— Pirates 5, Cardinals 0
Pittsburgh went 6-0 on this homestand.
Cardinals were outscored 13-0 in the three-game series.
Mitch Keller tossed seven IP for the Pirates.
— Brewers 7-3, Mets 2-7
Joey Ortiz hit a tie-breaking grand slam in 6th inning.
Lindor went 3-4 with 3 RBI batting 2nd in the nightcap.
Mets have lost 14 of their last 18 games.
— Blue Jays 11, New York 9
Toronto blew a 9-1 lead, scored winning run on a wild pitch.
Teams are now tied for first place in the AL East.
New York is 13-18 since May 28th.
— Braves 8, Angels 3
Jurickson Profar homered in his return from an 80-game PED suspension.
Matt Olson had three hits, including a sixth inning grand slam.
— Giants 6, Diamondbacks 5 (10)
Patrick Bailey’s sac fly scored the game-winning run.
San Francisco snaps a four-game losing skid.
— Twins 2, Marlins 1
Loss snaps Miami’s 8-game winning streak.
Minnesota had lost its previous nine one-run games.
— Dodgers 5, White Sox 4
Dodgers scored three runs in bottom of the ninth.
Clayton Kershaw got his 3,000th career strikeout.
— Great factoid from Christopher Kamka:
Cesar Geronimo was Bob Gibson’s 3,000th strikeout.
Six years later, Geronimo was Nolan Ryan’s 3,000th strikeout.
— Famous birthdays, July 3rd
Betty Buckley, 78
Jan Smithers, 76
Frank Tanana, 72
Bruce Altman, 70
Tom Cruise, 63
Greg Vaughn, 60
Moisés Alou, 59
Neil O’Donnell, 59
Derrick Chievous, 58
Grant Wistrom, 49
Cole Tucker, 29
T.J. Hockenson, 28
— Bobby Bonilla must enjoy the first week of July every year; way back in 2000, the Mets wanted to buy out the remaining $5.9M on his contract. Instead of just giving him a check for $5.9M, they agreed to pay the former Mets’ slugger $1,193,248.20 a year for the next 35 years, which made/makes no freakin’ sense, but they did.
Back then, the Wilpon family owned the Mets; they were in business with fraudster Bernie Madoff, which makes it make a little sense, but not much.
So every July 1st from now through 2035, Bonilla banks a very large check.
— Monday night in Boston, Red Sox OF Wilyer Abreu hit a grand slam, then later hit an inside-the-park home run. He is the first big leaguer to do that in the same game since Roger Maris, in 1958.
— Former big league pitcher/current Mets’ TV analyst Ron Darling was talking the other day about gloves that ballplayers wear. Darling said that in his 13 years in the major leagues, he only used two different gloves, which seems surprising.
— Last weekend in Anaheim, the Angels walked Washington OF James Wood intentionally four times in one game, first time that happened in the majors since Barry Bonds, in 2004.
— Was watching a replay of HBO’s Hard Knocks from last year, when they followed the Giants’ front office before/during the draft; always a good program. Liev Schrieber is the narrator for Hard Knocks; never would’ve guessed that in 100 years. Am used to hearing talk like he did in Ray Donovan, the great Showtime series.
— NBA salary cap for next season is $154.6M; Golden State’s three stars, Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green, will earn a combined $139.6M, so guess the Warriors will be going over both salary cap aprons.
— Seattle Redhawks are bolting from the WAC to the WCC; this time next year, college sports are going to look a lot different than they do now.
Seattle was 14-18 last year, after winning 20+ games the three years before that.
