles kept the inning alive with a walk that loaded the bases, and the 31-year-old in his 84th career game delivered his 7th hit in 8 ABs this month, and his first-ever game-winner. The Tribe are 10-2 in extra innings, and 47-18 against sub-.500 teams.

Ubaldo Jimenez made a strong bid for his 4th straight win. He fanned 9 with no walks — making 59 Ks, 11 walks and 9 runs in his last 7 starts — but he fell one strike short of stranding the bags full in the 2nd, giving up a tying sac fly. And Houston’s Dallas Keuchel matched him zero for zero through the 7th. Cleveland’s 8th-inning threat fizzled on whiffs by Carlos Santana and Yan Gomes. Chris Perez built himself a mountain of trouble in the 9th, filling the sacks on a double and two freebies, but then fanned his way clear against the bottom of the order.

• In Houston’s 10th, Jake Elmore pinch-ran for the catcher after a leadoff double — and was promptly picked off.
• Nick Swisher doubled and scored in the 1st when Jason Kipnis drove him in, but his next 3 hits all went to waste, twice followed by Kipnis DPs. Terry Francona gambled with a pinch-runner for Swisher during their 8th-inning threat, and when he moved Carlos Santana from DH to Swisher’s 1B spot after that inning, he gave up the DH for the rest of the game. Not a big deal, really, with September rosters.

• Cody Clark, Houston’s 3rd-string catcher, has 3 hits in 32 times at bat — but he’s nailed 7 of 10 base-thieves, including Michael Brantley in the Cleveland 9th.

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@Blue Jays 6, Yankees 2 — Toronto scored first, Todd Redmond held the Yanks to 4 hits in his first 7-inning stint, and a late rally fell far short, after Joe Girardi’s first call to the bullpen did likewise. New York trailed 3-1 when Joba Chamberlain appeared at the start of their 7th. But three batters later, they were all but buried: a 5-pitch walk to Munenori Kawasaki, a 3-and-1 hit by Brett Lawrie and a 2-and-1 bomb by Adam Lind. Bottom line, though — New York had 5 hits and went 0-5 with RISP. Joba didn’t lose the game. The Yanks have lost 5 out of 6, and are 8-10 in September.

• Hiroki Kuroda had one nemesis: The 2nd-year speedster Anthony Gose singled and scored the first run in the 3rd, doubled in the 4th, and drilled a solo HR in the 6th, after Curtis Granderson’s clout cut the lead to 2-1.
• Critics noted Lind’s numbers off Chamberlain before tonight, 8-for-18 with a HR and 2 doubles. But those hits all came years ago. The head-scratching number to me is Lind’s platoon split, .211 BA vs. lefties this year and .219 career. Girardi said of the young lefty Cesar Cabral (who followed Joba) that he hasn’t been in that kind of pressure before and “you don’t know what you’ll get from him.” All true; but do those issues favor Chamberlain?

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@Rockies 7, Cardinals 6 (15 inn.) — Corey Dickerson’s second RBI triple of the game scored D.J. LeMahieu when Yadier Molina couldn’t corral a tough relay hop, thus ending the 2nd-longest contest at Coors Field and chopping a game off the Cards’ division lead. Colorado dodged a bullet in the top half: With men on the corners and 1 out, they gave Yadi a pass, then turned a tough 6-4-3 on Pete Kozma.

Starters Roy Oswalt (4 runs on 5 hits, 4 walks) and Michael Wacha (4 runs on 12 hits) were both hooked in the 5th. Each side scored once in the 8th and the 9th. David Freese doubled home Matt Holliday with 2 outs, but the Rockies answered off Trevor Rosenthal with extra-base hits by Charlie Blackmon and Dickerson, the latter 2-out, 0-2 liner to center misplayed by Jon Jay. St. Louis edged back up against Rex Brothers on Holliday’s 2-out hit, but Jay was cut down trying to score on a pitch that went right through Yorvit Torrealba, but then came right back to him. Then Todd Helton’s no-doubter tied it again, on Edward Mujica’s second pitch. Mujica had whiffed Helton to end Wednesday’s one-run game with the bases full. Salas got the Cards out of a jam in the 13th, stranding the winning run at 2nd with a 3-pitch whiff, and he opened the 15th the same way, having gotten 5 outs on just 14 pitches, 13 of them strikes. But his next two were

