Saturday brought us a lot of home runs (what else is new), notably from some familiar places, such as a certain reigning MVP hitting a few at home while a certain bad team keeps giving them up. The Yankees got a win that came with bad news while the Red Sox squeaked one out that meant the Rays had lost their third straight. 

Sticking in the AL East, it might surprise you who the hottest team in that division is. 

Two frontline starters really struggled, an AL Central team should've swept a doubleheader but blew it at the last instant and a newbie had a very special moment. 

All that and much more in our daily roundup. Let's get it on. 

Baseball scores for Saturday, April 20

Bentintendi leads Red Sox to second straight over Rays

It was a wild one in The Trop Saturday evening. The Red Sox pounced out to a 5-0 lead in the second inning, thanks in large part to an Andrew Benintendi grand slam. 

The Rays, as we're growing used to seeing, scratched and clawed their way back into the game. They'd get one in the second, one in the fourth, two in the seventh on an Austin Meadows triple (the Rays' fourth of the game, a franchise record) and then a Yandy Diaz homer tied the game in the eighth. 

The Red Sox would answer in the ninth. Michael Chavis would double off the center-field wall -- it actually ate up Kevin Kiermaier, which isn't something we often see -- to give the Red Sox runners on second and third with one out. Coming up was Mr. Benintendi. He'd come through again, though not as explosively, with a sac fly. 

This means the Red Sox leadoff man drove home five of the six runs they scored in a 6-5 win. Not too shabby, Benny. 

Yanks notch costly win in the Bronx

As you see above the Yankees won easily at home over the Royals and in doing so leveled their record at 10-10. Along the way, though, this happened: 

And that begat this: 

Aaron Judge batting .288/.404/.521 on the season and as usual has provided plus fielding in right, so this would be a huge loss to the already hobbled Yankees. Speaking of already hobbled: 

Need a closer for that team? Dellin Betances and his shoulder are here to help. If Judge hits the injured list -- and it would be surprising if he didn't -- then he'll become the 13th Yankee on that ledger of misfortune. Relevant: 

As for Saturday's win, Masahiro Tanaka worked seven innings of one-run ball, and Clint Frazier had three hits including a homer. Speaking of the increasingly vital Frazier, he's now batting .351/.371/.649 on the season. He'll need to keep that up if the Yanks are to withstand the loss of Judge on top of all those other injuries. 

Also Boone was ejected in this one after a spectator interference call cost Gleyber Torres a home run. 

Goldschmidt makes Busch history

The Cardinals keel-hauled the Mets in St. Louis on Saturday. Miles Mikolas became the first Cardinals starter to pitch into the eighth inning, and Jose Martinez gathered three hits. Slugger Paul Goldschmidt did this: 

Mercy me. Some relevant digits on that one: 

Put a sub-90 mph fastball on tee for the likes of Cloutin' Paul Goldschmidt, and he might just pulverize it into the history books. So it is with this longest recorded Busch bomb in the Statcast era. 

Speaking of Goldbird (going with this as his nickname over the manifestly inferior "Goldy"), his 2019 season to date is an object lesson in the value of looking beyond batting average. He went 1 for 5 against the Mets, which dropped his average to .235. However, Goldschmidt also has eight homers and 12 walks on the season, and that lifts his overall line to .235/.333/.556. In other words, Goldschmidt has been highly productive despite a batting average on balls in play (BABIP) that's well below his established norms. Once that number (probably inevitably) rises, you'll really see some numbers out of ... Goldbird. 

The red-hot ... Blue Jays? 

Through Sunday, April 7, the Blue Jays were 3-8 and sporting one of the most pathetic offenses in baseball. It seemed like they were in danger of being no-hit every other game. A week later at 5-11, things didn't appear to be much different, but we can look deeper and see that things started to turn. That week, they split with the Red Sox and lost two of three to the Rays (which, at the time, was perfectly acceptable). Their loss to the Red Sox was by just a run in walk-off fashion and they scored 27 runs in those five games. 

That better play has borne fruit this week. After winning in Oakland on Saturday, the Jays are 5-1 this week in road games against the Twins and A's. They've moved to 10-12 on the season, which isn't half bad given the state of their roster and where things started. 

