That game last night was fast and dumb. No #200 for Wake (though all some of us really care about is 193) and no 26 for Pedroia.

It looked as if Kevin Gregg was trying to give the Yanks the game in the 9th just to mess with us, as he came in with a 3-run lead and started giving up doubles and walks galore. But the jerk got out of it, so we stay 2.5 games up.

July 30th in BoSox vs. ChiSox history:

1904 CHW: 6-4 L
1912 @CHW: 6-5 L
1914 @CHW: 4-0 W
1917 CHW: 3-1 W
1924 @CHW: 7-6 L
1953 CHW: 17-1 L
1961 CHW: 4-2 L
1961 CHW: 9-8 W
1971 @CHW: 5-1 L
1982 @CHW: 9-6 L
1984 @CHW: 7-0 L
1985 CHW: 7-5 L
1986 @CHW: 7-2 L
1990 CHW: 3-0 W

4-10 overall, 1-6 in Chicago. In game two of the '61 doubleheader, Boston was down 7-0, but scored a run in the 4th, 3 in the 5th, 1 in the 6th, 1 in the 7th, 1 in the 8th, 1 in the 9th, and 1 in the 10th to win 9-8. After Vic Wertz tied it leading off the bottom of the 9th with a dong to center, Joe Ginsberg singled home the winner in the 10th. He had jogged in from the bullpen to make his pinch-hitting appearance, and ended up with the 182nd and last RBI of his career, one that started in 1948. "I got it at Moe Ginsburg!"

Don't think I'm gonna give details about the 7/29 games. Aren't you lucky. But we are 7-6 all-time against them on this date, 4-4 on the road.

1901 @CHW: 4-1 W
1904 CHW: 4-3 L
1912 @CHW: 7-5 W
1913 CHW: 2-0 W
1913 CHW: 5-3 W
1914 @CHW: 8-4 W
1932 @CHW: 4-3 L
1953 CHW: 8-3 L
1956 @CHW: 11-2 L
1956 @CHW: 6-3 L
1982 @CHW: 7-3 W
1986 @CHW: 4-1 L
2001 CHW: 4-3 W

White Sox need 11 runs this weekend to reach 8,000 all-time against us. Red @ White, 8:10 eastern.

4:26: Navarro up, 2 outs, Red Sox down to last strike....fuck. Swings and misses, Serrano style, and it's over. Fuckety fuck fuck fuck. 2.5 up as the Yanks are off. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. God damn it.

4:25: Holy crap--Craw hits one that looked gone. Deep RF corner. Guy catches it on track way the fuck out there. Two out. That looked like a game winning dong all the way. God DAMN it.

4:22: Sutton hits one off pitcher's glove, reaches first! Tying run on. One out. Crawford up.

4:21: Reddick grounds out. Sutton up, Crawford coming out on deck.

4:18: Three baserunners for KC in the 9th but they don't score off Albers. We go bottom nine, down 4-3.

4:04: Adrian and Youk ground out. Papi up, 2 outs, 8th, down a run...another groundout. Gonna have to be a walk-off win today.

3:56: We go bottom 8, and we're finally into their pen. Rally time! Pedroia leading off, needs a hit for #25...crowd behind him...if he doesn't get it, don't worry, we can bat around here...2-1 pitch...3-1...3-2.....HOME RUN!!!!!woohoo...and it's now 4-3 KC.

3:47: 4-2 them after 7.

3:42: We're still down 4-2, batting in bottom 7.

3:12: I grabbed this vid of Beckett making a kid cry in pre-game. Now, NESN shows it again and says "we'll get to know this boy tonight on NESN Daily," so...I thought I had this secret awesome vid, now it's gonna be a big deal anyway.

3:10: 4-2 KC thru 5. Pedroia walks on 4 pitches in third at bat.

2:46: No further damage. 4-2 KC after 3.5.

2:44: After the dong, a liner to left that Sutton doesn't catch. He's right there for it, it hits him in the glove, and falls to the ground. But since there is apparently no such thing as an error anymore, the guy gets credit for a double. Then he gets doubled home. 4-2 KC. Now another single, first and third one out for KC.