• This hadn’t really shown up in his ERA, but Mujica’s K rate and BA have turned about-face in the 2nd half: strikeouts down from 22% to 12%, BA up from .188 to .293, WHIP from 0.73 to 1.20. His BAbip has also soared from .207 to .319. But for all the extra runners, his ERA held steady, 2.20 to 2.08, with just one blown save until Helton’s HR.
• Salas, their closer in 2011, went back to the minors in May of this year and had good stats, but he’s continued to struggle since being recalled, with 8 runs in 11.2 innings.
• Matt Carpenter’s had many great moments this year, but this was a bad one.

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@Pirates 6, Padres 1 — Gerrit Cole whiffed 12 in 6 innings, and Pedro Alvarez broke a tie in the 4th with his 34th home run (and first RBI in 6 games). Jose Tabata and Neil Walker each drove in a pair as the Bucs broke it open that inning, topping 4 runs for the first time in their last 8 games.

• Approaching 180 innings (majors & minors) in just his 2nd pro season, Cole has allowed just 4 runs in 4 starts this month.
• Have we explored the possibility that Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes are actually the same person?

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@Tigers 5, Mariners 4 — Detroit rallied for Doug Fister, overcoming Dustin Ackley’s 3-run HR, and shaved their magic number down to four.

It wasn’t quite déjà vu, after all. Yes, it happened in Fister’s start, and oh, my, yes, that was Prince barreling around from 1st base on a double. But this one was just a wee bit closer to the LF line; and Raul Ibanez, for all his timeless talents, is not Alex Gordon. And so Fielder scored the go-ahead run in the 7th, the second time that V-Mart delivered him with a two-bagger. Torii Hunter homered earlier and doubled to start the winning rally, and Fielder had a pair of doubles, plus the tying ducksnort against a freshly-summoned southpaw.

• Hunter’s 790 extra-base hits are one behind Bernie Williams for 15th among career center fielders.
• Two outs in the 3rd, Seattle down 2-1, Tigers on 3rd and 2nd. Eric Wedge directed the rookie James Paxton — he of the 4.0 BB/9 as a professional — to walk Victor Martinez and load the bases. Four more wide ones followed, forcing in a run. Whether or not the walk was sound game strategy, this is purely development time for Paxton — so why not let the kid go after V-Mart?
• I still haven’t figured out how to study it, but I think that Fister is more prone to “hit clusters” than almost any pitcher going. Now, Fister’s career BA with men on base is significantly higher than with bases empty, which suggests he’s less effective pitching from the stretch — but in my theory, it’s not the stretch so much as a kind of fit, if you will, that comes over him at times.
• , but it’s not quite the same thing. If he were, in fact, cluster-prone, he
• It’s funny, for sure, but this clip isn’t going to help Prince Fielder’s image.

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Giants 2, @Mets 1 — The Giants’ second run was driven in by SS Ehire Adrianza, who will always be “Zanier Airhead” to me.

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Tuesday tack-ons

Reds 6, @Astros 5 (13 inn.) —

Jay Bruce’s long double with the bases full scored 2 Reds. But isn’t that a baserunning boo-boo by Shin-Shoo Choo? On 2nd base with 1 out, Choo tagged up until he was sure the ball would not be caught, which almost made for a play at the plate on Choo, and also gave Joey Votto zero chance to score from 1st base. As I see it, Choo should have waited halfway between 2nd and 3rd, to insure his scoring if the ball fell safely, and Votto should have been on 2nd. The go-ahead run was going to score even if the ball was caught, so the possibility of Choo tagging up and advancing to 3rd with 2 outs was inconsequential. The logical priorities at that moment were (1) taking the lead, and (2) maximizing the runs scored if the ball fell in. Maybe Votto couldn’t have scored anyway, but the failure to score a 3rd run there became relevant when Aroldis Chapman let the winning runs on base (with 2 mind-boggling walks) before blowing away Chris Carter to end the game.

