Lackey made a lil' mistake in the fourth, giving up a 2-run dong to Hanley. And that's pretty much the only thing that happened in this ten-minute long NL game. We lose 2-0. We had two hits. If that's one of their not-good pitchers, I'd hate to see the good ones. Puig did nothing, by the way.

Let me tell you about pieces of shit like Carl Crawford. Pieces of shit like Carl Crawford think they're cool, come to your house and take all the money you give them because you're fooled into thinking they're cool, and then take a nice long vacation with said money, only to go and tell the world that you're the bad guy, while they're fooling someone else into thinking they're cool. They're not cool. They're fucking assholes. Pieces of shit like Carl Crawford, that is.

NESN was doing some white lying tonight. In pre-game, they had "live" on the screen as they showed an overhead shot of Dodger Stadium. What tipped me off to the fact that it wasn't live was that the shot was frozen at first before somebody pressed the "play" button. When I rewound to confirm, I noticed that the stands were full and that players were on the field in their positions. In other words, this was old footage from a Dodgers game, meaning it wasn't even from today. And since they've been on a road trip, it was a lot older than that. It's the principle that pisses me off. Why pretend you're showing a live shot? Why not just show an actual live shot, or show the non-live shot you want and just don't say it's live? Why do they keep doing this? And then on that dumb post-game sports-desk show, they threw it back to Don and Eck for a recap, only this time, the "play" button was pressed too early, so the poor woman who had been told to "pretend" like she was actually interacting with them looked like a fool when they started talking before she stopped. I've asked it before: Who's in charge over there? Oh right, NESN.

But back to the baseball stuff, the Yanks and Kuroda* got whooped by the Rays. So we're no tied for first again, but it was well worth it as the Yanks' Canadian win-streak is bacon. They lose a game to Tampa AND Balty. Gotta keep getting these setbacks and get them out of this thing. The key for us is to win Saturday and stay in first.

*Had MLBN on during the first inning. Yanks had a 1-0 lead. One of the hosts, as they were watching, said, "that one run might be all Kuroda needs tonight." Four dongs later, that fuckface was proven to be the world's worst prognosticator.

Look, tough guy/gal, if there were 10 games left or something, of course I'd have to root for the Yanks over the Rays. But the Yanks need to be knocked down a notch and soon. I'm so glad they're playing a team that might actually beat them this weekend. Go Rays for sure. With the bonus knowledge that if the Yanks happen to catcher's-interference out a win, we stay in first guaranteed. The whole key to all of this is that WE need to win. That way we gain on one while the other doesn't gain on us.

Kuroda/Archer 7:10

Lackey/'lascy 10:10

And Orioles, if you could go ahead and not let the Yanks pass you, that'd be great...

Beautiful visually if nothing else.

Waiting inside a balloon for the Bryant Park movie to start.

Blimp shadow on the Fenway outfield.

Hurricane Sandy didn't just hit NY and NJ, but CT and RI too. Here's the damaged clubhouse from the destroyed mini-golf course I always played on in Old Saybrook. (Google "Misquamicut" to see how it affected Rhode Island.)

A cormorant dries its wings in Newport.

The flag of neapolitan flies high.

Flipped on the game an hour in, and it was 5-1 us. Huge relief. Got to see a few innings and Castig'd it to the end as the Red Sox cruised, a dozen to a single bakery unit. I'm living and dying with this team as per the lifelong tradition, and I really needed to live instead of die today. Great job by Felix going 8 strong.

Going into this series, I knew we were a lock for 2 out of 3, but I worried about the game 2 jet lag, as it doesn't hit until day 2. That was indeed the only game we lost. So even though that day was an absolute killer, I gotta just look back at it as a series win. This team proved again they can move on from shittiness without skipping a beat. It's like Phil in Hangover 2: you do shitty shit, but you just forget it! No problem for this bunch.

So the Rays need a win to stay even. And hopefully the stupid Jays can win a game and push the Holes 7.5 back.