2:36: Beckett walks the first 2 in the 4th, Billy Butler homers to center. 3-2 Royals. Goddamn it.

2:32: 2-0 Red Sox in the 4th. Ellsbury knocked in Tek and Navarro. Pedroia 0 for 2.

Sox and Royals, scoreless in the 3rd as of right now.

June 28th in Red Sox vs. Royals History:

One game. 1978. The slumping Red Sox' lead is dwindling, and they lose their 9th in 10 games, a 4-0 shutout against Rich Gale and the Royals. Their home record going into this game had been an incredible 37-7, but even Fenway couldn't set the Sox straight. In the bottom of the 8th, Hobson came up as the tying run with the bases loaded and two out, but flied out, and that was that.

We have to beat KC to even the all-time series for the first time since '80.

We go down 3-0 after a Lacktastic first. But we didn't worry. Our first two hitters hit dongs, and soon the rout was on. Pedroia's up to 24. Papi hits the first grand slam for Boston of 2011. Red Sox now 3 up on the Yanks. And we're within a half game of the Phils for best record in all of baseball.

One more against KC, tomorrow afternoon.

Papi, when asked what his numbers (10 grand slams, 1,000th Sox RBI) mean to him: "I'm getting old."

I just knew they'd have to win one in this series. M's beat the Yanks 9-2, so we have to have to have to go 3 up tonight.

2:37: Final note: Maybe a year ago, I used the term "no-no" while talking to my dad. Ad he said, "well it's not a no-no, that would be no hits, no walks." I had always thought "no-no" was just a cutesy way of saying "no-hitter." But just now on MLBN, a host said this game today wasn't a no-no, since that would mean no hits, no runs, and Cleveland scored a run. So now I'm wondering, does "no-no" mean two different "no"s, or does it just mean "no-hitter"? The no-hitter Wikipedia page says "also known as a no-hit game and colloquially as a no-no"--but wait, I just went back to the page and the no-no part has been taken out! Within the last 2 minutes! Should I put it back? Add some new text about it? Will we ever know for sure? Is it a generational thing?

2:27: Michael Bradley. Santana is one out away. High fly....caught in center! No-hitter! Always cool to see, unless it's by a scummy Yankee. Speaking of, Seattle now leads 2-0! Gotta end that 17-game losing streak!

2:26: Ezequiel "25:17, the path of the righteous man..." Carrera up. Easy grounder to second. Santana lays his vengeance upon him. TWO OUTS.

2:25: Called strike 3! One out.

2:23: Travis Buck leads off the 9th. Pinch hitting. 1-1 count...strike 2... 2-2 now...

2:21: Finally we're going to the bottom of the 9th. Santana 3 outs away from history.

2:15: Angels get an insurance run in top 9. 3-1 LAA.

2:07: Now that Kitner boy or somebody is up. This game's on MLB Network by the way. Or at least the ending has been. And Kitner spills out all over the dock! Strike three. Santana is three outs away. Meanwhile, the Yanks trail 1-0 to Seattle in the 4th.

2:05: LaPorta up. Down on strikes! Santana 4 outs away.

2:03: Jizzin' Haul? That's this dude's name? Anyway, he's up, one out, bottom 8th, for Cleveland against the Angels. Ervin Santana has a no-hitter going. The first batter he faced in the game reached on an error and scored on a wild pitch. Fortunately for him, his team scored twice for him. So he leads 2-1, and he's five outs away. It would be a perfect game if not for that error. 3-2 on this hitter...and he walks. No-hitter still alive.

Just one game. That same 1989 series, which wrapped up on this day. Kevin Romine homered and doubled and John Dopson got the 7-2 win over Flash Gordon on getaway day.

Papi's double in the first knocked in Pedroia with the Red Sox' 2,000th run all-time vs. the Royals. Gotta win the last two of this series to tie the all-time series, too. Lackey goes for us tonight against Chen, (See the very last section of this post to see what a dick Chen can be.)

Hi. I'm gonna try going back to having comments embedded instead of in a pop-up window. If anybody has any trouble, let me know. Of course, if that's the case, you'll have to e-mail me--Two 20 67 at a o l dot c o m.

