the late edition

1. these west coast trips kill me. either i do without Sox (which kills me) or i stay up half the night watching them (which kills me).

2. i have nothing to say about Barry*. i will congratulate A-Rod on his 500th home run. may he break the all time home run record as soon as humanly possible. that's right. i'm rooting for Slappy. take that as you will.

3. The Hundred Million Dollar Pitcher went through his usual paces Saturday: the requisite hit batter(s). the 10K performance. a couple of nerve-wracking erratic innings (though admittedly not as bad as some have been). a couple of towering home runs given up. the customary hundred-plus pitches. i felt like i was checking each item off his to-do list, as it was accomplished.

4. am i the last baseball fan in America to notice that suddenly Ichiro Suzuki is known only as "Ichiro"?! on the screen when they flash his stats. when they announce him. even on the back of his jersey. no last name anywhere. ok... seriously?? ::huge eye roll::

5. i actually cried out in a moment of panic when i saw Papi sliding into 2B in the fourth inning on a bobbled hit to left, so has he traumatized me.

6. if you didn't get treated to the game on the Mariners home station, i don't know if you experienced the Manny Act, live at 1B last night. just before Tek brought Papi & ManRam home to (finally! praise God!) give the Sox the lead, Manny Being Manny was actually Manny Being Ben Broussard. it started with a little shuffle-step dancing, progressed to Manny running exaggeratedly in place, and the grand finale - Manny mimicking every move Broussard made. i couldn't tell if Broussard was entertained or annoyed, but Manny had a huge goofy grin plastered all over his face. all i can say is that if Manny is having fun playing ball that can only mean good things for Boston.

7. some Seattle reliever (whose name gets lost in his armpits since it's hyphenated) must have decided Youk's furry woodland face creature needed a trim as he played chin music with Youk in the seventh.

8. observation: i think they raided Manny's locker to supply uniforms to Eric Gagne.

9. the Sox finally stopped the hellish losing streak in Seattle with a 4-3 win that still shaved precious years off my life. and for the record: i still hate Safeco Field. can't wait to get outta there after Sunday's rubber game.

time for Joshy to join the 14-win club. enough of this horsing around & having tantrums with water coolers. we need our ace to show these Mariners we aren't messing around, before we get stuck facing them in the playoffs, having given them the mental upper hand of smacking us around all season.