The Chicago White Sox took no prisoners in their three game series with Kansas City. After shutouts in the first two games, the White Sox added insult to injury with four straight home runs in the sixth inning today, the sixth time a team accomplished the feat. Joel Peralta gave up the first three, and Robinson Tejada came on for the fourth. So much for using pitchers named after shortstops. :-)

At least the Royals scored today as they lose 9-2. For the series, the White Sox out-score Kansas City 22-2.

The Chicago Cubs go into St. Louis and take two out of three games with a 7-1 win this afternoon. Chicago scored off each of the four pitchers the Cardinals used today, while the Cubs only mistake was Sean Marshall's gopher ball to Ryan Ludwick. The Cardinals had a chance to move into first if they swept, but by dropping the series Milwaukee is now ahead of them by .001 in winning percentage.

The Rays hold on for a 7-6 win over the Red Sox. Boston had a threat in the 9th, but Upton recovered from a bad start on a long fly ball off Youkilis's bat to make a great catch in deep center, and then the Red Sox tried to hit and run twice with Lowell on first and Varitek at the plate. On the first one, Jason pulled the ball foul. On the second one, the captain swung and missed, and Lowell was out at second. Varitek ended up striking out to end the game. The Red Sox are now 3 1/2 games back. They are going into New York for a four game series, four games in front of the Yankees for the wild card.

My latest column at SportingNews.com looks at why the AL dominated the NL in interleague play.

The AL and NL wrapped up interleague play yesterday (with the exception of the Yankees-Pirates make up game) and the AL dominated. The American League took the series 149-102, a .593 winning percentage. As one of the commeters to an earlier post pointed out, that winning percentage represents a 96 win season, which usually gets a team in the playoffs. The AL outscored the NL by nearly a run, 4.97 to 4.02 per game. Home field tells the same story, as the AL went 79-47 at home, a .627 winning percentage and the NL went 55-70 at home, a .440 winning percentage. Anyway you slice it, the National League was simply dreadful.

The Twins, at 14-4, wind up with the best record in interleague play as the Royals fall back to second with losses to the Cardinals over the weekend. Both KC and Detroit finish 13-5. San Diego keeps the Phillies from finishing in the cellar as the Padres go just 3-15 against the AL, and Philadelphia compiles as 4-11 record. With the Marlins doing poorly also, the NL East became a tighter race, especially with the Mets tying the Reds for best NL record at 9-6.

The biggest loser, however, were the Cleveland Indians. While their division rivals were racking up lots of wins, the Indians won just six of eighteen, and are now tied for last in the AL Central.

The American League took all three west coast games Tuesday night. The Phillies could not hold a 1-0 lead as Moyer allowed a three-run homer to Emil Brown in the seventh, and Oakland went on to a 5-2 win. They finally scored some runs for Joe Blanton, who held Philadelphia to one run over seven innings of work for the win.

Brendan Harris and Brian Buscher hit back-to-back home runs off Trevor Hoffman in the ninth to break a 1-1 tie and give Minnesota a 3-1 victory. It was Buscher's first home run of the season, and Harris is slugging .348 on the year. Hoffman's ERA is now 4.85, the highest of his career.

The White Sox and Dodgers were tied at one until Jermaine Dye launched a two-run homer in the eighth. Wise picked up a triple later in the inning, driving in a scoring a run. He just missed the cycle by a home run.

The American League is now 109-76 in interleague play, a .589 winning percentage. They are outscoring the NL 5.1 to 4.2. Remember, for most of the season the National League was outscoring the American League despite allowing the pitcher to bat.

The Royals are 11-3 in interleague play, having defeated the Rockies Tuesday night. The Rockies have the NL's best record against the AL this year at 7-4. Colorado was their easy opponent, as the other teams they've faced included San Francisco, St. Louis, Arizona and Florida. Watch out for the Royals!