Now we go to Mannywouldn't, where we'll miss their good pitchers. 2 outta 3 is a legit possibility.

I'll tell you what happened in our game in case you didn't stay up.

We had bases loaded, no outs in the first. Their pitcher looked like burnt toast. We only scored one run. You have to score more than that right there. Terrible job.

Their guy would end up going seven and giving up just ONE more run, on a Victorino home run which hit an ambulance, though Eck and Don refused to comment on that.

Peavy was doing well for us, getting out of some tough spots and only giving up a run. He finally came out in the sixth. Despite an extended close-up of his face showing him shaking his head and clearly being pissed at the fact that Farrell was taking him out, Don and Eck started guessing as to whether he was mad or not. It took a replay for them to notice it, and they did that thing where they act like we're all seeing this unearthed replay that finally proves what happened.

Breslow came in and did well, keeping it at 2-1 Red Sox. The 7th ended on a ball Ellsbury caught running toward the wall. He tried to do that thing where you "run up the wall" after the catch, but his first foot slid down and he awkwardly hit the wall, then pulled a Pee-Wee Herman "I meant to do that." Don and Eck never noticed any of this. [I should also say that Bogaerts, in his first game, made an incredible lead-saving play, on which he never even had the ball in his glove, he just trapped it against the thumb and quickly threw. In fact, he might not have done that on purpose. Despite multiple replays, Don and Eck did not notice any of this. Oh and Papi didn't play because, ya know, we sometimes play games against the other league which plays by different rules, and those game count. Go figure.]

So we go to the 8th up 2-1. Tazawa came in, so we all pretty much thought he'd give up his game-tying homer and we'd take it from there. Instead, he gave up his run the non-dong way, on a sac fly that Victorino opted to catch in foul ground. I guess he had to do it instead of leaving first and third with one out.

We didn't score in the 9th. Then I guess Farrell's plan was to bring in two guys who can't control the baseball. Morales was all over the place, giving up a hit, a walk, and a hit by pitch to load the bases with two down. We turned to Villarreal for his Red Sox debut. Eck immediately talked about how this guy doesn't know where his pitches are going, which is the last thing you want with bases loaded, tie game, on the road, first place on the line, when a walk or a hit by pitch or a wild pitch ends the game.

Ball 1.

Ball 2.

Oh, did I mention it was fucking Scutaro who had to be up in this spot?

Ball fucking 3.

Finally the dude throws a goddamn strike, his catcher nods as if to say Okay there ya go great job kid... and throws the ball back to the mound. Unfortunately, the umpire... ... ... forgot, I guess, to call it a strike. Ball 4. Game over.

It was the type of pitch that's called a strike 90% of the time on a non-3-0 count, and 100% of the time on a 3-0 count. Who knows, he could have thrown ball 4 on the next pitch anyway, but any umpire from the #1 guy in the majors to that guy in the 1990 Bud commercial who's just making it to the majors after having "called it all, a thousand times" in the minors to Cory Plock's dad in Little League should have known that pitch was a strike.

So I was fucking pissed. But I was already fucking pissed, because the goddamn New York Fucking Yankees had already swept a doubleheader from the asshole Blue Jays who were supposed to win the World Series. In game one, Toronto had a 4-0 lead, too. So the Asshats are now 6.5 games behind us AND the Rays, who had also already won and therefore are tied with us for first. The Pol Pots are also within a game of the Orioles for third.

I'm not even gonna talk about how Don said the game-ending walk meant it was "truly a walk-off win." Wait, yes I am. Here's what I don't get. If he thinks the "true" "walk-off" means a game-winning walk, why does he think he's calling all the other walk-offs "walk-offs"? You'd think that would give him a clue and make him think about it. Or, Jesus, you'd think the man next to him, who fucking coined the phrase in the first place, would explain it to him instead of agreeing with him! Anyway, I can assure you I'm way more mad at The Lead being down to 6.5 than I am about the walk-off thing, but it always comes at the perfect time to piss me off even more, since it means we just lost heart-breakingly AND I have to listen to....you get the idea. Time to go to bed and hope this was all a dream.

