Upsets, upsets, upsets!
Everything you thought you knew about which teams are good and which teams are bad was upended today. Well, maybe not everything, but there were plenty of upsets. The A’s beat the Angels. The lowly Tampa Bay Rays beat the AL East defending champion Boston Red Sox. The rebuilding Braves beat the further-along-in-their rebuild Philadelphia Phillies. The White Sox crushed six home runs and beat the Royals, 14-7.
In Baltimore, the Orioles walked off Twins closer Fernando Rodney on a game-winning shot by Adam Jones in the eleventh. The Mets didn’t need a walk-off homer to beat the Cardinals, 9-4. They jumped all over Cardinal ace Carlos Martinez, with number two hitter Yoenis Cespedes knocking in three runs and leadoff man Brandon Nimmo scoring twice.
A few aces took losses today. The Giants beat Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers on a solo home run by Joe Panik. This was unusual in many ways. One, the Dodgers are much better than the Giants. Two, Kershaw rarely gives up home runs to left-handed hitters. And three, Joe Panik very very rarely hits home runs against left-handed pitchers. In 506 previous plate appearances against lefties, Panik had a grand total of two home runs.
The Seattle Mariners beat defending AL Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber. All it took was a 2-run home run by Nelson Cruz, 5.3 shutout innings by Felix Hernandez, four middle relievers allowing one run in 2.7 innings, and a shaky save from Edwin Diaz that included two hit batters, a balk, and three strikeouts. Expect to see more of this type of game, Mariner fans. Starting pitchers will not be asked to go much beyond five or six innings, and relievers will be used liberally.