The Chicago Cubs took game three against the White Sox last night 7-1, sweeping their cross town rivals. The Cubs won by neutralizing a strength of the White Sox pitching staff, the ability to keep the ball in the park. In their first 73 games, the White Sox allowed just 54 home runs, good for a .372 slugging percentage against. In the three games at Wrigley, the Cubs hit nine home runs, four by Aramis Ramirez. In terms of homers allowed per 200 innings, the White Sox gave up 16.6 before the series, 75 during, a better than four fold increase.

The losing streak made the division tight again. While the White Sox were getting swept by the first place Cubs, the Twins were sweeping the first place Diamondbacks. At one point, the White Sox held the largest lead of any first place team, but that's down to 1 1/2 games. Even the Royals are just 8 1/2 back in last place.

Aramis Ramirez shows once again show the incompetence of the former Pirates regime. With Pittsburgh, Ramirez showed flashes of greatness but was inconsistent season to season. The Pirates traded him at age 25, just as he was entering his peak years. Since then, Aramis produced consistently good OBA and great slugging percentages. His 25 games as a Cub against the White Sox were particularly fruitful, as he posted a .380 BA, a .442 OBA and an .804 slugging percentage. His 10 home runs helped him drive in 27 runs in the 25 games. His pickup is likely one of the great Cubs trades of all time. The Pirates got basically nothing in return.

Minnesota lost to the Chicago White Sox again today, suffering defeat in the first three games of the series. With a 12-2 Chicago win, Minnesota allowed 10, 11 and 12 runs in the first three games. Will they give up thirteen tomorrow afternoon?

The Twins allowed double digits in runs just five times in their first 60 games before these three. Joe Crede went 8 for 12 in the series so far with four homers and a double. He came into the series with a .271 BA and a .489 slugging percentage, and is now at .295/.565. The Twins starters allowed 22 runs, all earned, in just eleven innings. That's an 18 ERA for the three games. The Twins came into the weekend with a chance to be competitive in the AL Central, but it looks like Chicago will send them home a broken team.

The Phillies are continuing their domination of the Rockies tonight. With home runs by Utley and Jenkins Philadelphia leads 6-1 in the bottom of the seventh. For the three games so far, the Phillies are outscoring the Rockies 33-10. That's a series drubbing.

The Arizona Diamondbacks go into south Florida and walk out with their two best pitchers beaten and three losses in a row. They're now tied with the Cubs for best record in the National League, and the Marlins are only 1/2 game back. Miller pitched brilliantly, picking up a short shutout as he struck out nine and walked just one in seven innings in the 4-0 victory. The Florida pitchers stepped up, and stopped a very good offense. While the Marlins scored just 10 runs in the three games, the DBacks were held to three.

Only 13,000 showed up tonight. The Florida fans are missing something special.

The Giants and Phillies certainly gave the fans at Some Bank Ballpark (yes, I know it's Citizens) their money's worth. The first two games went extra innings, and today's game was won in the bottom of the ninth. Yabu walked Howard and Burrell with two out in the bottom of the ninth to set up the winning run on a Velez error off the bat of Jenkins. The Giants defense cost them dearly as five of the runs allowed today were unearned. So despite allowing four runs, Tim Lincecum's ERA went down, as none were earned. At 8-7 in one run games, almost half of the Giants games have been decided by that slim margin.

The Indians and Angels split their four game series, which keeps LAnaheim in second place in the race for home field advantage, one game up on Cleveland. Despite three lopsided victories, the series was quite even, with the Indians outscoring the Angels 17-16 over the four games. A playoff series between the two would be a lot of fun. Right now, it's more likely to happen in the ALCS than the ALDS, but I could see these two teams going down to the ninth inning of game seven.

The also split the season series 5-5, with LAnaheim topping Cleveland 40-36 in runs scored. The Indians drew more walks and hit more homer runs, but they also struck out a lot more, 82-55. That allowed the Angels to out-hit them 94-80. The teams use two different offensive philosophies, and I'd like to see them go head-to-head in a seven game series.