Listened to the whole game on my drive from NYC to Providence tonight. One of the easiest wins ever. Castiglione was so calm, he barely got excited after each scoreless salad Lester tossed. A 7-0 Chicago-ing of San Francisco, and we hold on to our 1-game lead in the East. The Rays' win was over the O's, so Balty falls to 5.5 out. The truly idle false-idol Yanks drop to 8 behind.

Was at the Bryant Park movie tonight in NYC. I've recorded the classic HBO theme with corresponding jumping/dancing before, I know. But it's just so ruling. Here's this year's version:

I "watched" the game over a 4-mile stretch of road. Allow me to explain, mofos. I'm in NYC, and Chan and I ate down at an Indian place on 6th Street. (On our way there, Gabriel Byrne walked right past us. The woman he was with was saying something about Darlene Love. Anyway....) We were 80-something blocks from his apartment, but we decided to walk home after dinner. By the time we got to the first bar that was showing the game, we saw a close-up of the scoreboard. 5-3 us. Sweet. We kept walking. Our next update was 7-6 them. Goddamn. We had several more stop-and-watch-from-the-street moments, and eventually made it to the Upper East in time to watch the 9th after collapsing into our chairs. Incredibly, Curt Schilling, who played against Mariano Rivera in both the 2001 and 2004 post-seasons, uttered the phrase, "Mo doesn't blow saves in October." He let the tying run come to the plate tonight, but we couldn't finish the job. Yanks win 9-6.

At this point, thinking we'd basically "seen the game," we almost turned it off. But SportsCenter started with talk of fireworks at Fenway. That's when I finally learned what went on tonight. And all I'll say, besides plenty of other things, is, Ryan Dempster for President!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When A-Rod came back a few weeks ago, I assumed either fans would pelt him with stuff to the point where they'd have to stop games, or, more likely, pitchers would greet him with an ipod full of chin music set to "repeat." It took this long for a pitcher to just blatantly plunk him, though. I love that it was Dempster, too. He was pitching the day of the bombing, and Kim, who was steps from the explosions that day, had been at Fenway, so she's felt a special connection to him this year. And that Girardi shit was hilarious. Punching an umpire in the face is like tipping FBI, you don't do it. And he almost did. So despite the loss we had some fun after all.

The other non-Blue Jays teams won today, so we're 1, 4.5, and 7.5 up as we head to the N.L. version of the west coast.

Sweet game to be in attendance for. Perfect weather, great spot, lots of A-Rod booing, Red Sox beat the Yanks' ace on national TV. Above, the two kids who threw out the first pitches "warming up." (The girl obviously was confident in her pitching abilities enough to use the allotted time to do cartwheels, while the boy needed more practice.)

Lackey shut down the Yanks. It was still 0-0 in the 4th when the Yanks turned the worst "double play" of all time. Grounder to first, throw to second wild, throw back to first too late. Everybody's safe, run scores from third. On what could have been an inning-ending DP. That's why we canned your ass, Overbite! Two-out singles by Middlebrooks and Ellsbury made it 3-0.

Yanks had second/third, no outs in the next inning, but Lackey got out of it with only a run. Salty and Ells knocked in runs in the 6th, and Papi hit a massive dong in the 7th to make it 6-1, and that was your final. The Lac-tolerant crowd gave John a great ovation when he left in the 7th, and Taz, Brez, and Koj held the Yanks to nothing the rest of the way.

Rays lost, so we're 2 up on them, 8.5 up on New York.

Pat and I put on the dreaded radio station in the car for some post-game action--within four seconds (no ig-Zajj) we heard the phrase "the sky is falling" and soon after that we switched to sat. radio.

One more against the Yanks on Sunday night, then it's off to SF and LA for some interleague bullshit.