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As usual Sunday provided us with a full slate of MLB action, including one doubleheader and 14 day games. Here is our recap of the day in baseball ... 

Final scores

Yankees 3, Rays 2 (box score)
Angels 12, Mets 5 (box score)
Rockies 6, Reds 4 (box score)
Pirates 1, Phillies 0 (box score)
Nationals 3, Braves 2 (box score)
Blue Jays 3, Orioles 1 (box score)
Royals 6, Twins 4 in Game 1 (box score)
Twins 8, Royals 4 in Game 2 (box score)
Indians 8, Astros 6 (box score)
Cardinals 8, Giants 3 (box score)
Cubs 13, Brewers 6 (box score)
Red Sox 12, Athletics 3 (box score)
White Sox 8, Mariners 1 (box score)
Padres 5, Diamondbacks 1 (box score)
Dodgers 6, Marlins 3 (box score)
Rangers 5, Tigers 2 (box score)

Here come the Indians

Things weren't going all that well for the defending AL champion Indians a few days ago. The Tribe lost to the Rays on Wednesday to wrap up a disappointing 2-4 homestand. Following Thursday's off-day, they woke up Friday morning with a 20-19 record and one game back of the Twins in the AL Central. Not a disaster by any means. But you can be sure Terry Francona's club wanted to get off to a better start.

Fast forward to Sunday evening, and the Indians are now coming off an impressive three-game sweep of the first-place Astros in Houston. Cleveland outscored them 16-9 in the three-game series. A three-run home run by the red hot Yan Gomes was the big blow Sunday:

The Indians are now 23-19 on the season and a half-game up on Minnesota in the AL Central. It's a little too early to focus on the standings -- Cleveland still has 120 games to play, after all -- but hey, being a half-game up is better than being a half-game back, isn't it? Of course it is.

It goes without saying sweeping the Astros in Houston is quite an accomplishment. The 'Stros still have baseball's best record at 29-15 after this weekend. There's also reason to believe this sweep marks the start of an extended run of dominance for the Tribe. Consider:

  1. Their upcoming schedule is weak. The Indians will play their next 14 games against the Reds (four games), Athletics (four games), and Royals (six games). Any team can beat any other team on any given day in this league, but goodness, that's 14 straight games against three teams with a combined .453 winning percentage this year.
  2. Kluber and Carrasco are coming back. Starting pitching has been a bit of an issue for the Indians this year. Danny Salazar allowed three runs in 5 2/3 innings Sunday, giving the rotation a 4.96 ERA through 42 games. Not great! Corey Kluber (back) and Carlos Carrasco (pectoral), the team's No. 1 and 2 starters, are both on the mend and do back soon, however. They could both be back as soon as this week.
  3. Encarnacion is starting to heat up. Edwin Encarnacion's first seven weeks with the Indians haven't gone too well. He went into Sunday's game hitting a disappointing .199/.333/.356 overall in year one of his three-year, $60 million contract. Encarnacion went 2 for 4 with a double and a walk Sunday, and he's now gone 5 for 19 (.263) with a double and two homers in his last five games. Signs of life.

The Indians started the 2017 season a little slowly, and by slowly I mean they were a game out of first place on the morning of May 19. There are worse places to be. The Tribe swept the previously red-hot Astros this weekend, Encarnacion is heating up, Kluber and Carrasco are due to return soon, and the upcoming schedule looks awfully friends. Watch out for the Indians. They could pile up a ton of wins these next few weeks.

Kris Bryant is bringing back an old skill

Sunday afternoon the Cubs put a hurting on the (first place!) Brewers thanks largely reigning NL MVP Kris Bryant. Bryant went 3 for 3 with two home runs, the first of which was lifted into the right field bleachers. Here's the video:

Bryant obviously has tremendous raw power, plus he's also an excellent pure hitter, so on the surface that home run might not stand out much. He'll hit 30-something of those this season. Maybe 40-something.

It's not often Bryant goes to the opposite field, however. In fact, he hit zero opposite field home runs en route to the NL MVP last season. Not one. All 39 home runs last year were pulled to left field or hit back up the middle to straight away center. Sunday's dinger was already Bryant's third to the opposite field this season, however. Zero opposite field home runs in 155 games last season. Now already three in 39 games this season. 

Right field power is not completely new to Bryant -- he did hit five opposite field dingers as a rookie in 2014 -- but he got away from it last year. Now he's going the other way with power again, which makes him even more dangerous at the plate.

CarGo hits 200th home run with Rockies

This is, incredibly, Carlos Gonzalez's ninth season with the Rockies already. It seems like just yesterday he was an up-and-coming prospect with the Diamondbacks. Arizona sent him to the A's in the Dan Haren trade, then the A's sent him to the Rockies in the Matt Holliday trade. Holliday signed and completed a seven-year free agent contract since then. Crazy.

Sunday afternoon CarGo smacked his third home run of the season -- he's off to a tough .221/.300/.342 start thus far -- and his 200th as a member of the Rockies. It's the 204th home run of his career overall (he hit four with 2008 A's). Here's video of the milestone blast:

Gonzalez is fifth on the franchise's all-time home run leaderboard. Here are the top home run hitters in Rockies history:

  1. Todd Helton -- 369
  2. Larry Walker -- 258
  3. Vinny Castillo -- 239
  4. Dante Bichette -- 201
  5. Carlos Gonzalez -- 200

Passing Bichette is a formality. That'll happen soon. Gonzalez will be a free agent after this season, so he's going to have to get real hot real soon if he wants to catch Castillo.