Congratulations to the schedule maker to managed to have five of the six division leaders playing the second place team early this week. Tonight, the Mets play at Philadelphia, the Diamondbacks play at San Diego and the Angels travel north to Seattle. Tomorrow, the Red Sox play in The Bronx and the Brewers travel to the north side of Chicago. For the Phillies and Yankees, it's make or break time. For the rest, tight division races should make for exciting competition. I'll take a look at each series over the next two days.

The Red Sox finished the demolition of the White Sox today, taking game four of their series 11-1. Javier Vazquez struck out ten, but still allowed seven runs in six innings on three homers. The Red Sox score at least ten runs in each game, out-scoring Chicago 46-7. And with the Yankees losing to Detroit, the Red Sox lead is back to 7 1/2 games.

What does this mean for Chicago? They're now in last place. The pitchers aren't getting outs and the hitters aren't hitting. For the year, the big difference between the White Sox and their opponents is simply batting average. The batters walk more than the pitchers allow, and they're about even in home runs. But they're down 30 points in batting average. This is just a team of players who don't hit well. It's amazing how in two years they've gone from the toast of the town to the also-rans again.

Brandon Inge drives in Timo Perez in the top of the tenth and the Tigers sweep the three game series against the Twins with a 4-3 victory. All three games were tight, well pitched contests as Detroit takes the series by a score of 8-5. The loss leaves Minnesota nine games out of first place in the AL Central and makes it much tougher to contend for the division title this season.

Update: Just how good were the Twins pitchers in this series? They allowed a .231 batting average, walked seven batters and just one home run. That's a tough way to lose.

The great pitching continues in Minneapolis as the Tigers take a 2-1 lead on the Twins in the top of the seventh. That means so far, the teams have combined to score nine runs in three games. The majors are averaging 9.3 runs per game! Bonderman and Baker have combined to strike out eight and walk just one so far.

James Loney goes one for three with a run scored today and five for thirteen in the series as the Dodgers win today 5-3, sweeping the Giants. The Dodgers bury their intrastate rivals 12 1/2 games out of first place. There was an article the other day claiming a poor series by the Giants would lead to a fire sale. A sweep is about as poor as a team can get. We'll see what happens over the next two weeks. San Diego wins today, so the sweep puts the Dodgers up one game in the NL West.

Chicks Dig the Pitchers' Duel notes that the Mets series in Colorado was a good example of being unlucky and bad.

The Philadelphia Phillies salvaged the last game of their series with the Mets. Shane Victorino provided the game winning RBI with a two-out home run in the bottom of the seventh. Utley followed with a triple and scored on a Rowand single for a bit of insurance. That made the final score 5-3. Five of Victorino's nine home runs came from the seventh inning on, in which time he's hitting .313.

The Cleveland Indians take three out of four from the Oakland Athletics, hurting Oakland's wild card chances. The big blow was a Jason Michaels home run in the bottom of the seventh that turned a 3-1 Oakland lead into a 4-3 deficit. In the series, the Oakland bullpen allowed five home runs while facing only fifty batters. A home run every ten plate appearance will go a long way toward defeat.

The Indians are really doing a job on the Athletics pitching staff. The A's lead the American League with a 3.56 ERA, but over the last three games the Indians scored 20 runs. Oakland managed to get off to a 9-0 lead, but Cleveland managed to bring the score back to 11-7 after seven innings, a grand slam away from tying the game. Oakland won 13-7, but you get the feeling they need to score in double digits to have a chance against the Tribe. Cleveland has the second best offense in the majors. Here's a case where good pitching is not stopping good hitting.

Purple Row is celebrating the Rockies sweep of the Yankees. What should be one of the best offenses in baseball scored just five runs in three games at Coors. Atkins summed up the feeling of players and Rockies fans (quote corrected from post):

"A lot of people who came here Tuesday to cheer them left unhappy (Thursday)," third baseman Garrett Atkins said. "That's a good feeling."

