49

Things got a little tense yesterday as the Royals were rallying in the ninth inning of a 5-4 game. After KC put two men on, Ozzie ordered Bobby Jenks (who entered the game early -- in the eighth inning) to intentionally walk Mark Grudzielanek to load the bases and bring Mike Sweeney to the plate. The move, which had disaster written all over it, paid off when Sweeney, who had been three for six lifetime against Jenks, hit into a game-ending double play, Crede to Konerko. Jenks's league-leading 34th save (tied with Todd Jones of Detroit) preserved the victory for Mark Buehrle, his 10th of the year. Buehrle pitched well enough to win and must now be convinced that Sandy Alomar, Jr., is his personal good-luck charm. Buehrle's renaissance began when Alomar started catching him three starts back, a win against KC (followed by a bad outing against the Angels, and a quality start in a game the Sox won against the Tigers). Whatever it takes, I'm for; the Sox need an effective Buehrle to get to the post-season. Offensively, KC and the Sox accomplished a first for major league baseball: each team's leadoff batter in the first and second innings homered. Only Elias keeps track of -- or cares about -- things like that.

The win returned the Sox to a .600 winning percentage, kept them tied with the Mets for the second-best record in baseball, reduced the Magic Number to 49, and allowed the Sox to stay 6.5 games behind Detroit. Since the Twins lost, the Sox increased their Wild Card lead to two games and pared the Wild Card Magic Number to 41. Boston is another half game back of Minnesota. There's ground to be gained in the next 10 days as the team travels to play three against the Twins and four against the Tigers before returning to the Cell to take on the Twins in another three-game set. Freddy Garcia goes up against some rookie named Boof Bonser tonight, and then the matchups get harder: Jon Garland vs. Brad Radke and Javier "Third time's not a charm" Vazquez vs. Johan Santana. I predict we take the first two and lose the third, which, given Minnesota's home record, wouldn't be bad at all. Go Sox!