Andrew Miller did not have it. Puts us down 2-0, we tie it at 2. Puts us down 4-2, we take a 5-4 lead. Then, for old time's sake, he puts us down 7-4. At that point I was pissed. But remember, we've got...schwaa-na-na-na-nint! The Rock Brigade. Granted, the RB was helped by some Royal gaffes. But we get the 13-9 victory and stay 2 games up in the AL East.

Cleanup man Dustin Pdroia's hit streak is now at 23. He had a single, double, and triple, and more than one shot at the dong, but couldn't get the cycle. His last chance was against a position player, Mitch Maier, in the 8th. He hit a high fly ball that the left fielder caught at the base of the Monster. Too bad NESN showed the freakin' sky as the ball was in flight, and by the time they dropped the cam down to ground level in a desperate attempt to recover, the ball was already in the fielder's glove. They were thinking into or over the Monster Seats, and it was caught without a jump. That's a huge difference.

Again, one game. Again, 1989. A hot night in a pennant race at Fenway Park. It's Jody Reed's birthday, and he doubles and scores in the first. We left 5 men on base through two, but still led 4-1 after 3. But KC rallied back for Bret Saberhagen. Down 7-4 in the bottom of the 7th, the Red Sox loaded the bases with two outs, and Jeff Montgomery came in to pitch to Jim Rice. Strikeout. That was the game right there. 7-4 Royals is your final. Don't worry, Yanks lost, so we stayed 1.5 up on them.

1:59: Scutaro! Needs to atone! Right now! Down 1 and 2....I'm visualizing the ball going deep into the.....fucking watches strike three. Fucking watches strike three. Fucking Beltran's it to end the game after fucking up to blow the game earlier. Fuck this. We deserved to lose that after not getting the winning run home from third with one out TWICE. Terrible, terrible job.

1:58: Saltalamacchia. Strikes out after a line shot foul just right of the pole.

1:55: Reddick. Ground rule double to the Sox pen! Tying tun at the plate!

1:54: Bottom 14. Down 3-1. Soria in for them. Crawford up. Fooled by a curve ball as if he's never seen one before, strike three. One out.

1:50: Sac fly. 3-1 KC, and then we get the last out. So we go bottom 14, needing 2 to tie. The Royals seem quite pleased with their two sacs to score two runs. I'd love it if we blast 3 dongs in a row to win it...

1:46: Goddamn. Squeeze. Bunt flies OVER Gonzalez' head. Dustin grabs it on a hop and touches 1st, but run easily scores. Now a single. 1st and 3rd, one out. KC up 2-1.

1:44: Single, but guy holds at third. 1st/3rd, no out for them.

1:43: 14th inning. Williams still pitching for us. Lackey now in the pen. Double by Hosmer to start things in the 14th.

1:41: And Papi hits a ground out to second, hit it hard. First pitch. Inning over. I want to kill things. I want to kill ALL the things. YOu win the game there. There, and in the last inning. Is this a dream?

1:39: Yamaico Navarro. No squeeze please! Yamaico looking to become a true Yankee...winning run at third....2-0 pitch...OH MY FUH- KING GOD. He pops out. He POPS OUT. Two down. Papi up. God, what the fuck is....

1:37: Gonzalez. Win it here, guy. Liner to right, single! Ellsbury to third. Frenchy almost let it go by him, which woulda been a Royal Disaster.

1:36: Pedroia. Flies to right. One out.

1:33: Bottom of the 13th, Ellsbury starts it...with a walk on a 3-2 pitch. Winning run on first. Again.

1:29: One pitch to Billy Butler, 6-4 force. We go bottom 13!

1:28: Melky--DP ball, but you know goin' in he's got a chance to beat it, and he does. Man on first, 2 outs.

1:24: Gordon up. 3-2 pitch...walks him. One on, one out.

1:22: This will be a 4-hour game. That started at 9:30 to boot. Randy Williams in to start the 13th. Getz up. Getz down. One out.

1:19: Well, Marco ....gets a liner to left past the left fielder, and promptly gets thrown out at second easily. If I were a different person, I'd go to bed right now. I mean WHAT THE FUCK? This game was won. We didn't need a squeeze bunt anyway, when a fucking fly out would have won the damn game, let alone any base hit. We go, reluctant-fucking-ly, to the 13th.

