7:45 A.M.: Today’s game against the San Francisco Giants will mark the end of interleague play for the nonce, and I’m glad. I don’t like it because I think it’s a marketing stunt, but that’s secondary. A New England team has no business on the West Coast, that’s what I really think.

Still, it should be an interesting contest—the rubber game in a three-game series the Red Sox would dearly love to win. For one thing, it would send them home with a .500 record for the trip. For another, they’d go back to Boston four and a half behind the Yankees, only three and a half if the Dodgers can beat the Yankees again today. And Sox pitching has pretty well muzzled Barry Bonds, who strikes me—admittedly an outsider, but sometimes outsiders see with clearer eyes—as one of the game’s more arrogant and conceited players. His fans in left field hang rubber chickens when Bonds is intentionally walked, but they haven’t hung many in this series.

Oh, and by the Ray—the Devil Ray, that is—those Tampa Bay bad boys have now won a franchise-best ten straight. And you know what that makes them, don’t you? Right.

Hapless no more.

SO: So where was Foulke yesterday when Alfonzo came to the plate? I know our pen threw five Friday night (tanks, Wake), and that Williamson just got off the DL, but Francona’s use of the bullpen’s been a real mess lately. We’ve been behind a fair amount this road trip (just like the last two), but D-Lowe’s 11–0 laugher should have given us a breather. Does Theo need to go and get a middle guy to replace Mendoza and Arroyo, or are Mendoza and Kim actually going to come back and contribute? The All-Star break’s three weeks away, and all we’ve gotten out of those two is a single quality start from BK.

Meanwhile, Dauber languishes in Pawtucket, the forgotten Sock. Yesterday he jacked a foul ball out of McCoy Stadium into the middle of the football field next door—thing must have gone 475 feet.

SK: Where’s Francona been lately? He could have cost us the game on Friday night, playing Bellhorn at third. Wuz just luck it worked out.

The rubbah game today should be good. Did you see the Harvard-prof piece in the NY Times about how teams that pitch to Bonds instead of walking him (tentionally or un) do better than those who don’t? The Giants score .9 runs an inning when he’s walked with none on and no outs, and .6 an inning when he’s pitched to in that situation. We pitched to him yesterday, and altho I didn’t see the whole game, I think he went 0-fer.

Oh, and by the way—how ’bout those THIRD PLACE Devil Rays?