And That Happened

Braves 8, Brewers 3; Braves 8, Brewers 0: A day the Brewers would like to forget. The Braves scoring eight runs is rare enough, but doing it — in the first game at least — with no homers is even more rare for this station-to-station team. Tim Hudson threw a 102-pitch one-hitter in the nightcap, spoiling Zack Greinke’s Brewers’ debut.  Tim Hudson may be one of the more overlooked awesome pitchers in baseball.  It’s like everyone forgot about him when he went down for Tommy John surgery a few years ago. But since he’s been back: quiet excellence.

Blue Jays 3, Rays 2: Joe West and his crew are a joke.  They tossed Joe Maddon after the umps got together and reversed West’s safe call on a tag play at first by Adam Lind on Sam Fuld, calling him out. Except they had it right the first time. The rest of the game was characterized by a crappy strike zone and multiple ejections when people complained about it. Joe Maddon on Twitter after the game:  “If ever a play screamed for instant replay we saw it at first base in the 7th inning tonight. I think Joe West got it right the first time.” Watch Maddon get fined now while West gets … nothing.  But not everything sucked in this game. Check out this relay throw by Yunel Escobar and plate block by Jose Molina. Mercy.

Giants 2, Mets 0: The Giants discover that you don’t have to fix your offensive woes when Tim Lincecum takes the hill and shuts out the opposition for seven innings while striking out 12. If there was any doubt that Bruce Bochy wanted this one badly it was put to rest when he used four relievers to pitch the final two innings, with three of them getting to retire one batter each and Brian Wilson taking the entire ninth.

Phillies 7, Nationals 4: Vance Worley: the fifth ace. In his second start, Worley allows one over six innings, bringing his total to one run allowed in 12 innings on the year.

Pirates 7, Padres 4: Kevin Corriea sat in the lotus position and vowed revenge before this game. “For what, Kevin?” asked Clint Hurdle before the game. “You left them via free agency. It’s not like they did you dirty or anything.”  Correia trained an intense look on his manager and then slowly walked away, a lonely pan flute playing in the distance. He knew what he must do (6 IP, 5 H, 2 ER).  As far as revenge goes it was rather mediocre, but a win is a win. Or so said Corriea’s sensei before their final battle, which each knew had to end in the death of the vanquished.

For the uninitiated in the ways of And That Happened, now would be a good time to let you know that as the season wears on I find it harder and harder to find interesting things to say about kind of blah teams like the Pirates and Padres, so I go off on these sorts of flights of fancy. Which is to say that, no, I have no real proof that Kevin Corriea killed his sensei. It’s just what a lot of people are saying is all.

Tigers 4, Yankees 0: Max Scherzer blanks the Yankees for eight innings and someone woke Magglio Ordonez up to hit a two-run homer. Derek Jeter leaves with a sore hip. If I were in the situation Jeter’s in I’d probably be happy to have a sore hip right now.

Orioles 3, Royals 2: Luke Scott went two for three with two walks. So he says.

Twins 3, White Sox 2:  The White Sox have lost 17 of 21 games. And I picked them to win the Central. Good thing I’m not a betting man.

Cubs 5, Dodgers 1: Carlos Zambrano gave up one run on five hits over eight innings. And boy, did the Cubs look spiffy in their throwbacks doing it. Check out those socks.  An off-day for Andre Ethier as his elbow is wonky, so the hitting streak counter remains at 29.

Reds 3, Astros 2: I hit this one up yesterday. If the Astros’ closer continues to be Lyon, Astros fans will be dyin’.

Angels 5, Red Sox 3: Two and a half hours of rain delays plus a five hour, thirteen inning game that ended at 2:45 AM? That ended with Daisuke Matsuzaka pitching in relief and giving up a two-run RBI single to Bobby Abreu? Plus a 1:45 PM start today?  Oh yeah!

Rockies 6, Diamondbacks 4: Chris Ianetta had a two-run homer. His line on the year is weird: .188/.388/.453.  Not many hits — 12 — but he has made the most of them, with eight going for extra bases.

Marlins 8, Cardinals 7: A two-run homer from Mike Stanton in the ninth broke a 6-6 tie. He hit it off an Eduardo Sanchez fastball. This a night after Sanchez dusted Stanton with sliders in a key ninth inning matchup. Hey Eduardo: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Rangers 5, Mariners 2: C.J. Wilson totally handcuffed Seattle, pitching a complete game and striking out 12.

Athletics 3, Indians 1: David DeJesus hadn’t hit any homers all year. In this one he hit two. Overall the A’s only had four hits, but it was enough to stand up for Trevor Cahill, who gave up one run on five hits over seven innings.