WHILE WE WAIT FOR THE NEXT YANKEE GAME

**AJ Burnett goes for the Yanks tonight, but there is still no word on A-Rod. Eric Chavez has filled in very admirably in his absence. The Yankees biggest worry has to be Bret Gardner's continued futility at the plate. He looks like he's trying to chop and slice everything to left, instead of just swinging naturally. They need him on base to take advantage of his speed.

**The Red Sox finally got a decent game out of Dice-K. One more bad outing and his next start might have been in Pawtucket. The Sox aren't exhibiting a lot of patience right now. Mark Scutaro, who was the Sox savior at short last year, isn't hitting right now. Jed Lowrie IS hitting and playing regularly and not only is Scutaro benched, there is a rumor the Red Sox are trying to trade him. On the Carl Crawford front, it's not a good sign when you go 1 for 5 and you raise your average 10 points.

***Bob "Wrong-Way" Matthews has finally gotten one right...kinda. He predicts the Yankees won't keep up their home run pace, which would give them 312 for the season, 48 more than the current record. [Bonus question - Which team holds that record?] I would think that's right, but Bob thinks they will have 229 for the year and that's probably too low. He says the final numbers will include 38 for A-Rod, 36 for Teixeira and 29 for Cano, 103 all together. I think that's low by 15-20 homers. I'll keep track.

***Here's a couple of oddities that were brought to light by Jason Stark, noted Yankee-hater:
This one occurred during the Indians-Orioles game. With men on 2nd & 3rd with one out, the batter hit a long fly ball that allowed the runner on third to score and the runner on second to advance to third. But the Orioles made an appeal against the runner on second for leaving too soon and it was upheld. That's a double play, end of the inning. But the run was allowed to count since it wasn't a force play and the out was credited AFTER the run scored (The out is recorded at the time of the appeal).
One reader to Stark's column, brought up the fact that if the runner on third left too soon also, and they appealed the play at second first, the run would still count even if they then appealed at third, because the inning was officially over after the first appeal. It won't be long before we see an "Official Rules" coach in the dugouts.

Maybe the Cubs don't always win, but they are always interesting. They have had records of 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, 5-5, 6-6, 7-7, and 8-8, so far this year. You tell me what that means.

[Bonus question answer: the 1997 Seattle Mariners. 264. It wouldn't be surprising if very few people got that right, but I sure hope Dwight Perry did.]

CP-