Colorado made it a four team race in the NL West as they are now just 3 1/2 games behind the Padres. Nice to see Colorado doing well. They upped the prices for the Yankees series and drew 145,000 fans. With the sweep, those fans might realize watching the Rockies is a bargain at the normal price.

NBC Sports rates the best of the interleague rivalries.

The Washington Nationals sweep their neighbors to the north, defeating the Orioles tonight 3-1. Not only does it have to be a bit of an embarrassment for Baltimore to get swept at home by a poor Washington team, but tonight they only managed to score one run against Jason Simontacchi despite nine hits and four walks against him in seven innings of work. In all, they put 15 men on base and scored just one run! I'm guessing after this series we'll hear more calls for Perlozzo's head.

The Yankees open up a do or die series with the Red Sox tonight at Yankee Stadium. Over the next week and a half, the Yankees and Red Sox complete two-thirds of their scheduled games against each other. The Yankees need to gain ground on the Red Sox now. Likewise, the Red Sox have the opportunity to bury the Yankees for good.

Right now, the offenses are close. Boston is a little better, with a higher OBA and slugging percentage. The real difference in the teams resides in the pitching staffs. And a big part of that difference comes from the ability to strike out batters. The Red Sox staff sent about 100 more batters down swinging than the Yankees staff. What does that mean? Consider this: opponents batting average when not striking out against the Yankees is .301. Against the Red Sox the opposition hits .305 when not striking out. In other words, the two teams defend batted balls equally well. So if the Red Sox pitchers take away 100 balls in play with strikeouts, they're saving 30 hits. This shows up in the team hits allowed per nine, 8.3 for the Red Sox, 8.8 for the Yankees.

Now, the Red Sox are also walking fewer batters and giving up fewer home runs, but if the Yankees up their Ks, they'd have fewer opportunities to walk batters and allow home runs. For many years during the Torre era, the Yankees were near the top in pitcher strikeouts. They need to return to that level if their staff is going to compete with Boston.

The Tigers sweep the St. Louis Cardinals, winning today by a score of 6-3. A little over seven months removed from the World Series, the champions are languishing near last place, while the runners up are competing for a division title. Sometimes winning causes a team to stand pat. The Cardinals, who were not a great team during the 2006 regular season, didn't make many moves to improve over the off-season. The Tigers, finishing second in both the division and the playoffs, had the incentive to tinker with the lineup, and added the valuable Gary Sheffield. The World Series victory masked the weaknesses that needed to be addressed on the Cardinals team, and now they're paying for it with a poor record.

The Devil Rays wanted to develop a fan base in Orlando, and with three exciting wins they likely accomplished that. Delmon Young homered in the tenth to give Tampa Bay an 8-6 win over the Rangers. The Devil Rays swept the series, with two of the wins of the walk off variety. Young was especially helped by the move to the ballpark:

And, of course, the Rays owe a debt to Young, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 draft. He arrived in the Orlando area mired in a bona fide slump. He had gotten just six hits in his previous 52 at-bats to drop his average to a season-low .222.

But in three games at Disney, he had eight RBIs and upped his average to .244.

Young, who doesn't like to talk about himself very much, was downright modest when asked what he was trying to do in the bottom of the 10th, facing Willie Eyre with one out and Brendan Harris on base.

"Get a hit, like I always try to do," Young said.

Did he intend to hit the ball more often the opposite way, to right field, as Maddon said?

"Nope," Young said. "I just fixed my swing."

One thing the DRays need to do is get more exposure in the Orlando media. Look at the sports home page of the Sentinel. Baseball is pretty far over to the right on the menu of sports. National sports news is more important. Somehow, the Devil Rays management needs to get the newspaper to recognize them as the local team, on par with the magic to help build a fan base.

