As is always the case on blessed Saturdays such as this one, the day was positively stuffed with baseball action. Here is our daily recap of the MLB action.

Final scores

Yankees 7, Blue Jays 0 (box score)
Royals 12, Indians 5 (box score)
Cubs 5, Cardinals 3 (box score)
Phillies 5, Giants 3 (box score)
Athletics 10, Nationals 4 (box score)
Dodgers 10, Brewers 8 (box score)
Braves 6, Reds 5 (box score)
Tigers 10, White Sox 1 (boxscore)
Rockies 10, Padres 1 (box score)
No-hitter: Marlins 3, Diamondbacks 0 (box score)
Mets 4, Pirates 2 (box score)
Red Sox 5, Orioles 2 (box score)
Astros 6, Rangers 5 (box score)
Angels 7, Twins 2 (box score)
Mariners 9, Rays 2 (box score)

Pujols hits 600th home run

The 600 home run club has a new member. Saturday night, Albert Pujols took former Angels teammate Ervin Santana deep for the 600th home run of his big league career. It was a grand slam pulled down the left field line.

Here is the very necessary video of the milestone home run:

Pujols is the first player in MLB history to hit a grand slam for his 600th career home run. Here is the updated all-time home run list:

  1. Barry Bonds, 762
  2. Hank Aaron, 755
  3. Babe Ruth, 714
  4. Alex Rodriguez, 696
  5. Willie Mays, 660
  6. Ken Griffey Jr., 630
  7. Jim Thome, 612
  8. Sammy Sosa, 609
  9. Albert Pujols, 600
  10. Frank Robinson, 586

Pujols is, of course, the only active player on that top 10 list. He has a very good chance to pass Sosa and Thome to move into sole possession of seventh place. I suppose passing Griffey to move into sixth place isn't impossible, though most likely that will have to wait until next season.

Volquez throws first no-hitter of 2017

It took perhaps a little longer than expected, but baseball finally has its first no-hitter of the 2017 season. Marlins righty Edinson Volquez did the honors. He no-hit the D-Backs at Marlins Park on Saturday afternoon and faced the minimum 27 batters because the two batters he walked were immediately erased with double-play grounders.

Here are all 27 outs of the no-hitter:

Volquez nearly exited Saturday's game after facing only one batter. He collided with Reymond Fuentes at first base and hurt his ankle, so much so that he thought he broke it. Volquez was able to stay in the game, obviously, and complete the no-hitter. He struck out the side in the ninth and threw only 98 pitches in the game.

The no-hitter is baseball's first since Jake Arrieta did it to the Reds last April. It is also the sixth no-hitter in Marlins history -- no team has more since the Marlins joined the league -- and the third time the D-Backs have been no-hit.

Unstoppable Astros win again

Make it nine straight for the first-place Astros, who have baseball's best record (40-16) and run differential (plus-97). Only two other teams, the Dodgers and Rockies, have won as many as 35 games this season. Houston beat the division rival Rangers on Saturday to up their AL West lead to 13 games over the Angels. Pretty amazing.

The 'Stros are pulling away from the rest of the pack the same way the defending World Series champion Cubs did last season. Let's compare the two teams side-by-side, shall we? Here are the numbers after 56 games.

Record

Runs Scored

Runs Allowed

Run Differential

2016 Cubs

40-16

303

160

+143

2017 Astros

40-16

305

208

+97

Identical records, though the 2016 Cubs had a pretty substantial edge in run differential. They scored basically the same number of runs through 56 games as the 2017 Astros despite not having the luxury of the DH, and they allowed way fewer runs as well.

Point is, the Astros are juggernaut at the moment. If they're not as good as the 2016 Cubbies, they're darn close. They're running away with the division and we're only a few days into June. 

Dodgers, Brewers trade grand slams

What a wild game at Miller Park. The Dodgers took a 4-3 lead into the seventh inning, but three walks and a balk by reliever Chris Hatcher loaded the bases with one out for the Brewers.

Travis Shaw made Hatcher and the Dodgers pay with his first career grand slam. To the action footage:

To make matters worse, Hernan Perez followed with a solo home run to go back-to-back with Shaw. The Brewers scored five runs in that seventh inning to turn a 4-3 deficit into an 8-4 lead. Quite a turnaround, huh?

But wait! The excitement didn't end there. With regular closer Corey Knebel unavailable due to his recent workload, Brewers skipper Craig Counsell turned to veteran northpaw Carlos Torres to protect an 8-5 lead. Torres got a quick first out, but a walk, an error, and a single loaded the bases and brought the go-ahead run to the plate.

Rookie sensation Cody Bellinger worked a full count walk to force in a run to get the Dodgers to within 8-6. Chris Taylor then unloaded on a poorly located fastball for a go-ahead grand slam. Here's the video:

Amazing. Taylor gave the Dodgers a 10-8 lead and they went on to win by that score. Kenley Jansen closed things out in the ninth. His season is going well:

Jansen struck out one Saturday to extend his own MLB record for strikeouts to start a season without a walk. The previous record was 36, which Jansen passed a few days ago.

