It’s now 9-2 in the 8th, as I’m watching the HR Derby off Sox pitching in Texas right now.  I’ve been trying to follow the games the past week on MLB.TV and it hasn’t been that great of a week for the Sox.  Now that I’m back in Madison it will be harder to post everyday, but I will try my best.  The last week has been pretty busy, but once classes start on Friday it will probably actually be easier to post regularly again. 

For some reason Texas has had our number this year too.  We are going to have to step it up though, because Cleveland could be only 6 back after today.  I guess we have to hope we continue to dominate the Central because all but 3 games the rest of the year are against the Central.

Ball game over, Sox lose 9-2.  6 1/2 game lead.

Sorry I wasn’t able to post last night.  I left the Twin Cities right after the game and then was busy moving things into my apartment in Madison all night.  It’s going to be pretty sad not being in Chicago for the games in September.

Minnesota turned out to be pretty awesome.  Thursday’s game was another thriller.  Looking back on Tuesday now after I calmed down from losing, it was really one of the best baseball games I have ever seen.  The whole series was great. 

It’s too bad Garland got robbed of his 17th win again.  He really seems to be stuck on 16 even when he pitches great!  That’s got to be pretty frustrating.  There has been a lot of talk about the controversial play with Paul Konerko and the ball hit down the line in the 9th inning Thursday.  I was sitting right behind the 1st base dugout in the 3rd row, and while I didn’t have the best angle of the foul line, the play was right in front of me and I could see that Konerko’s outstretched arm was crossing the line while his glove was clearly on the foul side of the line.  It was a tough play to swallow, but you have to keep playing and the biggest part of that play was Konerko dropping the relay throw to home.  I’m not sure if Hawk and DJ talked about it on TV, but Newman, the Twins 3rd base coach, held Rodriguez at 3rd at the very last second but Rodriguez kept going.  If Konerko had relayed the throw cleanly the game would have been over.  It kind of reminds me of Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS cause everyone blames Bartman, but they forget Alex Gonzalez botched the double play ball two batters later that would have negated the Bartman ball anyway.  Anyway, just thought you guys would want my perspective of the situation because I was sitting right along the line there.  The replays are probably much better than what I saw though.

However, we still won the game and that is what matters.  And wow, the players were really fired up after that 9th inning.  Sitting right by their dugout, I could just tell that something good was going to happen in the 10th and we were going to win the game anyway.  It was also nice to see them do it the "smart ball" way rather than just hit a HR cause it seems like we have been getting away from that recently.

Timo really stuck it to us, didn’t he?  I was right along with most of you saying he shouldn’t be leading off and I spent most of the series complaining when he was playing.  Timo really had a great game yesterday both offensively and defensively.

Bobby Jenks looked great as well.  It’s got to be easy to pitch when you know all hitters can do is foul off your fastball and then you have that nasty breaking ball that is almost 20mph slower as an out pitch. 

The series was a lot of fun, although I was a little dissapointed with the amount of Sox fans who went up there.  I guess it was the middle of the week, but last year the place was packed with Sox fans. 

Response to some questions:

-Fan Deck Question:  Yeah with more and more people going to the games the fan deck has been more popular.  I’d say if the latest you would want to get up there would be 30 minutes before game time.  It might even be full then but a few people would leave and you could get 3 seats.  That series against Minnesota should be a good one. 

-Hoge Question: Yeah I do have some cousins with the "Hoge" name, but they all live around Wisconsin.  Maybe those are the ones you know though. 

Okay, onto Seattle.  We could really use a sweep for some confidence.