Cubs 3 Giants 2- The Enchanter enchanted but whatever fireballs he threw weren't enough to win the game as once again, the Giants offense failed to show up and the bullpen burped up another lead, this time in the eighth. Speaking of no offense, we did a little number crunching (based on hearsay and conjecture and our high school level mathematical skills) and figured out that the Giants have played in forty-two games in which they haven't scored more than three runs. For those scoring at home, that's a about 47% of their games. Not too surprisingly, their record is horrible in those games: 5-37. The team, however, is fourteen games under .500 which means the team isn't too bad when they score runs. In fact, we called up one of our accountant friends who told us that all of this means that the Giants have a record over .500 when they score over three runs. What we're saying here is one has to wonder what this team would be like if it they had another decent bat. Or two. In fact, one has to wonder what would have happened if they took all the money they threw at Barry Zito and instead gave it to Soriano (guessing, of course, that any lackey pitcher from AAA could have the same stats as Zito does). You can also sort of get a glimpse into the drunken game of Jenga Sabaen tried to play on a very rickety table this season in that if a bunch of hitters (Roberts, Vizquel, Aurillia, Durham) hit close to their career averages, this team isn’t that bad. Not great, but not bad. Well, maybe a little bad.

Rangers 4 A's 1- And speaking of not scoring more than three runs, there's the A's who haven't scored more than three runs in eleven games and now find themselves closer to the cellar dwelling Rangers than the division leading Angels. In fact, one has to wonder if this team is pretty much donezo. The Angels are a pretty, pretty good team and unlikely to choke up a 12 game lead. As for the wild card, there's way too many teams in front of the A's and it's pretty much conventional wisdom that the Wild Card team will be whomever loses that big ole dog fight in the AL Central between the Tigers and the Tribe. In other A’s news, the A's traded barely hitting catcher Jason Kendall to the Cubs for a bunch of minor leaguers