Where to start? How about with the Red Sox? (Surprise!)

Taking 2 of 3 from the Empire in Yankee Stadium was certainly nice, especially after the beating the Sox took in Toronto. They may have even swept the series, but they had two (!) runs cut down at the plate on Friday night, so they ended up with only one run off five consecutive hits against Randy Johnson. Needless to say, Dale Sveum was getting killed by the Fellowship of the Miserable on WEEI the next morning, and he probably deserved to be.

That was followed up with a 17-1 beating by the Red Sox on Saturday, and then a win by David Wells on Sunday. Wells looked great after giving up 2 home runs in the first inning. He completely shut down the Yankees from then on, giving up only one hit until he gave way to Keith Foulke with one out in the 9th. After Boomer's last two poor starts, it's good to see him pitch a gem. Let's see if he can keep it up.

I'm off to Fenway tomorrow night for a visit to the Monster Seats against the division-leading Orioles. I can't wait. The Monster Seats are, in my opinion, the best seats in baseball. This will be the third time I'll be sitting up there since they installed the seats in 2003. I'll have a report on Thursday.

Memorial Day is customarily one of the checkpoints of the Major League Baseball season, so I was perusing the standings to see how things stood. Here's a short bit of commentary, by division:

A.L. East: Pretty much everyone, except Tampa Bay, is still in the running here. Baltimore leads the pack, the Yanks and Sox are 4 back and the Blue Jays are a half-game behind in 4th place. I still expect it to be the Yankees and the Red Sox battling it out at the end, but Baltimore's offense could keep them in it if the pitching continues to be even half decent.

A.L. Central: The Twins trail the White Sox by 4 games, while the Tigers and Indians languish 9+ games back. The Royals aren't even worth talking about, as new manager Buddy Bell certainly has his work cut out for him. This will be a fun race to watch, as both Minnesota and Chicago are good teams. They will also both be dangerous in the wild card race, since both teams get to play the woeful Royals 19 times each.

A.L. West: The Angels and Rangers start off the day in a virtual tie for first place, with the Mariners and A's way off the pace. The Angels appear to be the better team on paper, but the Rangers could hang tough with that great infield if the pitching doesn't wilt in the Texas heat.

N.L. East: Everyone is still in this one, as only 4.5 games separate first and last place. The Braves have that 13 year division title streak going, and they still seem to be the team to beat. They go into today tied for first with the Florida Marlins. The Mets and the Washington Nationals are 2.5 back and even the last place Phillies are only 4.5 games back. I see this coming down to the Marlins and Braves, although significant injuries to any of these teams, especially in the starting pitching, could really tip the balance of power in the division.

N.L. Central: The defending N.L. Champion Cardinals are already 7.5 games ahead. The only other team in the division that is even over .500 are the injury ravaged Cubs (anyone see that ball bounce off Mark Prior's elbow? Ouch!). It's amazing how quickly the Astros have fallen, going from being one game away from the World Series last year to being 14 games under .500 less than two months into the season. Unless the Cubs get healthy quickly, I can't see any of the teams keeping pace with St. Louis.

N.L. West: San Diego leads the Diamondbacks by 3 games, and are 5.5 games ahead of the fading Dodgers. The Giants are going to have a tough time competing without Bonds in the middle of the lineup, and the Rockies are in Royals territory. I see San Diego taking the division, although the additions that Arizona made over the winter are certainly helping. I think the Padres Jake Peavy is a teriffic pitcher. Next time he pitches on TV, I'm going to go out of my way to watch him.

Bizzare occurance of the weekend: I was getting my patio set out of the basement, and I was carrying the glass top of our table upstairs when it suddenly just exploded in my hands. Little bits of glass just all over the place. Fortunately, I was wearing sunglasses so my eyes were protected and I escaped with just a couple of nicks on my hands. I don't know if it was temperature change or stress on the wrong spot or what. So it took an hour to clean up all the glass, and then we found a nice new table on the cheap at Grossmans Bargain Outlet. You'd never know that it wasn't the table that came with the set (unless you read my blog, of course...)