1:18: Just a lazy fly, Marco! Here we go..oh my fucking god. We fucking tried to squeeze but Scutaro didn't even try to bunt. Reddick out. What the fucking fuck? What the fucking goddman fuck?

1:17: Scutaro up. Throw to first gets away!!! Reddick all the way to third!!!!!! Good shape now....

1:16: Salty up, Remy "rooting" for one between 1st and 2nd. Flyout. Runner stays at first. One down.

1:13: Bottom 12. Tied 1-1. Reddick up. Remy doing the "mock announcers who blatantly root for the home team" thing. 2-1 count on Josh....2-2 now...single to center field!!!! Winning run on 1st.

1:09: Ground out short, nice play by Scutaro. We go bottom 12, tied at 1. And our one run is our 1999th all-time vs. the Royals. 2000 will be the winner!

1:05: They bunt the guy over. Now Pena up. And Wheeler Ks him! Two outs.

1:03: Top 12. Wheeler pitching for us. We already used Bard and Pap in the tie game, unlike in the 16-inning job. Frenchy up...freakin' walks the leadoff man.

12:58: Winning run at 2nd. Crawford takes a ball. Yanks have won so we gotta win to stay 3 up. 1-1 now on Carl....ball in dirt, 2-1....strike 2.....clock about to strike WON for the Red Sox....?...3-2 count, runners will be going, single will win it.....fuck. Swung on and missed. We go to the 12th.

12:56: We've been tied since the 6th, we scored ours in the 2nd. Papi with a 1-1 count...and the ball gets away, and Adrian goes to 2nd! Now that leads to an intentional walk to Papi. Crawford coming up.

12:53: Yamaico Navarro up. Youk left after hitting the bag awkwardly earlier. 2-2 on Ya'Mike....full count now...strikes out. Papi coming up.

12:50 am: Okay, time to start live-ass bloggin'. Bottom 11th. Tied at 1. Pedroia grounds out. But he did extend his streak to 22 earlier. Adrian up....this game didn't start till 9:30 because of rain, and at game time is was about 40 degrees cooler than it was a few days ago--63 degrees. Adrian slams one off the Monster. Winning run on first, one out.

We're 8.5 games up on the second-place wild card team (Angels) with 63 games left. (10 in the loss column.) Even if they play the rest of the season at around the percentage we've been playing till now, all we'd have to do is play .500 the rest of the way to beat them. Not that I needed to do any math to figure this out, but, there's a very good chance the Red Sox will be playing in October.

(Funny how the me-me-media comes up with all these stats proving that a 2-10 team can't possibly win anything, but now that there's a very good possibility we're going to the playoffs, they say nothing. Why aren't they writing articles about how Red Sox fans everywhere have their feet on solid ground and are in an extreme state of un-panic? Come on, guys, tell me how often a team's blown a 10-game lead with 63 to play.)

July 25th in Red Sox vs. Royals history:

One game. 1989. Wade Boggs has three doubles and a triple in the 10-0 rout at Fenway. Mike Boddicker throws a 9-hit shutout, and every Socker in the starting lineup gets at least one hit and scores at least one run.

In the all-time series (the Royals started play in 1969), Kansas City has been ahead of us since 1980, when they took a 66-65 lead on May 4th. They extended their lead to 29 games in '97/'98, but the Sox have been storming back ever since. We've cut it to just 2 games, 212 to 210. We've got eight games against them this year, starting tonight at 7:10 at Fenway. This could be the year we finally tie and/or catch them after three decades. And if we score two runs tonight, that will be 2,000 all-time vs. the Royals.

Behold, the Muddy Chicken t-shirt. More on that below.

Stuck between the dugouts as usual, but neither team took BP. (I can think of one team that really shouldn't be skipping that.) So I didn't miss out on any balls, but did have to settle for faraway shots of our pitchers out in right field. Here's Aceves, with fans in the Bleacher Bar looking on.

Here's Andrew Miller playing catch with himself.