Michael Conforto: One of the few reasons to watch the Mets

Outfielder Michael Conforto has shown promise pretty much ever since the Mets drafted him out of Oregon State with the 10th overall pick in 2014. He put up strong numbers coming up through the system and appeared on one list of the top 100 overall prospects going into the 2015 season. Speaking of 2015, he put up an OPS+ of 130 that season and was perhaps the Mets' steadiest producer during their World Series loss to the Royals. In 2016, though, the Mets pretty well jerked him around in terms of playing time, and as a partial consequence his numbers dipped. 

This season again saw the Mets with an outfield bottleneck and seemingly no place for Conforto. Conforto produced in limited action, and then the injury to Yoenis Cespedes cleared a path for Conforto to regular duty. He didn't make starts in consecutive games until the Mets' 16th and 17th games of the season, but Conforto's produced all the while. Coming into Sunday's game against the Angels, the 24-year-old Conforto boasted a batting line of .322/.417/.669 with 11 homers in 121 at-bats. Even though he's short on playing time those 11 homers rank sixth in the NL. 

Even though Sunday's contest isn't going the Mets' way, thanks mostly to a Tommy Milone disaster start (eight runs on seven hits in 1 1/3 innings pitched), Conforto reminded us why he's the best thing going in Queens right now. This time, though, it was his arm that announced his presence ... 

That's a beautiful heave and a reminder that Conforto is more than "just" the Mets' best hitter by a mile. He's also a defensive asset at the corner and is capable of at least eating innings in center. Oh, and while he's not a speed merchant, this season Conforto's also taken the extra base 53 percent of the time. 

Thanks to injury and dysfunction, the Mets' 2017 has been a bit of a wreck thus far, but Conforto -- the player the Mets seem to go to lengths to bury on the bench and in the minors after he'd already proved his worth -- has been a pleasing exception. 

Kinsler moves up all-time leadoff home run list

Tigers second baseman Ian Kinsler got his club on the board early Sunday night. He swatted Yu Darvish's fifth pitch of the game out to left field for a leadoff home run. It was the 42nd leadoff home run on Kinsler's career, if you can believe that. I was surprised to learn he had that many. Here is the all-time leadoff homer list:

  1. Rickey Henderson -- 81
  2. Alfonso Soriano -- 54
  3. Craig Biggio -- 53
  4. Jimmy Rollins -- 46
  5. Brady Anderson -- 44
  6. Curtis Granderson & Ian Kinsler -- 42

I don't think he'll get into the Hall of Fame, but Kinsler has been an extremely productive player for a very long time. He went into Sunday's game as a career .276/.344/.449 (111 OPS+) hitter with 215 doubles and 212 stolen bases, and when you add in his above-average defense, you get 54.2 WAR in parts of 12 seasons. Hall of Famer? Nah. Hall of Really Damn Good? You bet.

Brett Gardner, power hitter

Against Rays ace Chris Archer on Sunday, Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner did this ... 

That's Gardner's eighth homer of the season, and we're of course still in May. In quick-and-dirty terms, that puts him on pace for 32 homers this season. His previous career high is 17 back in 2014. Yes, it's still sort of early, but he's on target to almost double his previous high in home runs. As Meredith Marakovits noted on the Yankee broadcast, Gardner says this season he's focused on engaging his lower half to a greater extent in his swing. Harnessing the power of the hips will indeed lead to more power, and that's been the case for Gardner thus far in 2017. 

In related matters, Gardner's significantly decreased his groundball rate relative to career norms while also ramping up his hard-hit rate. So he's hitting balls in the air and hitting them farther. That's how you wind up with a shot at besting your career high in homers by, oh, 100 percent or so. 

Judge wins a game with his glove, not his bat

Thanks in part to Gardner's home run, the Yankees beat the Rays on Sunday to move back into the first place in the AL East. Rookie sensation Aaron Judge also had big hand in that win. Not with his bat though. He went 0 for 4 with four strikeouts at the plate. Judge helped win the game with his glove. Check out this diving catch turned double play:

Judge is a sneaky good athlete for his size. He's 6-foot-7 and 282 pounds, and it can be easy to stereotype him as a lumbering one-dimensional slugger. That isn't the case though. Judge had Division I football scholarship offers, and as Sunday's catch shows, he's retained most of that athleticism.

Clayton Richard ups trade value

The Padres are in the middle of a full blown rebuild, so it stands to reason they will look to move veterans for prospects at the trade deadline. Whatever veterans are left to be traded, that is. The roster has been picked pretty clean already.

One veteran who could general trade interest is veteran left-hander Clayton Richard, who is getting a chance to start after spending the last few seasons primarily working as a reliever. Sunday afternoon Richard allowed one run during a five-hit complete game against the D-Backs, the third highest scoring team in the NL.

Richard now has a 4.31 ERA in 10 starts and 62 2/3 innings, and he's doing it mostly with ground balls. His 57.7 percent ground ball rate is fifth highest among the 94 pitchers who have thrown enough innings to qualify for the ERA title this season.

By no means is Richard great. A team looking for an impact starter isn't going to call the Padres and offer up their top prospects to get the left-hander. Pitching is always in demand though, and a team in need of a back-end starter to fill out the rotation and provide depth figures to check in on Richard should he continue to perform like this over the next few weeks.

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