Red Sox beat Twins in rainy Minnesota 5-1. Fine job by Lackey. We're now a half game out of first. The O's got swept by the Rays so they're both 4 out, and the Jays are 10 behind. Monday night we play in Chicago against the White Sox at 8:10. It's Lester against D. Axelrod, who, as any good Jaws fan knows, owes me a favor.

Here's a video I made about that play today where Don and Jerry (and Ortiz) were clueless:



Other N3SN fun:

Middlebrooks hit a rocket dong. You could tell from the sound of ball hitting bat it was a shot. The outfielders almost immediately turned and looked up at the wall. But the cameraman opted to continue to show the fielders, cutting the shot off below the top of the wall. So we missed it when the ball cleared the fence for a dong. These guys need to go to a class or something. Once both fielders looked up, there was so much time to raise the camera.

When Parmelee got hit in the cup by Ciriaco's throw, it was weird that after Don said it hit him, and after we saw the guy writhing in pain on the ground, Jerry sees the replay and says, "you're right, Don, it did hit him." Also odd how they didn't act like Ciriaco's throw was abnormal in any way. They acted like it was slightly off, when it must have slipped out of his hand because it was nowhere near first base. And then on the shot of the runner, which was in slow motion, granted, you could tell he was doing the "head down and jog" since it was a hard-hit, tailor-made DP ball, yet Jerry's comment was "you can see he's going as hard as he can."

On that ball that the ump said hit the Twins batter but clearly didn't: Don noted that it was ball four anyway, so the guy goes to first either way. But the HUGE thing they didn't mention was that the the ump saying it was a hit-by-pitch affected the Twins, because the runner on second therefore wasn't allowed to advance, which he easily would have if it had been called correctly. Don did later say "so it's first and second," with the accent on the "second" (implying "rather than third as it could have been"), but that doesn't help the casual fan, or even the normal fan who was getting a drink or something, or just didn't think of it. The point is, that's something the announcer, or color man, has to bring up. It ended up not costing the Twins in the end though.

During the rain delay, we had to go to Cambridge to meet some friends for dinner. By the time we got there, the three-hour rain delay was still going on. It was 3-1 us in the 7th before, and I didn't find out until hours later that we won 5-1, though I wasn't too worried. Pedroia's dong gave us the insurance. It's worth watching for the way it all went down, and to see how many people are still in the stands after such a long delay. And to hear some kid go, "that was not a home run!" even though it very clearly was.