Would you have guessed that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays had the best record in the AL East last week? Everyone knew that the Devil Rays (it's a stupid idea to have a baseball team with two words for its name) would finish last in the division. But if you have followed the career of Lou Piniella, you also knew that they wouldn't be a pushover either. They may lose their share of games, but they will win their share too and unlike last year, they are playing almost .500 ball against the AL East. If Piniella was managing the Blue Jays (another stupid two word team name) this year, they would still be in the wildcard hunt.

By the way, there are four two word team names and they are all in the American League. But we'll leave the Red Sox and the White Sox alone since their respective names are almost a hundred years old.

Kansas City is leading the White Sox in the ninth so if that score holds on, the Royals will have met the first challenge of what has become a very entertaining rivalry. Tony Pena has done an amazing job managing this team of no names, especially when you consider that Mike Sweeney, their only top player, has been out for two months. They remind me of the '96 Yankees when they didn't have any leaders in the top categories but won because they believed that they would. Those were back in the days when Torre was fearless and didn't pull triggers that shouldn't be pulled. But, alas, I have strayed off topic.

The Royals were in a nip and tuck game and only led by a run going into the ninth, but in a real display of the team's character, knew they needed more and scored three more runs and now lead by four. Wouldn't it be great if the Royals lasted and made the playoffs? The Royals did win the game tonight.

The Dodgers fired hitting coach, Jack Clark, today. It's obvious that you can't fire the players that are batting a collective .244 as a team so you might as well fire the hitting coach. Clark played fifteen years in the majors and piled up 700 extra base hits in his career to go with a lifetime OBP of .379. That's a guy who knew something about hitting. The lack of hitting isn't always bad coaching as it is the lack of talent.