Today Mariano Rivera pitched his 1000th game for the Yankees, his only team in the majors.

Here are the leaders for most games pitched among pitchers to play for just one team (not updated through today yet):

(Bear with us as John Autin comes online as a blogger. This is his wrap of yesterday's games.)

Sorry about the headline. I foolishly watched the Mets try to make a statement after being tweaked by their owner. The statement came out as: “You are too kind, good sir! We are not worthy!” Let’s get to the games involving teams with a pulse.

-- Oakland 6, LAA 1: Two multi-HR games by an A’s hitter this year, both by David DeJesus. Those are the only HRs he has this year, and the only multi-HR games of his 8-year career. DeJesus hit 5 HRs all of last year, and has averaged 8 HRs per 162 games in his career.

-- Detroit 7, Tampa Bay 6: Doesn’t it seem like Miguel Cabrera (3-run HR) has been awfully quiet for a month or so? Then you look up and see he’s got a .990 OPS and 176 OPS+ and is in the top 10 of virtually every hitting stat. Meanwhile, Detroit catcher Alex Avila hit 2 HRs, including a trailing-to-leading 2-run shot in the 8th off alleged LOOGY Cesar Ramos, who was called in specifically to face him. Avila leads all catchers with 27 RBI; he’s 2nd with 8 HRs and a .920 OPS; and he’s thrown out 37% of opposing base thieves.

-- St. Louis 3, San Diego 2 (11): The Padres went ahead on Brad Hawpe’s 2-run HR in the 1st, then added just 1 other hit over the next 10 innings. It was the 27th game this year in which a team got 2 hits or less. Cardinals catcher Tony Cruz went 3 for 5 with a double in his MLB debut. Each team used 4 relievers in the game; all 8 finished the game with an ERA between 2.00 and 2.86. San Diego had just 5 baserunners, the fewest in more than 160 games that went 11+ innings since last July 22, when Cole Hamels & friends held the Cards to 1 hit and 2 walks in an 11-inning shutout.

-- White Sox 8, Texas 6: Carlos Quentin hit 3 HRs -- in the 1st for the first run of the game; a 3-run shot in the 3rd for a 4-1 lead; and an insurance tally in the 9th for the game’s final run. After a 9-1 start to the season, the Rangers are now just 1 game over .500, but that’s good enough for 1st place in the egalitarian AL West, where just 2 games separates first from last. Neither SP returned after a 3-hour weather delay in the middle of the 4th inning. For Texas, 35-year-old Japanese reliever Yoshinori Tateyama made his MLB debut; he faced 3 batters, allowing 1 hit with 1 strikeout, and was charged with a run when Arthur Rhodes allowed his first inherited runner of the year (after stranding the previous 9.)

-- Yankees 5, Blue Jays 4: How often do you see the SP get the win when the bottom of the 9th begins with his team behind? C.C. Sabathia pulled it off, retiring the last 16 batters after a 3-run 4th, while his mates scored twice each in the 8th and 9th. Sabathia used just 103 pitches against 36 batters. The game may have turned in the 4th when Sabathia, after 3 runs were in, shockingly walked Corey Patterson with 2 out to load the bases for Jose Bautista, but got him to ground out. Meanwhile ... folks say the Yankee offense is too HR-dependent, but what about Toronto? They’re now 2-13 when they fail to HR, 22-11 when they hit at least one dinger. The Yankees are 5-6 when they don’t homer, 21-15 when they do.

-- Marlins 5, Giants 1: Ricky Nolasco took a shutout into the 9th and improved to 4-0. Nolasco has a K/BB ratio of 4.15 this year; it would be his 4th straight year over 4. Florida moved within a game of the Phillies, with a stealth attack led by Gaby Sanchez (a .915 OPS and 30 RBI? -- who knew?!?) and Mike Stanton, who homered for the 6th time in 10 games and suddenly has 11 HRs, 3rd in the NL. Stanton has played 143 games in the majors, 506 AB. He has 33 HRs, 30 doubles, a .522 slugging average and a 123 OPS+. Not bad for a guy who bought his first legal beer last November. (I presume....)