Here's what Saturday's game looks like in win-probability form. Simply put, this graph shows you each team's chances of winning at any point in the game based on the score, the runners, the outs, the innings, etc.


Source: FanGraphs

When the top of the ninth inning started, the Brewers had a 98.5 percent chance to win the game. After the Taylor grand slam, the Dodgers had a 91.3 percent chance to win. Huge, huge, huge swing in win probability. Pretty amazing comeback for the Dodgers. And a brutal loss for the Brewers. Woof.

Machado continues to crush the Red Sox

As you no doubt know, there has been some bad blood between the Red Sox and Manny Machado this season. It all started with a (seemingly inadvertent) spiking of Dustin Pedroia's calf back in April. The two clubs have traded beanballs since. Here's a recap of this ongoing feud.

The Orioles and Red Sox are meeting this weekend at Camden Yards, and so far there have been no fireworks of any sort. Machado, however, launched yet another home run against Boston on Saturday night. You can see video right here.

Machado also went deep Friday night as well. He has 12 home runs this season and six have come against the Red Sox. Machado is hitting .260/.288/.660 against the BoSox and .198/.288/.364 against everyone else so far in 2017.

The Red Sox got the last laugh, though. They won Saturday's game. David Price allowed one run (the Machado homer) on three hits and a walk in seven innings in his second start off the disabled list.

It was a good day for Lester and Schwarber

The Cubs nipped the rival Cardinals on Saturday. Let's not bury the lede: The big blow came courtesy of Kyle Schwarber in the seventh inning ... 

Yep, that's the first grand slam of Schwarber's career. It also happened on a day in which the struggling Schwarber was batting ninth, so the young left-handed slugger clearly needed such a big moment. And a big moment it was: When Schwarber stepped to the plate, the Cubs had a 26.7 percent chance of winning the game; after he touched home plate, they had an 87.2 percent chance of winning, which they did. 

Elsewhere in Cubdom, ace Jon Lester pitched just OK; he walked three and allowed three earned runs in six innings of work. However, he might have finally slain a personal hobgoblin that has haunted him for a while ... 

Hills be shaken: Lester threw to first base, picked off a runner, and gave a glare to the visiting dugout. Granted, it was a something of a pop-fly throw, but for a "yips" victim who, we're told, wouldn't possibly throw to first, it's a big moment. A man has his limits, you see, and Tommy Pham's lead found Lester's breaking point. That's his first successful pickoff of a runner at first base since 2015. 

More to the point, the Cubs are back to .500 and now lead the rival Cardinals by a half-game in the NL Central. They're still chasing the Brewers, though.

MLB teams set new record with seven grand slams

No, you're not imaging things. There were a lot of grand slams hit Saturday. Seven, in fact. That's a new MLB record for a single day. Mariners backstop Mike Zunino smacked the day's seventh grand slam Saturday night.

The seven grand slams were hit by -- in rough chronological order -- Kyle Schwarber, Ian Desmond, Travis Shaw, Chris Taylor, Taylor Motter, Albert Pujols, and Mike Zunino. That's an awful lot of four-run home runs in one day.

The Yankees bombed Grilli

As you can see above, the Yankees on Saturday had their way with the Blue Jays in Toronto. Central to those efforts was what the Yankees perpetrated upon Jays reliever Jason Grilli in the eighth inning ... 

Yankees 8th
Ezequiel Carrera in left
Jason Grilli pitching:
Brett Gardner: Ball, Foul, Gardner homered to right.
Aaron Hicks: Foul, Hicks lined out to left.
Aaron Judge: Ball, Strike looking, Foul, Judge struck out looking.
Matt Holliday: Ball, Holliday homered to center.
Starlin Castro: Strike swinging, Ball, Strike looking, Ball, Foul, Foul, Foul, Ball, Castro homered to left.
Didi Gregorius: Ball, Ball, Foul, Strike swinging, Ball, Gregorius homered to right center.
J.P. Howell relieved Jason Grilli.
Chase Headley: Ball, Strike looking, Headley grounded out to first.
End of Inning (4 Runs, 4 Hits, 0 Errors)

Now the pretty moving pictures of those four -- count 'em, four -- home runs in the inning, including back-to-back-to-back shots ... 

Muscle emoji: Activate. Notably, that's four home runs without any from Aaron Judge, who leads all of creation with 18 big-league homers this season. That's now 12 apiece for the Bald Brothers, Matt Holliday and Brett Gardner. Gardner's previous career high in homers is 17, and he's on pace to more than double that total. 

The Yankees at this writing are now tied for second in the majors with 84 home runs as a team. In related matters, they're also first in the tough AL East.

Quick hits