Rick Braun notes that life imitates art this week (if you can call it art):

In 1988, Milwaukee County Stadium played the role of Cleveland Municipal Stadium in the movie "Major League." Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker played the role of Doyle, the Indians' radio broadcaster whose style was "juuuuuust a bit outside."

Fast forward 19 years, and this time it's Milwaukee's Miller Park playing the role of Cleveland's Jacobs Field.

Doug Melvin wants Milwaukee fans to show up:

"If you're a true baseball fan, you should come out here," Brewers general manager Doug Melvin said Monday at Miller Park. "I would recommend coming out. I know I probably would. You get a chance to see two teams that you don't get to see very often.

"Both of them have a lot of good players. Grady Sizemore is one of the top young players in the game. You get a chance to see Vlad Guerrero, Francisco Rodriguez and (Scot) Shields. The Angels' bullpen is very good.

"So they do have a chance to see two very talented American League teams."

I hope there's a good crowd.

Whatever the Cardinals pitchers are throwing against the Dodgers hitters, it's working. The league's best offense lost 2-1 today as Suppan, Wainwright and Looper combined to allow six hits and five walks over 10 innings. The Dodgers so far have scored three runs in the three games against the Cardinals since returning from the break. They're averaging 5.2 per game, 2nd in the NL. The team is hitting .165 in the series.

The Red Sox and the Twins were the big overall winners in interleague play, posting 16-2 records. The Twins, however, didn't gain much as the Tigers went 15-3 and the White Sox 14-4. The Red Sox did gain lots of ground on these games as the Yankees and Blue Jays split with the NL, going 9-9 each.

While the Pirates took home a 3-12 record, worst in the majors against the other league, the Indians may be the biggest interleague loser. Their 8-10 record wasn't bad, but the rest of the division went 55-17, including a 10-8 record by Kansas City. Cleveland lost ground to everyone in the AL Central. They're eight games out of third place and 15 1/2 out of the wild card.

The Cardinals with a 5-10 record had a chance to lose a lot of ground, but the best record anyone in the NL Central posted was 6-9 by the Brewers and the Reds. The biggest NL winner was the Colorado Rockies. The post an 11-4 interleague record, best in the NL. They were one of only two teams in the NL over .500 (the Giants went 8-7). That record helped pull them into second place in the NL West, just 1/2 game behind the Padres.

The American League dominance over the National League continues. With nine of the fourteen interleague games decided so far, eight went to the AL team, with only the Reds beating the Royals. Why is this?

If you take the pitchers out of the equation, here's how the NL and AL stack up average wise:

Non Pitchers, 2006	AL	NL
Batting Average	.274	.270
On-Base Average	.341	.341
Slugging Percentage	.437	.437

The AL contributes more hits to it's OBA than the NL, but it's a pretty small difference. The non-pitchers in the leagues have exactly the same OBA and slugging percentage! Why should these NL teams do so poorly when they should be so evenly matched? Is it just that the matchups this year happened to really favor the AL? I'm open to explanations.

Luck is still a good one. The AL is 30-14 in one run games vs the NL this year.

The Tigers hold the Houston Astros scoreless over the last 20 innings of their three game series as Detorit wins today 5-0. Justin Verlander threw an efficient eight innings, striking out seven, walking none and allowing just three hits on 99 pitches. The Astros were outscored 19-4 in the series. The Tigers lower their league leading ERA to 3.45.

The Oakland Atheltics lost two in a row to the Kansas City Royals. At home. Because of that, the Royals no longer have the worst road record in the majors (the Pirates trail them by 1/2 game). Oakland fans are not happy.

It would be foolhardy to call the season over at this juncture, but every single sign seems to be pointing to the water rolling around in the sink. Whether it makes it to the drain is another question. The fact remains that this team is just bad right now.

The offense can't score and when they do, the starting pitching or bullpen isn't there. When the starting pitching pitches well, the offense can't score. When the starting pitching struggles, the offense might score, but then the bullpen implodes.

I'm more positive than this. The team is out of sync, but it's more than possible that they'll get in sync for a while, and suddenly look like a sure winner.

