Aaaand we're back to three

Rays starter Jeff Niemann turned in another solid performance as Tampa Bay beat Boston 4-3 to reduce the Sox's wild card cushion to three games.

With Wake on the mound Sunday against David Price, Joe Maddon may end up getting his wish and leave Boston only 2 games back.

Got to hand it to the Rays, they've owned the Sox all season and coming to Fenway doesn't back them off a bit now. I could do without all the whiny nonsense about umpire favoritism and such, but you can't dismiss how the guys up their game against Boston time and again.

Tampa Bay was nine or ten games behind at the start of September, and like I said, I don't know if this is epic or historic or what, but if the Rays can overcome the Sox and make the wild card based almost soley on pitching -- that's just got to be seen as something amazing!

---

A side note: I don't want to rain on Ron Artest's parade, but his name change to "Metta World Peace" . . . sorry Ron it's been done already -- meet World B.Free:

NBA stats:
1975-1991
17,955 career points (20.3 ppg)
2430 career rebounds (2.7 rpg)
3319 career assists (3.7 apg)

The lead's back to four

Red Sox win last night 4-3 as Josh Beckett comes back from a sprained ankle to throw six solid innings against the tenacious Rays.

Giving up only 3 runs, and getting 7 K's while throwing just over a hundred pitches, the Sox's ace kept them in the game against the formidable James Shields who forced Boston to play small ball to keep up.

Evan Longoria continued his re-awakening with another monster home run off Beckett. Pity he had that mystifying slump late in the season. They could have used some reliable power from their marquee player.

Maddon got ejected late after arguing balls and strikes as the umpires seemed to be favoring Beckett with their calls. This isn't the first time the Rays have complained about this and I've got to agree, it seems a little blatant at times. You hope for things to be called down the middle in important games like this . . . but I've seen enough calls given to big name pitchers and hitters, it's one of those things where you just have to accept it as a part of the game.

Takes some of the fun out of a tough pitcher's duel at the end of the season though.

Well that was a nice start

The Red Sox went down in flames last night to the Rays 9-2 to have their wild card lead cut to just three games.

24 year old call up Kyle Weiland didn't even make it through four innings before getting yanked as Jeremy Hellickson continued to show the promise that the Rays hoped for when bringing him up last year.

Beckett's on the mound tonight and I'd like to see the guy that was cruising towards 20 dominating wins this season, but frankly the way this season is going, I won't be surprised if he gets blown out of the stadium.

I had such hopes for this team once they got off of that crappy slow start, but seeing the injuries mount and watching them stumble in these last weeks -- they were leading the division at the beginning of Sept(!), it's kind of like watching the old Dan Duquette era Sox all over again.

If the Rays get in the post season, it'll certainly be fun down here. And hopefully these indifferent local fans will fill the stadium for the games. But it's no guarantee.

Also no guarantee is either Boston or Tampa Bay in the wild card game -- I think the Angels are closing in fast and it would be the ultimate irony for both of these teams to pummel each other out of the playoffs.

Late night hotness . . .

Pattern or solid? Yeah, I can never decide either:

I love Liz Cheney

Why isn't she on television more?

I don't normally watch the O'Reilly Factor, because Bill O'Reilly is mostly a gasbag who doesn't know nearly as much as he thinks he does. But when I saw he had Liz coming on to talk about her father's new book, I tuned in.

And I'm glad I did.

She slapped him silly over the mortgage crisis and Iraq both. Watching O'Reilly reduced to giving her the "I disagree with you and we'll have to leave it at that" submission was wonderful. I don't know who's going to come out of the Republican primaries, but someone smart ought to give this gal a job in their administration or campaign or something.

She rocks!

Well hello there Scarlett Johansson

It seems unconventional beauty Scarlett Johansson has joined the long list of female celebs to have her cellphone hacked and nude pics released online:

Of course, I'm always dubious when there's a necklace conveniently in place to hide where a photoshopper would have blended a head onto a body. And the lighting looks a bit inconsistent to me. But who knows?

Scarlett joins the celeb sorority of Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus, Jessica Alba, Blake Lively and others . . . apparently it's the same dude doing all the hacking and releasing of images. What is this guy? The James Bond of hacking or what? Or do these chicks just have really stupid passwords on their accounts?

And why are they using their cell phones to take all these self nude shots? What are they doing with them? Whipping out the phone at parties and bars and going "Hey check this out!" Don't their boyfriends/husbands see them naked enough already that they have to keep sending them pictures of themselves?

Of course maybe if I had a girlfriend this would seem a lot more normal. Perhaps I'm the one out of the loop here.

sigh

Starting to see some push back

I've been complaining (as my three regular visitors know) since the beginning of the debates about the nature of the debates themselves and the circular firing squad/self immolation path of the Republican candidates.

With the dog pile on Rick Perry situation reaching critical mass, I'm noticing some movement in the conservative blogosphere to moderate the attacks.

A Dr. Ronald DePinho, the president of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, points out that the HPV vaccine, Gardasil, is not only sound, but calls it "one of the great scientific advances in the history of medicine."

In a study of over 20,000 women and young girls prior to the approval and subsequent release of Gardasil, the FDA found no negative side effects to the injection other than minor soreness at the injection site, concluding "Gardasil has one of the most favorable risk-benefit ratios of any pharmaceutical."

Rush Limbaugh on his recent radio show took Michele Bachmann to task for her over-the-top attacks on Gov. Perry on the subject as well. And though there still seems to be some anguish over the appearance of impropriety vis a vis the new meme "crony capitalism" pollsters don't seem to be finding the situation has a lot of traction among likely voters.

And as to Mitten's favorite slam on Gov. Perry -- the Ponzi Scheme meme, we're now seeing plenty of articles and columns from the past saying exactly the same thing. Even so-called economic expert Paul Krugman was calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme only 10 years ago.

Libertarian John Stossel's recent article was more blunt about it:

"Many people think that when the government takes payroll tax from their paychecks, it goes to something like a savings account. Seniors who collect Social Security think they're just getting back money that they put into their 'account.' Or they think it's like an insurance policy -- you win if you live long enough to get more than you paid in. Neither is true. Nothing is invested. The money taken from you was spent by government that year. Right away. There's no trust fund. The plan is unsustainable. Medicare is worse."

John Nolte, one of the editors at Breitbart's "Bigs" pointed out after the recent debate how upset he was that the candidates were allowing themselves to be manipulated by the moderators into attacking one another instead of President Obama. Which is pretty much what I've been griping about all along.

I suppose these things have to come about in their own time, but with 99% of the media in the President's pocket, I'd be a lot more confident if these guys/gals could get their sh*t together a little quicker and keep their eye on the ultimate goal.