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★★★
Sunday was a wondrous day for pitchers at the plate. Madison Bumgarner went deep for the 10th home run of his career, giving him a line of .245/.273/.491 on the season, and a two-year OPS+ of 113. Bumgarner didn’t hit even a little during the first five year of his career, but he’s apparently entered his peak these last two summers. Oh, and he pitched pretty well, too, blanking the Nationals while striking out 14 of them en route to a 5-0 Giants victory.
He wasn’t the only pitcher to go deep on Sunday, and not even the only NL West arm to do so. Dodgers’ hurler Zack Greinke not only dingered, but he also made teammate Yasiel Puig proud and bat flipped after his shot, too. Even better, it was a back-to-back shot with Joc Pederson -- the Reds let the No. eight and nine hitters both go deep against them, and you’re not going to win games pitched by Greinke when that happens.
Neither of these moments were the strangest of the day, though. That would have to go to Orioles’ reliever Jason Garcia, who came to the plate in an American League game because Baltimore had moved designated hitter Steve Clevenger to first base, giving up the DH in the process. As if that wasn’t odd enough, Garcia faced Ike Davis -- the Athletics’ first baseman -- who was in the game because it was one Oakland would eventually lose 18-2. Davis had thrown a scoreless inning with a strikeout in the seventh, but he walked Garcia on four pitches. A first baseman walked a reliever on four pitches. Baseball is pretty cool, y’all.
- Brewers minor leaguer David Denson became the first openly gay player affiliated with an MLB club when he came out this weekend. His teammates have known since he joined them in June, and their support helped him make the decision to tell the world.
- Bryce Harper's mind was blown by this Ian Desmond homer.
- The 2014 Royals not only were Kansas City's first playoff team since 1985, but they also might be responsible for a sudden boom in babies in the KC area.
- That 18-2 A's loss mentioned above? It was chronicled by the team's Twitter feed, which had a loooong day of emotions.
- The Dodgers' ball boy fell into the stands, and he wanted to vanish after his embarrassing moment. A fan and video of the incident kept that from happening.
- The Red Sox are reportedly promoting their first-round pick from the 2015 draft, Andrew Benintendi, to Low-A on Monday. The 2015 College Player of the Year leads the New York-Penn League in OPS and is third in homers, with seven.
- Ian Kinsler told an ump to do his job and you'll never guess what happened next.
- Stephen Drew could set a Yankees record! Not, uh, one of the good ones.
- The A's signed Billy Butler to a three-year deal this winter, but they should cut ties with him before letting the second of those seasons begin.
- Is Pablo Sandoval's problem that the Red Sox were more lenient than the Giants were?
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