This was another game that I count as a close-type impressive win, though the scoreboard shows a 4-run win. Even though the last two losses were just the type you deal with since you're doing well overall, it's still good to avoid the sweep. We went 6-3 on the road trip and we're back to within a half game of first, since the Yanx lost.

Play of the game: Uehara, whacking an unsuspecting Victorino in the shoulder with a high five.

Honorable mention: Napoli cat-kissing Beyeler, which I believe is how you high-five someone when their hands are full.

Now Tito's Tribe comes in for four. They're in their second rain delay right now, so maybe they'll be a little effed up tomorrow night. Their record is right around where ours is.

Useless stat of the day: Only the Red Sox, Cardinals, and A's haven't yet played an interleague series in 2013.

Actually, here's an even more useless one: The other day, the Red Sox had a comeback win, and the media made a big deal of it being their first win in 13 tries this season when trailing after 8 innings. As if this were the equivalent of going 1-12 in your first 13 games period! If you're behind after 8, you're gonna lose almost every time. Even if you're down by only a run every time, you're still gonna lose most of those games. The all-time worst winning percentage by a team in games when winning after 8 was still above .800. It was absolutely no big deal that the Red Sox lost their first 12 when losing after 8. Especially considering sometimes they were down by 6 or 7 runs. Taking until your 13th try to win one of those is just life going by at the pace it's supposed to go by. For comparison, the world champion Cardinals last year went 4-58 in games when they trailed after 8. That's an .065 winning percentage. The Red Sox, after that first win, with their 1-12 record, had an .077 winning percentage! So instead of the headline being "Red Sox end totally shitty winless streak," it could have been "comeback kids now have better record than last year's world champions when trailing after 8." In fact, it took me a while but I found a late-season stat from last year saying the winning percentage for the entire American League when down after 8 was .053! So maybe the other day, assuming the percentage is near that level now, these people should have been saying "Red Sox dominating league in games where they trail after 8."

More comparison: The Phillies took 43 tries last year to get a win when losing after 8. The Yanks took 59. At least let it get to this level before you mention it. But if you must mention it, give the humans a reference point!

The stat is also pretty dumb in itself. Why not make it "trailing going into last at bat"? If you're tied after 8 and give up 6 in the top of the ninth and lose, that doesn't make you "worse" at coming back than if you're down 1 after 8 and nobody scores in the ninth. Yet only the second example counts in the stat as it is.