Mark is lucky he's on his honeymoon right now, because I'm sure he wouldn't enjoy writing about this past Boston series here on his blog.

So the dirty work is left to the me, his sub. But I pretty much gave my opinion about the Red Sox series over on Will's blog after Monday's game. Not much has changed since then, so I'll leave it at that.

I must say, though, that the Red Sox fans seemed much more well-behaved last night than in the past. Perhaps it's because they sense that this time, they actually do have a good team, and they don't need the false bravado. Perhaps if they win the World Series, they'll stop being obnoxious altogether.

It's a nice theory, but like most nice theories, it probably won't hold water in the real world.

Fortunately, Anaheim lost last night, so the A's remain 1 1/2 games up. Cleveland is next:

Friday, 7pm (KICU): Scott Elarton (3-10, 6.52) vs. Mark Mulder (17-4, 3.90)
Saturday, 1pm (FSN): C.C. Sabathia (11-9, 3.98) vs. Rich Harden (9-6, 3.98)
Sunday, 5pm (ESPN2): Jake Westbrook (12-7, 3.37) vs. Barry Zito (10-10, 4.62)