Saturday, it was a pretty complete workover of the A's. The Jays scored 10 runs while pounding out 15 hits, including three homers. The Blue Jays also didn't allow a run until garbage time in the ninth. Matt Shoemaker started and put up three more scoreless innings, running his ERA to 1.57 and WHIP to 0.87. Unfortunately, he only managed three innings because he got hurt. It's a left knee sprain, per the ball club, and he'll get an MRI Sunday.

That certainly puts a damper on things in Toronto, so we'll offer up this highlight in hopes to cheer some Jays fans up: 

Freddy Galvis with an infield version of the Kevin Mitchell! 

The bottom line with this team is it wasn't nearly as bad as it was playing early, and it's probably not as good as it is playing right now. Remember ... it's early ... ebbs and flows ... let the season breathe ... embrace the grind. All that stuff. 

Game-winning HR in MLB debut

On Friday night, Cole Tucker was leading off for the Indianapolis Indians in Triple-A. He hit a home run to center field. Saturday, he got the call he'd likely been waiting on for most of his life. He was now in The Show. Let's add another entry into the files of "reality is better than fiction," because Tucker's first career hit was a two-run, tiebreaking home run to center: 

Take note that it was in the bottom of the fifth. Play was delayed because of rain after the fifth inning and after three-plus hours, the game was called. Tucker's homer wasn't a walk-off, but it was pretty darn close. That's a hell of a debut. 

At 12-6, the Pirates maintain the best winning percentage in the NL. 

Two frontline starters struggle mightily

The Marlins won their second straight game, which in and of itself wouldn't be huge news. OK, so it's pretty surprising since they entered the game 4-15, but it's the second time this year they've won back-to-back games. No, the big deal here was that it was Max Scherzer the Marlins beat. They got him for seven runs (six earned) on 11 hits in 5 1/3 innings. Scherzer struck out nine and didn't walk anyone; he just got knocked around the yard from a Marlins team that were shutout two straight games before this series. 

Scherzer has only allowed seven runs in a start three times now with the Nationals, with the most recent coming Sept. 13, 2017. This was only the fifth time in his career he gave up 11 hits. If we go with both? This was the second time in Scherzer's career he gave up at least 11 hits and seven runs, with the previous time coming May 21, 2014. 

Down in Texas, Gerrit Cole had a heck of a time getting outs early. The Rangers batted around and scored five runs in the first. He got roughed up again and chased in the fifth. When the dust had settled, Cole coughed up nine runs (eight earned) on nine hits in 4 1/3 innings. His ERA is up to 5.22 on the season after pitching to a 2.88 last year. 

This was the first time in Cole's career he allowed nine runs. It was the first time in his career he allowed eight runs. His previous high for both was seven, which happened previously three times -- all three coming in 2017. 

Yelich doing Yelich things

The Brewers beat the Dodgers to move to 13-9 on the season, dropping the Dodgers to 14-9. Shockingly -- please make sure your sarcasm detector is silenced here -- Christian Yelich led the way for the Crew, hitting two home runs. He has an MLB-best 13 on the season, but there's something funny and weird about that figure. Click here to see what. 

Orioles with dubious history

The Twins beat the Orioles twice on Saturday and also hit 11 home runs in the process. That moves the Orioles into a spot where no team wants to be. History. No team has ever allowed more home runs in a baseball month. Seriously. Check out the details here.

Braves stun Indians in Game 2, salvage split

The Indians got Francisco Lindor back on Saturday and won the first game of a doubleheader. They had a 7-0 lead through two innings in the second game with Trevor Bauer on the hill. Smooth sailing, right? 

Well, it was for a while. It was 7-1 heading to the seventh. After a strikeout, Bauer issued a walk and was removed. Dan Otero would give up a Dansby Swanson homer. Still, it was 7-3 headed to the ninth but the Braves put up a five-spot. 

The biggest takeaway for me is the lack of trust Indians manager Terry Francona seems to have in his bullpen aside from closer Brad Hand. He used Hand in Game 1 with a four-run lead. In Game 2, he didn't elect to go with Hand and the bullpen blew a six-run lead. If he knew he couldn't use Hand in both games, why didn't he go with someone else with a four-run lead in the first game of a doubleheader? It doesn't inspire much confidence in the rest of the group. 

It has to hurt, because the Indians were so close to having a day where they won two games and got back their best player. Instead, they fall into a virtual tie with the Twins for first in the AL Central. 

Quick hits