From this description of Carlos Zambrano reacting to a Pierzynski home run, and givne the brawl earlier in the series, the Cubs/White Sox cross town rivalry appears to be on a full boil. Given that the White Sox are the ones usually ignored in the town, you'd think the Cubs players would have thicker skins. Maybe with the sucess of the White Sox last year and the terrible play by the Cubs in 2006, the team from the northside isn't as loveable as in they used to be.

The Rockies pitching did a job on the Toronto Blue Jays this weekend. They sweep the series with a 5-3 win today, allowing just seven runs in the three games. The Blue Jays came into the series with one of the best offenses in the majors. Shutting them down for three games at Coors makes one sit up and take notice.

With this performance today, the Rockies home ERA drops to 4.03, below their 4.08 road ERA. Both marks are excellent for this team. I never thought this kind of success was possible at Coors, but the Rockies developed a pitching staff that lived and breathed the altitude, and at the moment it's working out well for them. The staff has only allowed 20 home runs in 23 games in the mile high city.

The Giants took no prisoners as they mangled the Houston Astros in the three game series. Just like game 1, the Giants win by a score of 10-1 tonight. In the three games San Francisco outscored Houston 34-5. They drew six walks tonight, and Bonds didn't even play. If the Giants needed a confidence boost, both the pitching and offense got it in this series.

The Oakland Athletics got their revenge on the Indians this afternoon. After losing 14-3 yesterday, the A's came back to take a 12-4 victory from Cleveland today. In four of their last five games, Oakland scored or allowed 10 runs. Cleveland has scored 10 runs or more five times, and allowed 10 or more five times, but not in the same game.

The Twins found their batting stoke in the heart of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. Going against one of the best pitching staffs in the league, they won games 7-6, 6-5 and 8-2 today. They scored 27 in their first six contests. Mostly, they found their home run stroke, knocking out six in these three games after hitting seven in their first six matches.

Stewart and Castillo are doing a great job setting the table (OBAs over .400), and now with power behind them they should score some runs.

Joe Torre has this right:

Torre also believes the Angels simply match up well with the Yankees, and under manager Mike Scioscia, have found a philosophy that works well for them. Like the Yanks, the Angels have some power, but they also create scoring opportunities, whether it's by hitting-and-running, bunting or stealing.

What they really do is put the ball in play against a bad defense.

The Daily News chronicles the Mets debacles at Turner Field.

The White Sox lead the Yankees 2-1 in the middle of the tenth. Chicago's pitching, whatever the outcome of this game, put on a tremendous performance in this series. They've allowed just five runs in three games so far to one of the best offenses in the majors.

The defense is a big aspect of why the pitching does well. Rowand in center is showing Yankees fans why they need a new centerfielder. He seems to get to everything that hangs in the air for more than a couple of seconds. Their success in this series bodes well for Chicago in the post season.

The Sox are on a roll. They swept their American League Central opponent in convincing fashion. One is White and one is Red.

The White for most of the season looked like a lucky team. At some point, those one-run wins would start going against them, the pitching would return to its normal level, and the Twins would take them. Well, while the Twins were losing 9 of 12, the White Sox won 9 of 12, including seven in a row. They finished a sweep of Kansas City last night, posting a 5-1 victory. They outscored the Royals 21-10. That's what championship teams do; win big, and crush the lowly teams of the league. The White Sox now have the biggest lead of any division leader in the majors. If they play .500 the rest of the season they will win 94 or 95 games. For the White Sox not to make the playoffs would require a collapse of historic proportions.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, swept the Indians. Cleveland was the hottest team in baseball going into the series, but Boston handled their pitching staff, scoring 24 runs in the three games. They've scored 69 runs in their 9-1 stretch, and that includes being shutout in their only loss. They've taken over the wild card lead and pulled within a game of the Orioles for first place in the AL East.

Sox it to me!

