The Tuesday Takeaway
Brett Lawrie can hit, and the 22-year-old is rapidly learning how to pick it at the hot corner. But the questions about his makeup that led the Brewers to ship him to the Blue Jays in a one-for-one deal that brought back Shaun Marcum reared their ugly heads again last night in an incident that is likely to result in a suspension.

At the plate with nobody on and one out in the bottom of the ninth inning, with Toronto trailing Tampa Bay 4-3, Lawrie worked the count to 3-1. Then, home plate umpire Bill Miller clearly gipped him of a walk, calling a Fernando Rodney fastball that crossed the plate at least four inches outside a strike. The payoff pitch was a changeup that threatened the upper fringe of the zone but stayed an inch or so too high. Miller rang Lawrie up, and—moments later—the young third baseman seemed ready to ring the ump’s bell.

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The Monday Takeaway
With 11 home runs in 150 plate appearances entering Monday’s game against the Tigers, Adam Dunn had come all the way back from one of the worst offensive seasons in history. Well, almost all the way.

The one thing Dunn had not yet done was go deep against a left-handed pitcher. The last time he did that, Dunn was still a member of the Nationals, the Democrats still controlled the House, and the most salient things being occupied were airplane lavatories on cross-country flights.

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The Weekend Takeaway
If you asked Yankees radio broadcaster John Sterling to describe Sunday’s action, he might break out one of his patented home run calls for Curtis Granderson: “That was something sort of Grandish.”

In the highlight of the early slate of games, the Marlins and Mets delivered some late-inning drama on South Beach, as beleaguered closers Heath Bell and Frank Francisco traded meltdowns in the ninth. Bell—who was only recently reinstated as the closer by manager Ozzie Guillen—went first, entering a contest tied at 2-2 and promptly coughing up the lead on two hits and two walks, most notably a two-run double by Justin Turner. Francisco’s first three batters picked up a triple, a walk, and a single, before the hotheaded righty got himself ejected by home plate umpire Todd Tichenor. Manny Acosta was saddled with a blown save on a sacrifice fly by Jose Reyes, before a walk and a hit batsman set Giancarlo Stanton up with the bases loaded and two out. Four hundred and thirty-three feet later, the Marlins had their fifth walk-off win of the season.

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The Thursday Takeaway
Merry Strasmas, Nationals fans. With the team coming off a disappointing three-game skid, Stephen Strasburg took the mound against the Pirates and played stopper with results strikingly similar to his major-league debut.

Back on June 8, 2010, Strasburg surpassed even the loftiest of expectations by striking out 14 batters without issuing a walk over seven innings in his first career start. Strasburg’s victims that night were the Pirates, who managed only two runs on four hits, one of which was a Delwyn Young homer.

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The Wednesday Takeaway
Johnny Cueto tossed seven shutout innings in the Reds’ 2-1 victory over the Brewers yesterday afternoon. Zack Greinke one-upped him by blanking the visitors for eight innings at Miller Park while allowing just two hits, striking out 11, and walking none. Yet, by the time the two hour, 49-minute contest was over, the most dominant pitcher to appear might not have been either of the starters.

With the game still scoreless, Aroldis Chapman entered for the Reds firing high-90s fastballs and filthy sliders. He whiffed pinch-hitter Brooks Conrad, induced a ground ball from Nyjer Morgan, and then blew a 101 mph heater past Rickie Weeks. After the Cincinnati offense got to John Axford in the top of the ninth, Chapman was rewarded with his third win of the season.

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The Tuesday Takeaway
Step aside, Matt Kemp—there’s a new name atop the home run leaderboard. That would be Josh Hamilton, who hit not one, not two, not three, but four long balls at Camden Yards in the Rangers’ 10-3 win over the Orioles.

Hamilton, whose absurd 1.298 OPS still trails Kemp’s by seven points, went 5-for-5, adding a double to those homers to finish just one total base shy of Shawn Green’s single-game record of 19. He is the first player to hit four homers in a game since Carlos Delgado did it on September 25, 2003, the first Rangers player ever to accomplish the feat, and the second player to join the club against the Orioles. The other was the Indians’ Rocky Colavito on June 10, 1959.

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The Monday Takeaway
When the Marlins embarked on their nine-game road trip to San Francisco, San Diego, and Houston, manager Ozzie Guillen’s team was a disappointing 7-15. Seven games in, Miami has improved to 14-15, going from an early afterthought to within 3 ½ games of the division-leading Nationals.

Here are the Marlins’ runs allowed totals during this road trip: 1, 2, 2, 8, 1, 3, 0. That’s 17 combined runs allowed over seven games (an average of 2.43 per game) and, if you toss out the outlier—Friday’s wild, 12-inning win over the Padres—nine combined runs allowed in the other six games.

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The Weekend Takeaway
Everyone loves a good dose of weird baseball, and that’s precisely what fans at Fenway Park were treated to on Sunday afternoon. The Orioles capped off their first sweep of the Red Sox in Boston since 1994, but that does not even begin to describe what transpired on Yawkey Way.

In one of the most bizarre goat-to-hero stories you will ever see, designated hitter Chris Davis hit like a pitcher… and then pitched like one, too. Davis began the afternoon by collecting a platinum sombrero, added a double-play ball in his sixth at-bat, and wound up 0-for-8 by the time the 17-inning marathon was over. But with the media preparing to make Davis the butt of many a Monday joke, Davis put the joke on the hometown nine, hurling two shutout innings to earn the win.

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The Thursday Takeaway
Joe Blanton pitched a shutout for the Phillies. Bryce Harper drove home the game-winning run for the Nationals. The Royals won at home for the first time this season.

And none of it matters, because Mariano Rivera wrecked his knee. He did not slip off the mound. He was not scrambling to field a bunt. He did not trip while covering first base. Rivera was doing something else that virtually every pitcher does and that he has thoroughly enjoyed doing throughout his career: shagging balls during batting practice.

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The Wednesday Takeaway
Trying to choose one takeaway from a night like last night is like being a 5-year-old at Baskin Robbins deciding between ice cream flavors. It might be doable, but whichever one you pick, you’ll be slighting other, equally worthy choices.

Two players over the age of 40 hit walk-off home runs last night.

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The Tuesday Takeaway
When Jerome Williams threw his first complete-game shutout on June 27, 2003 against the Athletics, he was a hotshot 21-year-old seven starts into a promising career. When Brian Matusz last won a game on October 2, 2010, he was a 23-year-old blue-chipper capping off a stellar second half.

Coming into their outings on Monday, no one could have predicted that both of those runs would end on the same night. Williams had worked into the eighth inning of a start just once since returning to the majors last summer. Matusz had lost 12 straight decisions and had to do battle with a Yankees lineup ready to feast after a frustrating two-run effort the previous night. But they did.

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The Monday Takeaway
Hitting three home runs in a game played at Petco Park is like acing three final exams after a night of heavy drinking. It can’t be done—unless you are Ryan Braun, that is.

The Brewers left fielder began his Monday evening with an inauspicious fly out to center in the first inning before going to work in the top of the fourth. First came this solo shot to the sandbox in right-center field, a place very few hitters are strong enough to reach at Petco.  An inning later, Braun checked the Western Metal Supply Co. warehouse off his list of targets with a two-run blast. And in the seventh, Ernesto Frieri made the mistake of hanging a curveball to Braun, who deposited it just over the fence in left to complete the trifecta.

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