The Chicago White Sox turned a triple play -- the third of the season, the first team to do that since 1979 -- although Chris Sale got roughed up again (5.56 ERA since May 24), the New York Mets had some bad injury news, the St. Louis Cardinals lost another one-run game and Ubaldo Jimenez had another disastrous outing. Seriously, Baltimore Orioles, you can't find anyone better? Our top five:

1. The Houston Astros will win and it will be dramatic. This is one of those "game of the year" nominees. After the Oakland A's scored five runs in the top of the ninth, Luis Valbuena belts a three-run walk-off home runs to give the Astros the 10-9 victory. They didn't pick up ground on the Texas Rangers, who survived six Cole Hamels walks to beat the Twins, but if they can stay 6.5 back heading into the second half, I think they're going to give the Rangers a run. Of course, playing better against the Rangers will help -- Texas has won nine of their 10 meetings so far. As for Valbuena, everyone wants top prospect Alex Bregman called up from Triple-A, where he has hit .389 with five home runs in his first eight games, but after a slow start (.183, no home runs in April), Valbuena is up to .265/.364/.478. For now, there's nowhere for Bregman to play, unless he moves over to first base.

The homer. The bat flip. The celebration. 🙌🙌🙌 pic.twitter.com/dcVsCPAFwH — Houston Astros (@astros) July 9, 2016

2. Best free agent signing: J.A. Happ. There are others in the discussion -- Ian Desmond, Johnny Cueto -- but Happ's relatively modest three-year, $36 million deal looks like a bargain. The Toronto Blue Jays bought into the mechanical changes Happ made late last season with Pittsburgh Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage, and he has won six straight starts to improve to 12-3 with a 3.36 ERA, the first Toronto starter with 12 wins at the break since Roy Halladay in 2006. Against the Detroit Tigers on Friday, he struck out nine in 5.2 scoreless innings as his swing-and-miss rates continues to remain above 20 percent; if he can keep it there, he's going to maintain this success. Edwin Encarnacion's three-run homer in the seventh broke open a tight game as the Jays made it seven in a row to claw a game back of the Orioles, who lost to the Angels.

#BlueJays with 50 wins pre-All Star break for first time since 1992 — Ben Nicholson-Smith (@bnicholsonsmith) July 9, 2016

3. Who will start the All-Star Game for the National League? After writing about this and suggesting it would likely be Stephen Strasburg or Noah Syndergaard, Strasburg pulled out of the game because of the recent upper-back strain that landed him on the DL. He then went out and beat the Mets 3-1, allowing two hits and one run in seven innings to improve to 12-0 -- just the second pitcher in 30 years to start with 12 wins in a row (Max Scherzer went 13-0 for the Tigers in 2013). He beat Syndergaard, who departed after four innings with arm fatigue that he says is unrelated to his bone spur, so he's now unlikely to pitch as well. Syndergaard's fastball velocity suddenly dropped to 91 mph in the fifth inning and he was removed in the middle of a Jayson Werth plate appearance. Syndergaard will get a full examination Saturday, but says there's no pain. Still, that's a worrisome drop in velocity.

All this would seem to make Jake Arrieta the favorite to start, except he had another poor outing Friday, giving up nine hits and six runs in six innings to the Pirates. So that means we're likely looking at Johnny Cueto or Jose Fernandez. Or, who knows, maybe even Bartolo Colon, who just replaced Madison Bumgarner on the roster.

(As for the Mets, Matt Harvey announced he'll have season-ending surgery and Yoenis Cespedes also left Friday's game with a strained quad. Geez. What's next? Mr. Met announcing he's getting a divorce from Mrs. Met?)

4. Brandon Belt and Michael Saunders win final player vote. In Saunders' case, I guess an entire nation voting is better than just Red Sox Nation. Both are having terrific seasons, so no issues with them making it. I would have liked to see Diamondbacks third baseman Jake Lamb make it, with his 20 home runs and .621 slugging percentage. Then again, maybe Lamb had bigger goals in mind this season:

#Dbacks Jake Lamb says getting Paul Goldschmidt on Twitter will go down as greatest accomplishment of his career. — Steve Gilbert (@SteveGilbertMLB) July 8, 2016

5. Yasmani Grandal hits three home runs. And Andrew Cashner's trade value continues to plummet.