It’s all right, Ken. You gave up a solo homer, no big deal. Everyone does it- shoot, we’ve come to expect it. We’ll forgive you… as long as you go back to pitching the way you had been.

It was a tough loss (wasn’t it, Mr. Putz?), but I’m taking it as a good sign that this team fought all the way to 12 innings in that one. Speaking of extra innings, it was quite a night for free baseball, eh? That Texas game looked about as exciting as the team itself has been (we may just see them in their first WS this year), and the walkoff Granny out in Minneapolis… to win at home like that after 13 innings- must have been a great game to see in person. Too bad all home teams couldn’t have won in extras yesterday.

Enough about that, though- I looked at the replays of Tuesday’s close call of Beltran’s steal of third multiple times, and Mets fan or not, I think the ump made the right call. There’s one angle from which it looks like Beltran slid into Chipper’s glove before touching the base, and one angle which looks like he had fingers on the bag when he made contact with the glove. From where the ump was standing, though, it was way too close to call, and the tie goes to the runner.

Speaking of umps, what on Earth was homeboy in Minnesota THINKING when he put his arm around Magglio Ordonez to try to steer him back to the dugout after calling him out? If it had been the other way around and Ordonez tried to guide the ump somewhere, he’d have been rung up faster than a pregnancy test a couple of weeks after Prom. That umpire needs to be suspended.

On the other end of the spectrum, kudos to the Orioles’ bench for springing up to make sure (Devil) Ray Carlos Pena didn’t break his neck when he flipped over the dugout railing to make that amazing catch. There was a time when guys would probably have let an opposing player seriously F himself up in a similar situation.

Oh, and my condolences to Ryan Zimmerman, whose truly impressive hitting streak ended at 30 flippin’ games.

Anyway, let’s see what happens in San Fran tonight!