The All-Star break did little to slow down the resurgent Boston Red Sox.
Now they'll take on another streaking AL East team as the race for postseason spots begins to simmer.
The Red Sox completed a sweep of division-leading Tampa Bay on Sunday, extending their run to 13 games without a loss. The franchise record is 15 straight wins in 1946. Boston will have a chance to break that this week against a Baltimore team that arrives at Fenway Park on a seven-game
winning streak of its own.
With the Aug. 3 trade deadline drawing ever closer, teams on the bubble between buying and selling might make their decisions based on what happens over the next week or so. The Red Sox (50-48) have crept above .500 and now occupy the American League's third wild card. Cleveland, which holds the second wild card, is only a game ahead of Boston.
Seattle is a game behind the Red Sox, and then it's another game back to the Orioles, who took three in a row in Houston. That sweep knocked the Astros to 4 1/2 games behind a playoff spot.
The good news for Houston is that it has more than one path to the postseason. The Astros are actually closer (four games) to the lead in the AL West than they are to a wild card.
Detroit is in a similar spot, and plenty of teams around the league will be watching how the Tigers approach the deadline with star pitcher Tarik Skubal. Detroit is 4 1/2 games out of a wild card, but also just 6 1/2 behind the AL Central-leading White Sox.
The American League beat the National League 4-0 on Tuesday night, and Cody Bellinger became the fourth member of the New York Yankees to win All-Star MVP honors. Who were the other three? (Hint: The All-Star MVP debuted in 1962.)
Hunter Goodman homered three times in Colorado's 9-6 loss to Cincinnati on Sunday. It was the second three-homer game for him in under a month. He also did it at Minnesota on June 27.
He's the first player in Rockies history — which includes plenty of homers — to hit three twice in the same season.
Arizona beat St. Louis 8-7 in 10 innings Sunday in a game the Diamondbacks trailed 7-0 in the sixth inning.
The Cardinals allowed two bases-loaded walks during Arizona's three-run sixth. Geraldo Perdomo hit a two-run inside-the-park home run an inning later. A two-run homer by Nolan Arenado tied it in the eighth.
Then St. Louis blundered its way to a scoreless top of the 10th. With men on first and third and nobody out, Jordan Walker hit a broken bat flare to Perdomo at shortstop, who charged the ball and caught it on the fly. Bryan Torres, apparently worried about the ball hitting the ground in front of Walker, was too far off first and got doubled off.
Max Kepler's hit in the bottom of the 10th won it. Arizona's win probability in the sixth was as low as 1.5% according to Baseball Savant. That makes the Diamondbacks' playoff chances — 27.4% according to FanGraphs — seem promising by comparison. Arizona is a half-game behind the Cardinals for the National League's final wild card.
Giancarlo Stanton in 2022, Mariano Rivera in 2013 and Derek Jeter in 2000.
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