Horrific night at bat for Brandon Phillips. He went 0-for-7, failing to advance any of the 7 runners on base ahead of him, and logged minus-0.408 in WPA, the worst game by a Red this year. That included some truly boneheaded baserunning in the 9th inning, when he ran to 1st far away from the 45-foot lane on a sac bunt attempt and was called out for interference, negating the advance of the two lead runners. It was especially dumb because Phillips had done his job, and clearly had no chance to beat the play at 1st unless he got in the way of the throw, which he apparently meant to do, as he ran the whole 90 feet on the grass inside the 1st-base line.

• Billy Hamilton is just the 6th searchable player to steal 4 bases while batting 9th. He also had the 5th-best searchable WPA by a National Leaguer who started a game in the #9 hole.
• Choo has drawn 11 walks in the last 5 games, allowing him to score 8 runs with just 3 hits. This seems hard to believe, but Choo is Cincinnati’s first full-time leadoff man since Bip Roberts in 1992. No Red from 1993-2012 led off more than 111 games in a season.
• Leadoff walks leaders, 2013: (1) Choo, 106; (2) Matt Carpenter & Dexter Fowler, 57. Just one other in this century has drawn 100+ walks in games batting #1 (Chone Figgins, 2009).
• Pop quiz: Who holds the expansion-era record for most walks in a season while batting in the leadoff spot? He also holds the 4th and 11th spots on that list.

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@Diamondbacks 9, Dodgers 4 —

• I know jonrón and cuadrangular. But what’s the Spanish equivalent of “doink“?

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@Brewers 7, Cubs 0 — Tyler Thornburg has started 6 games and pitched exactly 6 innings each time, allowing 7 total runs (5 earned).

• Khris Davis has 10 HRs and 9 doubles in 117 ABs, averaging 2.18 bases per hit. His .615 slugging would rank 17th in a season of 100 to 200 PAs, a list that includes pitchers Don Newcombe and Wes Ferrell, along with this year’s stretch-run standout, Danny Valencia.
• Thornburg has allowed just one home run in 59.2 IP. That would be the 2nd-lowest home-run rate since 1992 by a pitcher with 5+ starts and 50+ innings.
• The lowest HR rate in that group belongs to Henderson Alvarez, which is just amazing if you look back one season:

Granted, he’s moved from a HR-friendly park to one that’s quite the opposite. But his gopher troubles last year went far beyond SkyDome (15 HRs in 15 road starts), and he’s started 7 road games this year with just one HR. [Update: I jinxed him, of course! Alvarez gave up a 3-run HR to Bryce Harper in the 1st inning of Thursday’s game.]

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@Mets 5, Giants 4 — Three walks fueled New York’s 4-run 9th, and Josh Satin‘s last-strike rope drove in the tying and winning runs.

• The Mets have 4 walk-off wins when trailing, 2 more than any other team. So … yeah.
• Felicitaciones to Juan Centeno, who single twice in his MLB debut, including an RBI in the big rally. He’s the 25th Met with 2 hits in his debut, a list that includes Matt Harvey as well as the only Met with at least 2 career hits and a perfect batting average.

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Freddy Guzman was leading the Mexican League with 73 stolen bases … the #2 guy has 27. Guzman also led with 99 runs, in just 99 games. He’s averaged 95 steals per 162 games in the minors, with just 17 CS (85% success rate).

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Next year, when it’s time to vote for the “last All-Star,” let’s remember Steve Delabar‘s 2nd-half swoon — plus that of Brett Cecil, Delabar’s Jays and All-Star teammate — and realize that 40 innings is a really small sample. Koji Uehara had about the same 1st-half stats as Delabar and Cecil (better, really), and he had a track record of success in the major leagues far surpassing those two Jays. Wouldn’t it be nice if the pitcher with the lowest WHIP in MLB history — both for a season of 50+ innings, and a career of 200+ IP — got at least one All-Star nod?