With the packed house (the 2,000 Yankee fans left) cheering for the final strike (because the scoreboard that goes around the stadium said "2 Strikes" and showed clapping hands, a fact TV networks love to ignore since about 1976, as they conveniently avoid showing the board while showing the fans--know what's funny? When the person in charge forgets to put the graphic up and all the Yankee fans just sit there silent--see the Ortiz at bat in the 9th the night before. Note: They never forget the PC Richards whistle ad after a K. Where was I....), with two outs in the 9th and the score tied, Mike Napoli hit a laser-dong off the Yanks' new robot pitcher. Koji OTTed them in the bottom half, and the Red Sox grabbed a W.

Fox blamed the whole thing on the fact that they should have pitched around Napoli and gone after Drew. Forget the fact that Tanaka, who has already been crowned Cy Young, gave up the home run in the first place. He'd struck the guy out twice too. Suddenly the smart thing in a complete game is to pitch around the go-ahead run? Harold Reynolds even called it stupid pitching, because he saw Lester beat Verlander one time. ????????????????????????????????????

Did I mention how sweet it was that they were all standing and clapping and getting ready for the manifest destiny of some groundout-heavy game-winning rally in the bottom of the ninth, and we totally knocked a dong off of their Cy Young guy and won? And are defending world champions? As are the LA Kings? See what I did there? Apologies to Yankee fans who happen to be Devils fans or Islanders fans or any-other-team-fans. Actually no apologies because you should have gotten a smirk out of that line anyway, though overall you're still sad about Tanaka totally giving up a 9th-inning dong to lose the game tonight.

And did you see Solarte pull a Jeter and cheat a double play out of a line drive? Announcers could have talked more about that but they didn't. And on that one replay where Pedroia did the swimmy slide, didn't you think it was inconclusive? But they changed it anyway, very quickly, and I still wonder if the umps actually hear the announcers going "out" and influencing them, and/or if they watch angles of their own choosing or just watch the TV feed? And by umps I mean the one possible lazy and/or too-busy-texting-to-really-dissect-it umps who sits in the room on Park Ave. I mean how can you tell the tag is on a guy when the glove is in front of the leg? How do you know there isn't space in between? All this while focusing along with the network on said glove and assuming the hand hasn't touched the base yet when it's actually shielded by the fielder's leg? Whatever, we won. But still. Fix this crap.

Contest update: Unless the Red Sox score 36 runs in the next two days, my mom will win the "team runs in June" portion of the contest. And unless Shane Victorino miraculously returns and scores four runs in the next two days, Kim aka Dewey & Co. will win the "Victorino runs in June" portion. Kim apologized for getting her entry in with an hour and a half left in May, but she should have been anti-apologizing for waiting as long as possible before making a prediction. With Shane on the DL by then, she made a very smart guess of 2, and the guy didn't play a down all month. So congrats to Mom and Kim, you'll get your books soon.