Saturday morning, the FAN's Richard Neer said that the Red Sox have the pitching, but aren't a strong hitting team. I guess I'll just keep linking to the actual stats until people figure it out.

We won the Braves series, losing only a game pitched by someone who's hardly pitched in the bigs before. Whereas the Yanks only win of the weekend was the game pitched by a guy making his debut. I didn't get to see the first two Met wins, only the loss tonight, where the Mets had a chance to go for the kill, but instead couldn't figure out Tyler Clippard, and allowed an easy fly ball to drop in with two outs, giving the Yanks the lead, and allowing Jeter to come up and hit a homer to extend the lead. Maybe the Mets only turn to minor leaguers against the Yanks while I'm watching. Must be it. Oh, and ESPN would like the world to know that on A-Rod's home run tonight, Derek Jeter did approve, and showed that approval by standing atop the dugout steps, clapping. Again, you can't teach this kind of leadership. This just proves that Lord Jeter did indeed create our beloved universe. May he bathe us in golden light for eternity. (Or take credit when someone else does!) I don't think I've detested a human as much as I do that little prick since this kid named Macrae, who, in 6th grade, after I handed out candy canes to the entire class as per the teacher's request, claimed that I "skipped him." When the teacher made me give him another cane, he looked at me and smiled, knowing he'd gotten away with it. It was intangibles like that that made Macrae an all-star son-of-a-bitch.

I was in NYC this weekend, and I got to meet my girlfriend's friends from across the proverbial pond. We suprised them with tickets to see their countrymate Ricky Gervais at Madison Square Garden. Gervais was fun, and a little bit, uh, controversial, I guess. It was almost like he was seeing how far he could push, saying things as if he were one of his characters. Don't get me wrong, I was laughing my ass off. But I started to think about the similarities between he and Dice Clay (who I always hated), how he's saying kind of insensitive things, but it's in character so it's all right. And no sooner did I think that than did Ricky start analyzing nursery rhymes. But even that was funny, since it was Ricky Gervais after all.

David Bowie introduced him, but not before singing that song he did on Extras. Then Ricky did an hour and a half. A few people actually heckled him, but he took it in stride, turning the tables on them nicely. This was his first U.S. stand-up show, and I think he succeeded. I was waiting for a joke that ended with the "big applause," which he never seemed to get to, unfortunately. Until about an hour in, that is, at which point he walked off in triumph. But obviously the crowd loved him, as they asked him back. He did an encore plus a final joke.

My favorite routine was when he claimed to have taken care of an autistic child for a day, and as soon as the kid's mom was out of sight, Ricky brought him to the casino, hoping for some black jack success, a la Rain Man. Turned out the kid couldn't even count.

Before the show, as we were all running through the rain towards the Garden entrance with minutes to spare, I saw the familiar face of Will Arnett go by. You may remember I met him once before, with his wife Amy Poehler. At the time, I couldn't think of his name. I asked for Amy's autograph, using her name, but then sheepishly asked for "both your autographs." I think he was pissed that I clearly didn't know his name. (I may have tried to fake that I knew his name all along in my original blog entry about this...) So in this five-second window, I saw my chance for redemption. I yelled out his name proudly, and he glanced back, but kept walking. At which point I shouted "Arrested Development needs to come back!" Look, I'm lucky I said something that coherent. But that moment just made us all the more excited to go inside and watch Ricky Gervais.

After the show, as we passed a bar, I thought I saw something on a TV that said the Red Sox had won both games of that day's doubleheader. I was wrong, as we split, thanks to another impressive Dice performance, but with the Yanks' loss that day, we gained a half game anyway. After both teams won today (Gabbo! Gabbo! Gabbo!), we're up 10.5 on them. Baltimore's percentage points ahead of them. Now we go to Dunbar Stadium, and according to Jon Miller, it's the opposite of a month ago, when the Red Sox went in with our pitching set up perfectly, and the Yanks had theirs in disarray. Uh...Wrong! Wrong! ERAs of our three scheduled starters for this series: 2.41, 3.57, 5.59. Theirs: 2.83, 4.54, 5.64. So, like, I'd say we're in pretty good shape. We're in the awesome position of knowing that if we take one of three, we leave The Bronx 9.5 games up.