Seven Games Left

This evening Pica called with delight from the other room—“oh wow!”. She was checking the score of the Red Sox-Yankees game just after the Red Sox had scored seven runs in the bottom of the eighth. The Red Sox went on to win it 12-5. The Yankees are assured of a playoff spot, and I don’t think the Red Sox are going to overtake them to capture the division title. But they’re in very good shape for the wild-card race.

More bottom-of-the-eighth heroics in San Francisco this afternoon. The Giants very much needed to win today to stay in the playoff hunt, both for the wild-card and the division race. We were running errands this afternoon and were catching bits and pieces of the game. For lunch we stopped at El Mariachi: on the telly the Giants already down 2-0 to the Dodgers in the first inning and I was distressed. Happily Ray Durham hit a leadoff home run for the Giants in the bottom of the first to make things closer. Later on it was 4-2 Dodgers—we grew disgusted so we turned the radio to KDRT, Davis’s new low-power FM radio station. When we finally headed home after shopping at the co-op we turned on the radio and had just missed a grand slam by Pedro Feliz. Giants were up 9-5, and they held on to the lead in the top of the ninth to win.

Back east, the Cubs blew a 3-0 lead in the ninth and lost to the Mets. The Cubs are the Giants’ chief rival in the wild-card hunt, the Giants now only a half-game back of the Cubs, and 1 1/2 games back of the Dodgers in the division race. More excitement to follow, for sure.