Papelbon makin' faces.

Kapstein taking this couple's picture with the Green Monster in the...nothing.

It was Maine Day. And unlike the Maine in my mind, it was hot.

Pap signing for/meeting with kids.

Why you'd wear a winter hat on a hundred-degree day is beyond me, but I'm sure Pap appreciated the style.

Citgo sign with flag right in middle, creating top-of-triangle ball.

I was just relaxin' in the shade of the grandstand on a Sunday morning (at MY church), and this guy wayyyy to my right was trying to photograph something. Me? Probably not. But I was photographing him, because it made for a good shot. Hopefully I see this guy's shots one day and recognize them.

Josh Reddick came out between BP and game to take pics with these people.

Hey, what's that on his shirt? It's got Pedroia's official DP logo on the sleeve....

It's a Muddy Chicken Baseball shirt! I actually saw an MC shirt on a fan, too, but it was just text. Reddick's got the full-on artwork.

Now over on the Mariners' side, here's Blake Beavan, who pitched great against us Saturday night.

Tried to get the best shot I could of fans in his glasses. But I kind of like the first shot with the grandstand poles in the reflection.

I guess this is Jamey Wright, since the other side of that glove said "Jim Wright."

It was really hot, but unlike Friday, when I chose to watch from the sweatbox of the third-base deck, this time I went to wear wind was coming through. It was great. Constant air on my back and neck. Something that would be unbearable in April was the cure for unbearable in July.

After being in that bathroom that has windows over the urinals that look out onto Yawkey Way, I decided to go out there and photograph them. See the two thin windows with yellow light inside, to the left of the Wally's sign? Men's room. Peeing men are watching you when you're on Yawkey Way in this area.

I've kind of been ignoring this area lately so I was getting some left field line shots. I should sit over here late in a game sometime.

Tim Wakefield warming up, looking for Red Sox win #185.

Scutaro and Big Papi.

Their starter would give up 5 in the first after being staked to a 2-0 lead.

These fans were speaking French and wearing Montreal jerseys. Now here are some people I can relate to, for the following reason: In one sport, they're hated when in Boston, in another (since they had on Red Sox clothes underneath these jerseys, which many had put on just for the photo), they're loved. Some of us didn't grow up in a city but between cities, and therefore don't automatically have all our teams in the same city.

Some mascots from Maine.

Reddick in right.

Wake facing Ichiro in the first.

Timmy gets his 2,000th Red Sox strikeout and gets a curtain call for it. I think he's gonna be doing that a lot in the next few weeks, deservedly.

Finally toward the end of the game, I went down close. Despite the kinda-blowout (11-3 but then it went to 11-7 before ending 12-8), people stayed till the end for this afternoon game. Here's team MVP Alfredo Aceves on the mound.

Ichiro on deck making the "we're about to lose our 15th in a row, a franchise record" face. Gotta feel bad for the M's.

Dustin Pedroia and Marco Scutaro.

The Rock Brigade came out in full force on this day, not giving a shit about being down 2-0.

You know that commenter SoSock? He used to coach against this Dustin Ackley guy when Ackley was a kid. So, these are for you, SoSock.

Meaning this one and the above one.

Yamaico, or as Dale Arnold calls him, Yamacko, Navarro.

Went back to my car which I parked for free right near Fenway (for the millionth time, if you pay for a lot on a Sunday, you're...okay with throwing your money away), then headed over the river to meet Kim for dinner, as she was doing the SOWA market which always ends around the same time as Sunday Red Sox home games. It's the perfect scenario for us. Anyway, I took this shot of Boston as I was stopped on the BU Bridge. (Sorry about how the bridge blocks the river. It's like a beautiful photo paved over. But you don't always get what you want in life. Or something.)

Coming soon, my pics from Sunday afternoon. I think they're better than these. But that's just me.

Parked for two bucks in quarters, right near Fenway on Friday, game one of the Seattle series. It was 103 degrees in Boston that day. Above, Ichiro and Papi. Note the fans in the background, all stuck to the home side of the first base dugout.

