1. Baltimore Orioles power up: When you hit eight home runs in eight innings as a team in a 19-3 romp to rout the Phillies, pretty much everybody in the lineup is having a good day at the office. Six guys homered to help them score all of those runs on “just” 17 hits, with five of them coming off ill-starred Phillies middleman Dustin McGowan.
The obvious bit of excitement was that third baseman Manny Machado homered twice to get to 13 on the season. His performance boosted expectations that the 22-year-old is primed for a breakout as big as any premium prospect's -- and I mean anybody -- in his fourth season in the majors. Sound familiar? At 22 years old, in his fourth season up and experiencing a big power breakout? Still don't know who? Well, he's one of the guys mentioned in the second bullet point of the power rankings, but now that he's contributing a career-high .216 Isolated Power rate, it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch.
But he wasn't the only guy who went yard twice: So did newly-minted Oriole Chris Parmelee, better known for his years as a member of the Twins. And as Elias conveniently informs us, Parmelee became one of the few ballplayers to homer twice and have four hits in his debut with a team, joining J.P. Arencibia (2010 Blue Jays), Sam Horn (1990 Orioles), Brant Alyea (1970 Twins) and Roger Maris (1960 Yankees). It is a group about as unlikely to have something in common besides having the correct number of limbs as you might imagine. As extraordinary as it might seem, Parmelee is bidding to become Baltimore's latest surprise source of slugging, joining Jimmy Paredes (.474 SLG this year) and Steve Pearce (.556 SLG last season); if you'd argued at any point beforehand that any of them would have done any of this, let's just call you Carnac the Magnificent (or an Orioles consultant) and be done with it.
2. Bryce Harper and Giancarlo Stanton keep on keeping on: Both young bidders for Paul Goldschmidt's crown as best hitter in the National League went yard Tuesday night, with Stanton mashing his MLB-leading 24th to add insult to injury in a Marlins 12-2 rout of the Yankees (the Fish routed former teammate Nathan Eovaldi with an eight-run first inning), while Harper belted his 22nd home run in a 16-4 win over the Rays.
The latter contest was also notable for Wilson Ramos hitting a pair of homers off Rays infielders Jake Elmore and Nick Franklin. You read that right: The Rays gave up in a civic-minded effort to get folks home early, and Ramos fattened up his stat line.
3. Matt Harvey, New York Mets: It was nice to see Harvey rebound after a remarkably bad turn last week to shut out baseball's best lineup for seven innings. It provided a quick reminder that his recovery from Tommy John surgery will have ups as well as downs. Harvey also ripped a second-inning RBI double to help himself out against the Blue Jays.
4. Trevor Bauer, Cleveland Indians: The Cubs may have all the exciting newest wunderkind super prospects, but if you remember Bauer was on more than his fair share of top 10 prospect lists as recently as 2012, you knew this had potential for excitement. Bauer provided all of it -- at least outside of Carlos Santana's nice game at the plate -- showing up the Cubs kids as he blanked them through seven in a 6-0 win. And as I've noted before, his in-game rituals are in themselves mesmerizing, so can you blame the Cubs for falling under his spell?
5. Brock Holt, Boston Red Sox: Holt hit for the cycle for the Red Sox, and while the cycle is sort of a silly statistical conceit on one level, it's still cool, and it isn't like everybody can do it -- Holt's cycle was the first Red Sox cycle since 1996. But it's also cool coming from one of the game's great super utility guys: Holt has started at all seven positions beyond the battery, and he's spotting for Dustin Pedroia. His big game helped last-place Boston notch a 9-4 win over Atlanta, leaving them still 10 games below .500 but having at least something to feel good about.
Christina Kahrl writes about MLB for ESPN. You can follow her on Twitter.