Correction: I guess I can't do math first thing in the morning. The White Sox would win 94 or 95 games if they play .500 the rest of the way, making the point even stronger.

The American League is dominating interleague play this season. The AL recorded 118 wins so far to just 92 for the National League. The only AL team that has a poor record against the NL is the Devil Rays at 3-12; Tononto, Minnesota and Oakland are just under .500 at 7-8. In the NL, interleague play helped cement the Nationals and Cardinals in first place, each pacing the NL with a 10-5 record.

The Indians have the best record vs. the NL this season, going 13-2. And while they've gained ground in the wild card race, the White Sox posted an 11-4 record vs. the NL to keep Cleveland from moving up much in the division race.

The NL West is a real punching bag for the AL teams, going a combined 24-47 vs. the AL Central, the Padres and Dodgers each adding ten losses to that total.

The Kansas City Royals completed a sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers last night, a come from behind 9-6 victory. That makes the Royals 11-4 under Buddy Bell.

It's too bad KC fans missed a good series, and only 52,000 fans showed up for the three games. They missed a rare opportunity to see the Dodgers and a rare opportunity to see a KC sweep.

Players are putting up good OBA's under Bell. They are scoring runs without Mike Sweeney as well, who's now out with an arm injury. If he comes back strong that will make the offense even better.

Tom Elia sends this piece from last summer looking at which fans had it worst over the decades, Cubs or Red Sox.

The Royals sweep the Yankees, earning a 5-2 victory tonight. What a great start for Buddy Bell! So far, he's used the bullpen effectively. The pen pitched 11 innings against New York in this series and allowed only 1 earned run, a 0.82 ERA.

Alex Belth says all you need to know about the Yankees-Mets series over the weekend:

Or, if you want to be crass about it, the Mets just out-sucked the Yankees.

I'm not surprised by the Yankees shoddy defense. They are last in the AL in defensive efficiency. But the Mets, at .708 are third in DER in the NL.

Texas has not been friendly to the Indians the last two games. The powerhouse offense of Cleveland has been shut down the last two games by pitchers who spent most of the season on the DL. It looks like the Rangers have added pitching depth just when they needed it.

I'm having a difficult time figuring out who to root for in the West. The A's, Angels and Rangers all are great stories, but at least one of them has to lose out in the race to the playoffs.

And congratulations to Mark Teixeira on hitting for the cycle! Take a look at his 2nd year numbers vs. 2003. Across the board improvement, and a big increase in power.

I've chided the fans of a number of contending teams (Royals, Marlins, Twins) for not getting excited about their teams. That's not happening in Cleveland. People are buying tickets, and Indians fans are ready to win.

Andrew Grover, 21, of Moreland Hills, brought a broom to Thursday's game that he planned to bring again Sunday in anticipation of an Indians sweep of the Twins.

"I'm confident that these young players have the talent and pitching to go all the way and definitely win the division," he said. "They're just starting to come together."

Doug Cocklin, 56, of Canton, agreed. "I was a little leery for a while, but it seems like these young players are finally jelling."

The Tribe's No. 1 fan, John Adams - who has been beating a boom-booming bass drum in the bleachers at every home game for the last 31 years - has noticed an increased fervor in the stands.

"There's a lot more excitement going on with the fans," he said. "They're not just watching to see what these guys do. Now they're excited about what they're doing."

One nice thing about this surge in fan interest is that it will provide the Indians with a little more money to use over the winter to improve the team.

The Athletics defeated the Twins today, taking three out of four in their weekend series against Minnesota. More importantly, the A's moved one game ahead of the Twins in the race for the 2nd best record in the AL. Whoever winds up 2nd will not have to play the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs, plus will get home field in that round. (That is of course, if the Yankees hold the division and overall lead in the league.)

The Twins win an extra-innings squeaker 5-4, sweeping the White Sox and extending their lead in the AL Central to 3 1/2 games. Both teams tried to give the game away; if you want to see an example, take a look at the bottom of the 7th.

