Was at the neighbor's house all night. Got back, watched end of Sox game that I'd DVR'd. Our 4-0 lead became 4-3 and they had the tying run on third, but I was never worried. We toyed with the other Sox like a cat does a real version of a fake mouse. 4-3 was your final. Yanks won too. And since it's past 3 am, I know the Rays' west coast game must be over. Let's check the board, slowwwlyyyy....

Scrolling down, will see road team first....

Tampa, 3 runs, 8 hits, 1 error. I knew they'd had an early 1-0 lead but that's about it. I guess it could be anything now. The average amount of runs a team scores is probably somewhere in the 3s, maybe low 4s. So could the A's have 4? Easily. Could it be a 3-2 Tampa win? Also easily. If the A's scored 4 or more, it's a 3.5-game lead, people. These are also the top 2 wild card teams so the Yanks are happy either way, I guess. Regardless of that, I want the 3.5-game lead. Go A's! Here we go....

Scrolling...

(I wasn't really scrolling, I was typing "Scrolling," but I'll now go and scroll while you imagine it....)

Oh baby! I saw the top point of a 4! The A's win! And it's a 3.5-game lead with just 26 games left!!!!!!!

Now for the Tampa details....

Ha, it was a Jed Lowrie 8th-inning double that knocked in the winning run for Oakland. Thanks, Jed.

I love Victorino like a brother brand copier, and he's done a lot for us, including tonight, but sweet moses, that was a bad at bat in the 8th. Ells gets to second for him despite the foul bunt that cost him a stolen base earlier, so it's tying run on second with nobody out. Gotta get that runner over. Instead, he swings at the pitcher's arm motion and the pitch bounces way in front of the catcher and way outside. Strike 3.

The Gomes DP after the hard-to-watch gift was a similar killer an inning later, and we lose by 1.

The Rays had already lost during the day so we stay 2.5 up.

Now the White Sox come in for three, then the Tigers series starts on Labor Day.

Don Burgundy moment of the night: He's giving the wild card standings, and after mentioning the top few teams, he ends with, "and the Yankees are all of a sudden back into it at five and a half out." So the whole world is watching the Yanks plummet in the standings, having lost 4 of 6 games in two series losses in a row, and Don, apparently looking at the wild card standings for the first time in at least a week, is thinking they're in the process of getting back in the race! The Yanks were 5.5 back as he was saying it. You know how long it's been since they'd been that far out of it? August 19th! Can you pay a little attention, Don? You've missed a fun week in Uankee Universe.

Sox beat O's again with late-inning heroics. Rays keep pace.

Standings:

Us 0
Harmful Rays 2.5
UnCheery O's 7.5
Molesters 8.5
Canuckland Ehs 19

Wild Card:

Top ones
Two other ones 4-ish
Yanks 5.5, 6 in loss

"We were kinda on." --Dustin

Yeah we were! Red Sox 13, O's 2, as Doobie rolls again. The top three in our order each had three hits. Victorino had two homers and seven ribbies.

Our game was well in hand when Don said the Rays had a 5-1 lead. I put it on Gameday to see the Angels cut it to 5-4, but their rally ended, and it went to the ninth with Tamper clinging to a ORL. Rodney came in, and proceeded to blow his 8th save of the year! Angels go up 6-5. Bottom 9, Angels pitcher goes 3-0 on the first guy and walk him, and then goes 3-0 on the second guy. But he gets a fly out and a DP, and the Rays lose!

2.5-game lead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!

!

Standings:

Team Awesome --
Rays in a Tampa Factory 2.5
Birdland 6.5
Scrappy Rockefellers 7.5
Blame Canada 19

A's win again so the Yanks stay 4.5 back in the WC race.

Great moment on the radio tonight: They had a cancer patient named Buck Rogers in the booth, when Napoli hit his massive parking-lot-roof dong. Joe told us it was a dong, at which point his guest jumped in with, "that was over everything!" Joe waits a beat, and then says with a smile, "you said it, Buck Rogers!"