While we were all still waiting to be allowed beyond the bases, Ichiro hit ball after ball into the near-empty right field seats. The few stragglers that were out there for whatever reason were cleaning up, casually going through empty rows to get balls. It was hell. I watched every single ball, hoping one would land and no one could find it and they'd just give up (hey, another one's coming right behind it anyway you lucky assholes!). In the meantime, an usher fielded the same question over and over: Why? His answer: The team has deep pockets, short arms. Having fewer employees come in "early" (a time that wasn't even considered early last year) means fewer to pay. He told me, as Kelly O'Connor has, to write to Lucchino. I suggested to the guy that they let fans go beyond the bases but stay in the seats as opposed to underneath. He said then they'd have to guard all the runways. Seems to me that wouldn't take many more employees than they're using now for this unnecessary maintenance of the border.

By the time the guards let down their arms, Ichiro was done. (When they say he can hit a HR whenever he wants, they must mean in BP, because that's definitely true.) However, just as I reached CF, Adam Kennedy (above, left of cage) hit one out there, and...

...the drought is over! I raced along the row shown here in section 36 to pick it up just before red-hat got there. Hardly a mark on the ball--I wouldn't have guessed it was ever hit by a bat had I not seen it happen. Checking my records, aka "this blog," I see the last time I got anything was July 10th, 2009, my 14th and 15th lifetime balls (all BP). So it had actually been more than two years. And it's still weird to me that my total is in the teens, since it had been in the single digits my whole life until my huge year of 2009. Then I think of the 5,000-something balls Zack Hample has and realize I essentially have no balls. Moving on....

This dude had to wear the pink Hannah Montana backpack.

The King was overheating before the game began. See that move? That's what everyone in the park was doing all night, constantly. Constant sweat-film. At night. The whole game.

I know, I mostly shoot Ichiro. But it's fun. Doesn't it look like he's holding up a Poland Spring flag? He singled on Lackey's first pitch of the game. Stole second on the second. Stole third on the third. Lackey settled down though, and we beat the King.

I knew our third run of the game would be number 80,000 in franchise history. Once we got to two runs, I kept waiting to get a shot of 80 grand crossing home. Salty was on third. He could be it. Then, Adrian hits one...through infield. I waited to watch it, because that's more important to me anyway. By the time I snapped the above pic, Salty had already scored, and Ellsbury was flying home. Whatever, I got a picture of the play that scored the 80,000th, and the guy who just scored it. HOWEVER. I got home that night, and saw an e-mail from Allan aka Joy of Sox. He said that on the page he was looking at (on Baseball Reference), we were still several runs away from 80,000. The page I'd been following was also on B-R. What gives? We don't know. But he wrote to them to ask. We'll see what they say, and hopefully we can get a true total.

Did a little behind-screen action late in the game. Papelbon got the save.

View from that seat. Then I went home and drank a Hershey bar I'd left in the cupboard. I've seen candy bars get soft in the heat before, but this was ruh-Dick.

Was there to see the Rock Brigade (play loud) in person today. Another W, we sweep Seattle, and remain 3 games up. 185 for Wake. (199 total.)

According to my pre-season prediction, we should be 15-4 in July at this point. We're 16-3!

What I'm gonna do is put up my photo galleries from Friday and today at some point later tonight or maybe one tonight and one tomorrow. So watch for those.

We're 3-1 vs. Seattle on this date. Sunday afternoon we try to keep our unbeaten vs. the Marniers on 7/24 streak in tact. Also, if we win, it will be Seattle's longest losing streak ever.

1983 @Sea: 6-0 W This date was remembered for the pine tar game. In other AL action, Boggs singles, doubles, and homers, and John Tudor throws a 6-hit shutout in front of 8 thousand at the Kingdome.

1987 Sea 5-4 W Every Red Socker gets a hit, and Don Baylor breaks the tie with a 6th inning dong in Bruce Hurst's complete game win.

1994 Sea 8-2 W Every Red Socker gets on base, and Greenwell and Valentin go deep. Roger Clemens gets the win, and George Glinatsis, in his second and final major league appearance, lasts just two thirds of an inning and takes the loss.

2010 @Sea 5-1 L Papi goes deep, Lester gets the L as the M's get 5 runs on just 4 hits.