Yankee Elimination Night is here! I love how they got to seal the deal at home, withering away for all to see these last few nights. Second time since '95 they're out completely. And the 12th time in the last 13 years "someone besides the Yanks" will be World Champs.

Oakland gave us a nice present this afternoon. We knew a win would put us 2 up with 3 to play. And we got that win easily, kicking Rocky ass, 15 to 5. Some box score lines: Middlebrooks 5227, Victorino 5223, Salty 5243. Great job by all you Mountain time zone Sox fans out there!

As for the remaining races, we've got Tampa up one on Cleveland, and Cleveland up one on Texas. All three teams have four games left. And the drama disappeared in that NL Central race, with the Pirates now three back with three to play. It'll be a Pirates-Reds wild card game, with home-field still up for grabs. I've had this fear all season long that the poor Pirates were gonna end up stuck in that one-gamer, with a chance of their whole great season going up in smoke in one day. That would be a shame. But I'm not really thinking about that, when there so much Yankee Elimination going on!!!!!!!!!!!