Braves 6, Phillies 2: Pretty good day for me yesterday. I took Mookie and Carlo to an amusement park and the Braves swept the Phillies. All I needed as a nice steak or something to cap the day and it would have been perfection. Only the Astros, Rockies and Cubs have a bigger division deficit than the Phillies do in all of baseball.
Dodgers 4, Giants 1: Clayton Kershaw tossed a five-hit shutout to help the Dodgers sweep the Giants and now the NL West essentially tied up. The Dodgers outscored the Giants 19-3 in the series. I gotta tell ya, I was prepared to watch the Dodgers slowly slip away throughout the second half, but they ain’t doin’ it. Looks like we’ll have a nice little race out there.
Reds 7, Rockies 2: Ten in a row for the Reds. They gotta be hoping Joey Votto doesn’t come back at this point, right? OK, maybe not. But you know some nudnik is gonna suggest that there’s a chemistry problem when he does come back and the Reds actually stop winning every single baseball game.
Mariners 7, Royals 6: Wait, another sweep? This is starting to look like last weekend. King Felix pitched well but got a no-decision because of his pen. Dude just doesn’t know how to win.
Twins 5, Indians 1: How about one more sweep? Brian Duensing got the spot start to cover for the departed Francisco Liriano. He had no idea. Found out the news from his Twitter followers and then saw it on the team website. Worked out nice for him all the same (6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER)
Cubs 4, Cardinals 2: Anthony Rizzo with the walkoff homer in the tenth, finishing a 3 for 4 day. Walked once too. The dude is hope.
Mets 5, Diamondbacks 1: R.A. Dickey won his 14th game. The Mets split the series, somewhat arresting their precipitous post-break slide.
Rays 2, Angels 0: Zack Greinke made his Angels debut. And, aside from looking weird in that uniform, did OK, allowing two runs in seven innings while punching out eight. But he got no help from the offense while Jeremy Hellickson and three of his mates combined to shut out Anaheim.
Nationals 11, Brewers 10: Michael Morse hit a game-tying, two-run homer in the ninth inning, then hit a two-run double in the 11th which provided the winning margin. Not bad. Oh, and this was ridiculous.
Orioles 6, Athletics 1: Wei-Yin Chen struck out 12 and Matt Wieters hit a three-run homer to help the O’s avoid the sweep.
Astros 9, Pirates 5: Another avoided sweep, as the Astros finally snap their losing streak. Marwin Gonzalez had three hits and drove in three. He had been 0 for his previous 16. Fun Fact: Gonzalez has, at every level of baseball he’s played since he was a teenager, driven in three runs on July 29th. Actually that’s a lie, bus since only like three of you guys pull for the Astros and know who Marwin Gonzalez is I coulda just left that hangin’ out there and none of you would have been able to dispute it.
Tigers 4, Blue Jays 1: Jhonny Peralta homered twice and drove in all four of Detroit’s runs to help the Tigers, you guessed it, avoid a three game sweep.
Marlins 5, Padres 4: Justin Ruggiano hit the game winner in the tenth of what could be Josh Johnson’s last start as a Marlin. If so, somewhat dubious — six walks — but he was effective enough to keep his team in the game.
Red Sox 3, Yankees 2: It’s Pedro Ciriaco’s world. He’s just letting us live in it for a little while.
Rangers 2, White Sox 0: Eight shutout innings from Scott Feldman. Now four games against the Angels.
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