51 (Day Two)

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Javier Vazquez does fine the first two times through the lineup but gets in trouble the third time through the order. Well, it happened again last night, resulting in a 4-2 loss to the Lowly Royals. (Why is the "L" in Lowly capitalized? Because they suck so much that MLB has officially changed the team's name to reflect the fact. Yet we have trouble beating them.) In defense of Vazquez, the defense was offensive. For that matter, the offense was offensive. Even the coaching was offensive. Joey "Send 'Em" Cora waved Tadahito Iguchi home on Jim Thome's double and of course Gooch was thrown out at the plate to end the inning. Instead of second and third with Konerko up, the inning's over and Thome's stranded on second.

Okay, that game's out of our system. The Magic Number holds steady at 51, but we fall back to 6.5 games behind Detroit (who rallied late to beat the Bosox in Boston), and we're now only two games up on the Twins in the Wild Card race. The only good news of the night -- and I hate to take pleasure in someone's injury -- is that Tiger second baseman Placido Polanco is on the DL with a separated shoulder and, according to early reports, is out for the season. Interestingly, Ivan Rodriguez took over at second last night after Polanco was hurt -- the first time in 2,256 previous major and minor league games that he has played that position. That can't be good for Detroit. Go Sox!