-- Just 2 shutouts in MLB over the past 2 days. Did they outlaw the cutter already? Was Mariano grandfathered in?

What would it look like if you took all the players to have 2,975+ career hits since 1919 and ordered them by their BA on Balls in Play?

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He continues to make us proud.

In all seriousness, if I weren't married already, I'd marry Lada Gaga in a second too, just because I really like the message of her new song--Born This Way. I'm not going to go off on a crazy tangent here, but what a great thing to tell today's youth--however you were born, whatever sexual orientation, you're perfect.

Rick Welts, CEO of the Phoenix Suns, recently revealed that he is gay, becoming the first high-profile person associated with a major American professional sports team to make such an announcement. The news brought me to tears. I am so amazed and impressed by his bravery, and so happy for him that he can now live his life openly. I salute him.

Check out the teams with the most players having at least 21 RBI (through Monday's games):

The Indians have scored a lot of runs and that helps them on this list, but the bottom line is they have amazing distribution across their offense. They aren't getting major contributions from just a few players--they're getting contributions from just about everyone. Even 3B Jack Hannahan has 17 RBI.

There are a lot of reasons to like what Cleveland has done so far this year. I've listed a few more below, but this excellent and even distribution of their offense is a big one.

I also like:

• Their run-scoring differential of 1.5 runs is by far the best in the majors.
• Their actual record is only 1 win better than their Pythagorean projection.
• They have a good record (9-4) against left-handed starters.
• They have a good record (13-6) against winning teams.
• They have played only .500 on the road, as opposed to a really good road winning percentage (like Tampa Bay, .625) that would be difficult to maintain for a whole season.
• Their 1-run game record of 11-7 is a bit lucky but not extraordinary.

Curtis Granderson is having a loud, but strange season. Currently, Granderson is second in the AL in both HRs (with 16) and triples (with 4), yet has amassed a measly 4 doubles. In fact, Granderson's doubles only account for 1/6 of his extra base hits. While it is still early, it is interesting to note that for an entire season this is an uncommon feat. Here are the players with the most XBH in a season with at most 1/6 of them doubles.

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Just a quickie here...wanted to see how often a relief pitcher gives up 5 or more earned runs without registering an out, as happened to Matt Albers the other day when the Cubs rallied for a victory against the Red Sox:

So there you have it...it tends to happen a handful of times each season (recently, at least).

After going a while without a 3-homer game in the majors, we now have 4 in the last 11 days:

Going back, the last time we saw at least four 3-homer games in such close proximity within a single season was in 2004:

That's 10 days between the Ramirez and Pujols games and just 7 days between the Millar and Martinez games.

Here's the tightest cluster of 4 I could find:

The Lieberthal and Woodward (?!?!?!?!) games came just 3 days apart. For a set of 5, tack on the Branyan game in a total span of just 6 days or the A-rod game for a span of just 10 days.

Since 1901, there are just 11 pitchers who have at least two seasons with an ERA+ of 120 or better as well as two seasons with an ERA+ of 80 or worse (minimum 150 IP in each season):

Quite a varied group, there.

Dennis Martinez was a remarkably average pitcher for the first several years of his career and then saw an extended dip in his performance (which I believe he attributed to alcoholism). Then he joined the Expos and posted all of his best seasons from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s.

Livan Hernandez also posted his best seasons with the Expos, with his two 150 IP, 120 ERA+ seasons coming in 2003 and 2004. He's had plenty of below-average seasons peppered throughout his career.

Jack Morris is more what you might expect, having an off year in 1989 (ERA+ of 79) and a bad year in his last season with 150 IP (1993, 70 ERA+). Meanwhile he had 5 seasons earlier in his career with an ERA+ of 120+, plus a bonus renaissance in 1992 (125).

Steve Carlton's subpars year all came at the end as he was moving from team to team. Part of me would like to forget that Carlton pitched at all in the bigs in 1986-1988.

Within the past few weeks Sean added a weather option to the game finders of  PI. While the games with information are limited (see the very bottom of this page) , it is still interesting to see.  Here are the hottest games in the PIs database. The home teams are listed first.