And That Happened
Yankees 6, Twins 3: Six shutout innings for Andy Pettitte. After all these years. After a retirement. After an injury that cost him the bulk of the season. Andy Pettitte is still critical to the Yankees after all of these years.
Orioles 4, Blue Jays 1; Blue Jays 9, Orioles 5: The split costs Baltimore a half game to New York. The O’s are two back in the loss column. Adam Jones went 4 for 4 with a homer and two RBI in the opener. J.P. Arencibia hit a grand slam in the night cap. This is the first time the Yankees and O’s are separated by more than a game since Sept. 2.
White Sox 5, Indians 4: Two homers for Adam Dunn, the second of which was a three-run homer in the eighth, to help the Chisox break a five-game losing streak.
Tigers 6, Royals 2: And whaddaya know? Both AL Central contenders won. How novel. Justin Verlander allowed two runs over eight despite hurting his non-throwing shoulder — get this — catching the ball as it was being thrown back by the catcher. There’s something to the idea that geniuses are people who make the hard stuff easy and the easy stuff hard.
Mets 6, Pirates 2: Say what you want about the Mets season, but they’re trying to end it strong. Four straight wins for New York, this one powered by two Ike Davis bombs. As for the Pirates? Here’s their second half schedule and results. I haven’t seen that much red on a board since the show “Homicide” went off the air.
Rockies 4, Diamondbacks 2: Tyler Chatwood wins and goes to 5-5. Trevor Cahill loses and goes to 12-12. There’s something so very satisfyingly symmetrical about that. I mean, apart from the fact that if you interchangeably used the aliases “Tyler Chatwood” and “Trevor Cahill,” no one would ever notice.
Cardinals 6, Astros 1: Lance Lynn wins his 17th and the Cards win their seventh of eight. St. Louis has a three and a half game lead for the second wild card.
Nationals 12, Brewers 2: A six-run fourth inning for Washington when the sun caused Carlos Gomez to misplay a two-out fly ball. The day before the Nats had trouble with balls in the air in the midday glare. Here’s hoping that MLB doesn’t solve the Nationals’ public transportation problem by giving them NLDS games in the middle of the afternoon.
Rangers 5, Athletics 4: Josh Hamilton came back and hit a homer. Wouldn’t it be neat if he ekes out the home run crown in the AL, denying Miguel Cabrera the MVP? Like he denied Cabrera the MVP in 2010? No, you don’t think that would be neat, Tigers fans?