The damn Jays finally came through, beating the Yanks. So they fall 7.5 back, and 5 back in the WC loss column since the A's won. And the Rays lost, pushing our East lead to 1.5 games. And we stood behind the curtain like Jon Lovitz, reaping all the benefits.

Wooooooo! First team to win a series against the Dodgers since June!

We missed their top two pitchers, but you could argue that it wouldn't have made a difference. Because look at what our pitchers gave up over the three games:

000 200 00 000 000 020 000 100 000

Five runs on 11 hits. Zeros in 23 of the 26 innings. To a team that had won 45 of 55 or whatever coming in. Peavy was the proverbial man tonight, tossing a complete game. This was one well-ass played game by the Boston Red Sox.

We head home alone in first place.

SOX --
Rays 1
O's 5.5
Yanks 7
Jays 18.5

Yanks win in extras. Tampa had their chances for a walk-off win and sweep. Oh well. It was a gravy game anyway for us. Sterling's comments after the final out: "Well the Yanks got a run in the top of the tenth and it holds up....in the bottom of the 9th the Rays went 1-2-3..." Nice tries, dick, but they're both wrong. The game went 11 innings. But what do you expect from a pompous, blind douchebag?

So if we win tonight, we're a game up. If not, we finish the west coast trip tied for first. Pret-ty, pret-ty, pret-ty...good.

Not in concert. I mean I just saw them. Sitting there. I had no idea they were playing the Celtic Rock festival which happened to take place steps from...an area I have access to. Kim and I were in the car, wondering if maybe they were a part of it, and Kim goes, "oh there they are, right under that tent that says Dropkick Murphys on it." Weird. So I ended up getting this video of a picture-taking moment with Al Barr, aka The Hat Guy:

We've got one game left in a 6-game NL west coast trip. We were a game up going into it, and we could be a game up at the end of it. Worst case, we're a game out--but if that happens, we'll still be 7 up on the Yanks. We were 7.5 up on them when the trip started. In other words, I'm fuckin' psyched for October baseball. Let's get there.

Big blast by Jonny Wad Gomes in the first today, and you could turn your sets off there, folks, as the Sox jump out to a 4-0 lead and win 4-2. Lester with another good game. I did wonder about that 8th, though. If you're gonna go to Koji for a more-than-one-inning save, then why wasn't he available much earlier in the inning? Taz gave up two baserunners and we didn't go to him then, and it took Breslow giving up two of his own before we finally made the call. Worked out though. I love that we beat the hottest team in baseball on national TV. We've got a chance to do it again Sunday night and take the series.

The Yanks needed CC to come through today, and he did. Until he didn't. After his offense gave him a lead in typical Yankee fashion, with runs scoring on a walk and a groundout, he gave up 3 in the 6th, and that was all Tampa needed. Yanks lose and fall 5 back in the loss column in the wild card, and 7 back of us in the East. Gotta get them completely buried now. Almost there. I love that they've lost the first two in this series, because if they happen to win tomorrow, we'll take the help...but I'm still rooting against them with every FOMB. They've also got 3 teams to pass to make the playoffs, in both the WC and the division.

Sunday:

Yanks @ Rays, 1:40
A's @ O's, 1:35
SOX @ Dodgers, 8:05

Side thing: Where's the drama in the NL? The East and West have been pretty much locked up, and the Central has a three-team race, but the two who don't win look to be shoeflies for the two WC spots. There will have to be a comeback of at least 7.5 games for any other team to make the playoffs. Probability-wise, you've got the top five teams in the league with a 96-or-more percent chance of making the postseason, and everybody else at 3.1 percent or lower. What I'm trying to friggin' say is, it looks like the Braves, Dodgers, Pirates, Cards, and Reds are your NL playoff teams, and it's not even September. But stranger things than that not happening have happened, and happened up a storm, so we'll see.

In the AL, there's only a little more drama--four teams are above 90%, one's at 61, two are in the 20s, and the rest, including the Yanks, are below 10.