White Sox seventh. Jo.Valentin walked on four pitches. Uribe singled to left, Jo.Valentin to second. Jo.Valentin was caught stealing, catcher H.Blanco to third baseman Koskie. Uribe was caught stealing, catcher H.Blanco to second baseman Rivas. Crede singled to center. Romero pitching. Rowand pinch-hitting for B.Davis. Rowand walked on four pitches, Crede to second. Borchard pinch-hitting for W.Harris. Borchard walked, Crede to third, Rowand to second. Ti.Perez bunt single to first, Crede scored, Rowand to third, Borchard to second. J.Rincon pitching. Ca.Lee struck out.
Runs: 1, Hits: 3

Let's get our first two batters on, then have them run into outs. The Twins then allow four consecutive batters to reach, resulting in a tie game. Six baserunners that inning, but only 1 run. Ineptitude on both sides of the ball.

The White Sox completed a three-game sweep of the Minnesota Twins this afternoon to extend their lead in the AL Central to 2 games. Johan Santana has to be shaking his head over this game. He outpitched Garland by a mile, but allowed a two-run HR to Carlos Lee, and the Twins could only manage one run despite eight hits and three walks. They had 3 runners removed with double plays and a caught stealing. The Twins need some offensive help. Ford and Mauer can't do it by themselves.

It wasn't a good weekend for the NL West. The Rockies managed to beat the Phillies today for the only win in the division this weekend. The Cubs swept the Padres, the Reds swept the Dodgers, the Pirates took three from the Giants and, most embarassingly, the lowly Montreal Expos swept the Arizona Diamondbacks. The DBacks are now just 1 1/2 games in front of the Expos for worst record in the NL.

The Yankees have announced their rotation for the Twins Series.

Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens will start the first three games of the series against the Minnesota Twins, manager Joe Torre said Friday.

"We'll go through the first three games and then figure out what we're going to do," Torre said. "Wells, in all likelihood, will pitch the fourth game."

I think they are making the same mistake the A's did last year. Hudson got two starts instead of one and had a 6.23 ERA. The A's lost both games. This year, the Twins are 25-28 when a left-hander starts against them (.472) and 65-42 (.607) when a right-hander starts against them (3rd best in the majors). I think the Yankees really should go Pettitte, Mussina, Clemens, Wells and Pettitte so they can get three lefties starting against the Twins.

The veterans are paying off for Minnesota. A great game by Radke last night, and this evening, Kenny Rogers is shutting out the White Sox through five innings. He's only given up three hits, no walks and has only thrown 60 pitches. I will reiterate that if the Twins win this game, I believe they've won the division. They lead 3-0 in the fifth.

Twenty-five years ago I arrived in the Boston area for college. My matriculation coincided with the famous four game series between the Yankees and Red Sox known as the Boston Massacare. It was 1978, and the Red Sox had a 13 1/2 game lead in the middle of July on the Yankees, but by Sept. 7, the Yankees had cut that lead to four games and were starting a four game series with Boston. The Yankees swept the series and pounded the Red Sox by a combined score of 42-9.

Twenty-five years later, the Red Sox come into Yankee Stadium 3 1/2 games back, and are pounding the Yankees. They won 9-3 last night, and just hammered Roger Clemens for six runs in the fourth, all but two earned. It's 7-0, and Wakefield has retired the first 11 batters. Will this go down in history as the Breaking of the Bronx?

The Mets are leading the Braves 4-1 in the third inning. If the boys from Queens hold on, they'll have swept the best team in the majors, having shutdown of the best offenses in the majors in the first two games. The Braves are putting their heavy hitters in the lineup, while the Mets appear even more rag-tag than usual with the September callups dotting the lineup. Maybe the Braves are just taking it easy, but if I'm a playoff foe, I'm going to watch the tapes of these games to see just what the Mets did.

And no, I wouldn't trade for Timo Perez and bat him third. :-)