[cknox0723]

buehrle loses the shutout in the top half of the next inning, which is only too bad because the thought had crossed my mind around that time that we had the chance to get three wins, two of which were shutouts. but he hits tony giarratano in the shoulder -- i wish he would stop hitting people -- and then wilton reynolds three-bases a hit. that seemed too easy. 5-1 now, but three fly outs in a row bring the inning to a quick enough close, even if they do shave the lead down another run.

yet another ramon vazquez base hit gives us yet another runner in scoring position after a seventh-inning walk and fielder's choice against jack cressend, but kennedy and ordonez strike out and i feel as though i should have aborted this sentence long ago. buehrle looks fantastic once again in the eighth, retiring the heart of the order in wigginton, johnson, and spivey. only the middle gentleman of the three hits much more than his weight, but we're only three outs away so that's but a brief flicker in my mind. buehrle's up around 115 pitches and probably tired but i like seeing him pitch a lot of innings, so i'm pretty committed to letting him finish this one off. with a three-run lead...with a quick hook, why not?

then the bottom of the eighth comes. catalanotto singles, gonzalez singles, the hits mirror images of each other if...well, i'm not too good with physics, so i don't know where you'd have to set up a mirror to show a ball's bounce past short as traveling the same path as one bouncing past third. but suffice it to say that both swung a bit and hit baseballs on a line!

for some reason, i get the brilliant idea to send them on a double steal, even though neither is particularly fast nor slow. it doesn't work. after frank thomas flies out, we get that lost baserunner back anyway as eric munson draws a walk, and then yorvit torrealba takes one of those goofy half-swings and veritably plops a ball into center field. whatever works. raul gonzie trots home, it's 6-2 and there's still two men on.

for mark buehrle. like a lunk, i don't follow my heart (imagine that!!), instead listening to my stathead-infected mind. shea hillenbrand is announced as the pinch-hitter. his idea of hitting is a pop-up to left. i swear, swat the table absent-mindedly, and bring on joe roa to put the ribbon on this one, figuring he could use the work, having only pitched twice this year.

have i ever mentioned that i can't wrap gifts? seriously...maybe it is that i have poor eyesight, or was never very good at geometry. but, yeah, i can't do that, in case you were wondering.