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Derek Jeter grabbed the headlines, but there were other dramatic games and performances Saturday.

Aaron Harang and four relievers held the Dodgers without a hit for 8 ⅔ innings before Juan Uribe doubled to end the Padres' bid for the franchise's first no-hitter. One batter later, Dioner Navarro hit a walk-off single to give Los Angeles a 1-0 win. The Dodgers' pitching wasn't too shabby either, only allowing one hit to the Padres.

From the Elias Sports Bureau: The Dodgers and Padres combined for three hits. It's just the third 1-0 game in the last 25 seasons that featured three or fewer hits.

The Dodgers weren't the only team to walk off with a win.

Josh Hamilton finished off a 4-for-5 night with a two-run, walk-off home run to give the Rangers their sixth straight win, a 7-6 victory over the Athletics.

Alexei Ramirez, who homered earlier in the game, singled in the bottom of the ninth to drive in A.J. Pierzynski and give the White Sox a 4-3 win over the Twins. The victory snapped Chicago's nine-game losing streak against Minnesota.

Later, Cardinals pinch-hitter Tony Cruz doubled home Colby Rasmus in the ninth to give St. Louis a 7-6, walk-off win over the Diamondbacks.

Of the 15 games played on Saturday, eight of them were decided by one run.

Jose Bautista hit two more home runs, including the go-ahead shot in the 10th inning, as the Blue Jays edged the Indians, 5-4. Bautista increased his MLB-leading home run total to 31 and is the first AL player to hit that number before the All-Star break since David Ortiz in 2006. Bautista has 13 multi-HR games over the last two seasons, the most in MLB.

He is also the first Blue Jays player to hit 30 before the All-Star break in a single season. It's also his 100th career homer with the Blue Jays, the fastest anyone has reached 100 homers in team history, doing so in 377 games with the club.

John Lackey entered Saturday with an ERA of 9.17 at home this season. He pitched 6 ⅔ shutout innings against the Orioles, the first time he has had a scoreless start at home since his very first with the Red Sox (April 7, 2010, vs. the Yankees).

Before Saturday, Lackey had allowed at least one run in 24 straight starts at Fenway Park.

Today’s Trivia:
Brett Favre seems to be on the brain and on the lips of the sports world, so let’s keep his name there for baseball. Over the last 50 years, there have been five players (including one who’s a Hall-of-Famer) named Brett to be an All-Star. Who are they? Note: Brett can be either their first or last name, and it can be spelled with either one “T” or two.

Quick Hits:
The Minnesota Twins' Jim Thome hit his 12th career walk-off home run Tuesday. That ties five players (Foxx, Mantle, Musial, Robinson, Ruth) for most in MLB history. It also gives us a great chance to look at some fun walk-off home run notes:

• Dusty Baker hit plenty as a player and has seen his seen his fair share as a manager. Baker hit eight walk-off home runs in his career, twice as many as current managers Terry Francona and Joe Torre.

• Aaron Boone hit more walk-off home runs (6) than Willie Mays (5).

• Three players share the all-time mark for most walk-off HR in a come-from-behind situation: Babe Ruth, Frank Robinson and Fred McGriff.

• You’d be forgiven if you’ve never heard of Gates Brown. He hit .257 with 84 career home runs from 1963-75 with the Detroit Tigers. But it's funny how the baseball gods look down on some players. Brown hit three pinch-hit walk-off home runs, the most of any player in MLB history.

• Harold Baines has the distinction of hitting the latest walk-off home run in history. His came in the 25th inning of a game against the Brewers in 1984.

• Anyone up for a 13-pitch walk-off shot? Garret Anderson did it in 1997, taking Rick Aguilera deep to beat the Twins.

• Finally, let’s circle back to Thome. His first career walk-off home run came on June 15, 1994, in a game where he did three things you haven’t likely seen from him much in recent years: played third base, batted 8th in the order and finished a triple shy of the cycle.

Wednesday Matchups:
If the Boston Red Sox's Dustin Pedroia struggles tonight against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim’s Scott Kazmir, you’ll know something is wrong. Pedroia has hammered Kazmir in his career to the tune of a .526 BA and 1.433 OPS. Pedroia has 16 hits and six extra-base hits off Kazmir, the most against any pitcher.

The Twins Francisco Liriano has a career 5.22 ERA against the Chicago White Sox, almost a point and-a-half higher than his ERA against all other teams. Look to two main culprits for his lack of success against the Sox, but maybe not the ones you’d think: Alexei Ramirez and A.J. Pierzynski. Of the 72 batters who Liriano has faced at least 10 times in his career, Liriano is allowing a batting average above .400 to seven of them, and Ramirez (.500 BA) and Pierzynski (.417 BA) are two of them.

