Tonight the Red Sox won the last game of a series for the ninth straight time! (If you consider the home-and-home with the Phils one series.) The last four have been condom contests, too. We've won 8 of our last 11 games. Since the early-May unpleasantness, we've only lost one series.

Aceves and Bailey both make you feel like they're always one pitch away from denouncement, but Ace really came through tonight, giving up just a run over six. And we couldn't afford to give up any more than that in a 2-1 win.

Bailey gave up a rocket on the first pitch he threw that nearly tied the game. Instead, it was off the wall for a long single, and he was able to bare-ass down to get the final three outs, the last one with the tying run at second. Good job by Taz, Brez, and The U, too.

Nava is THE MAN for us this year. His dong in the third accounted for both of our runs.

We're either 2 or 3 up at the end of the night. Yanks down 2-0 in the fifth in Oakland as of now. Balty 3.5 back, Tampa 5. Only the Cardinals have a better record than the Red Sox!

Thursday night, it's the first of fourioles against the Orioles at Neely Den.

[Update, 1:16 a.m.: Yanks officially lose. Huge insurance dong by Moss in bottom 8 to make it 4-2, then a bonus insurance run tacked on. Yanks get tying run to plate in 9th but Nix grounds out to end it. 5-2 A's final, and the Red Sox are 3 game sup in the east. Matches the biggest lead of the year, only matched on April 29th. Back then it was a 3-game lead on the Yanks, Balty 3.5, Tampa 6, Toronto 9.5. Now it's very similar at 3, 3.5, 5, 11.5, with the teams in the same order. Between then and now the Red Sox dropped to as many as three games out of first (May 14th). So that's two 6-game swings, one bad and one good, in the last month and a half.]