When the San Francisco Giants' Matt Cain tries to suppress the Phillies lineup tonight (7 ET on ESPN), there’s one recently activated player he might want to avoid.

Trivia Answer: The Hall-of-Famer is George Brett. The other players are Bret Boone, Ken Brett, Brett Butler and Bret Saberhagen.

Josh Beckett threw fastballs on 81 of 98 pitches on Friday, a season-high 82.7 percent. His season average is 70.6 percent (644/912).

Randy Wells throws fastball 56 percent of the time (MLB average 62 percent); as hitters are batting .322 against it overall (MLB average .283) and .402 early in the count (MLB average .338).

Alexei Ramirez is hitting .529 (9/17) when ahead in the count in July (MLB average is .343)

According to fangraphs.com, Joel Pineiro's home run/fly ball rate is 4.9 percent (3/67) at home and 16.1 percent (10/62) on the road.

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Hiroki Kuroda has a .500 record (25-25) for his career, but has had good success against the Padres. Kuroda is 4-2 all-time against the Padres. Kuroda, however, has struggled against Padres slugger Adrian Gonzalez, who has a .333 BA (5-15) with 2 home runs and 3 doubles against Kuroda.

On the road, right-handed batters are hitting .297 (33-111) and slugging .514 (14 XBH) against A.J. Burnett. At home, right-handed batters hit .239 (21-88) and slug .352 (5 XBH).

Alex Rodriguez is hitting .182 (2-11) against fastballs since hitting home run number 599 on July 22. He hit .292 (66-226) against fastballs prior to 599 (13 of 16 HRs this season against fastball).

You often hear talk about "five-tool players" in baseball. We had plenty of hitting for average on Sunday (Jose Guillen and Josh Hamilton both extended their hit streaks to 21 games). We had some power-- more than 70 extra-base hits and two dozen home runs (including the longest one by distance this season). Fielding and throwing didn't give us too many issues.

Baserunning, on the other hand...

No matter which game you watched, there was bound to be at least one of those "head-scratcher" plays. The ones where you look at your TV and say, "what was he thinking?" At the risk of Monday-morning, er, Sunday-night quarterbacking, we present a sampling of the unnecessary, and sometimes obscure, outs that were run into on the basepaths Sunday.

Tampa: Justin Upton on third. Chris Young grounds back to the pitcher. Upton gets run back and tagged out. Young thinks the defense isn't paying attention and tries to take second, where he's also tagged out.

Tampa: Pinch runner Carl Crawford doubled off first when Sean Rodriguez lines one to third base.

Chicago: Gordon Beckham strikes out, but his backswing gets in the way of Geovany Soto as he tries to nail a stealing Alexei Ramirez. Ramirez gets called out for the interference of his teammate.

Cincinnati: Corky Miller thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double.

Anaheim: Jason Giambi thrown out at third trying to advance on a pitch in the dirt.

New York: Jeff Francoeur thrown out trying to tag and take third on a ball to shallow right.

Oakland: Jose Tabata's ground ball hits runner Pedro Alvarez between first and second. Oh, by the way, it's the final out of a one-run game.

(Bonus question: If you're keeping score, how do you write THAT down?)

Florida: Jorge Cantu is called for interference while trying to break up a double play at second base. The batter, Dan Uggla, is called out as a result.

Milwaukee: Rickie Weeks thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double.

Baltimore: Miguel Tejada thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double.

Baltimore: In the bottom of the eighth in a tie game, Julio Lugo legs out a double and then immediately gets himself picked off second.

(Bonus answer: Infield single for the batter. The putout is awarded to the closest fielder, in this case the first baseman.)

** The trunk with the Mets' bats in it finally arrived back at Citi Field. Six consecutive Mets batters went double, homer, homer, triple, single, single, during the fifth inning on Sunday. That's 15 total bases in a single inning. The Mets hadn't had 15 total bases in a GAME since last Tuesday.

** The aforementioned triple was off the bat of Jason Bay, marking his 1,000th career hit. The last time a player had a triple for his 1,000th career hit was almost exactly three years ago, when then-Oriole Aubrey Huff did it on June 29, 2007.

** The Pirates committed four errors and managed to lose Sunday's game to Oakland without allowing an earned run. Even for them, that's impressive. They haven't done that since June 29, 2002, when the Tigers scored on a missed catch at home plate and a passed ball to beat them 2-1.

** One afterthought on the Oakland/Pittsburgh series: On Saturday, the two teams donned "throwback" uniforms from the 1970s. (They say styles have a 30-year cycle, so watch for neon green to make a comeback soon.) But you have to forgive those two teams for wanting to "turn back the clock". During the '70s they combined for five world championships, including four straight from 1971-74. Since then, they have ONE (Oakland's in '89).

** Jamie Moyer didn't quite pitch IN the '70s, but at the rate he's going, he might well pitch INTO his 70s. Moyer became the all-time leader in home runs allowed on Sunday when Vernon Wells took him deep in the third inning.



Bonus question #2: Those 42 parks include ALL of the current 30 stadiums except two. We'll spot you Target Field because it just opened. What's the other current park where Moyer has yet to surrender a dinger? ** After being no-hit by Edwin Jackson on Friday, the Rays put together a two-hit attack against Arizona on Sunday. They did at least score a run this time. Ironically, the last team that was held to two or fewer hits twice in a series was these same Diamondbacks. That was in late May against the Giants.

** Combined with their amazing five-hit performance on Saturday, the Rays ended up with seven base hits over the entire three-game series. The Elias Sports Bureau tells us that the last team to finish with seven or fewer hits in a three-game series was the 1965 New York Mets. They were one-hit by the Milwaukee Braves on both September 10 and 11 before "exploding" for five hits (and a 1-0 victory!) in the series finale on the 12th.

Bonus answer #2: Busch Stadium in St Louis. Moyer surrendered three long balls in the PRIOR Busch Stadium (which closed in 2005), but has made only two visits to the current building.

The Tampa Bay Rays are considered one of the best player development outfits in the game, while also being one of the sharpest sabermetrically-informed organizations. Nobody does better at acknowledging that there are lots of ways to skin a cat when it comes to acquiring and assessing talent.

So let’s look at their latest gambit: Signing Cuba's Leslie Anderson, a 28-year-old who defected last fall after starring in his home country for the Camaguey Potters and playing for both the national team and in the World Baseball Classic.

Although he's hit for some power in his home country and played center field as well as first base, Kevin Goldstein says in his scouting report: "He's stocky, muscular, but more of a pure hitter than a pure slugger; average power at best, but he knows how to get a bat on a ball, and unlike most Cubans has a definitely sense of the strike zone. Good athlete, profiles best in a corner."

But what does it mean in terms of projecting and evaluating Anderson? It isn't like he's expected to be knocking around in the minors. This kind of move is more like the White Sox' decision to sign Alexei Ramirez, and less like the Angels signing Cuban youngster Kendry Morales or the White Sox getting Dayan Viciedo.

So let’s do what the Rays have done. Let’s look at Anderson from both a scouting and metrics angle. Baseball Prospectus' head statistician, Clay Davenport, has been translating Cuban performances for years, and these projections said positive things about the Angels' decision to sign Morales in 2005 and the White Sox' signing of Ramirez in 2008.

Anderson’s Cuban league data ends with the 2008-09 season because of the timing of his defection. (The league -- named the Cuban National Series -- starts in November and runs for 90 games through February.) Let's look at both his actual stats and Clay's translations of his performance:


As Clay notes, "That's quite the smackdown, and he's not young enough to expect he'll improve on those." Naturally, that brings any projection of his performance down several pegs.

Dropping Anderson's track record into PECOTA also spits out an unexciting projection for this season: .231/.302/.357, with a .223 True Average. That doesn't seem like Kendry Morales -- it's more like Andy Morales, the Cuban third-base prospect who signed with the Yankees to some acclaim and great disappointment a decade ago. Like Andy, Anderson's already a mature ballplayer, so it isn't like there's a ton of growth potential.

However, the talent distribution is uneven in Cuba, and a 90-game schedule makes for smaller samples. What if we give Anderson the benefit of the doubt and, say, run with PECOTA's 90th-percentile projection for Anderson? Pump him up with a best-case scenario, and his projection comes up to .263/.338/.463, with a True Average of .267 -- still not great for a first baseman or corner outfielder or a DH. But in this best of all projected outcomes, it's certainly playable, especially if the alternatives are Pat Burrell or Hank Blalock, both injury risks.

In the end, Anderson is an interesting exploratory investment. But just don’t expect him to go nuts at the plate.

Christina Kahrl is an author of Baseball Prospectus.