Piling On

The White Sox took care of Baltimore 7-2 earlier tonight, dropping the O's to 4th place in the AL East. Baltimore is 4-11 since the All-Star break. I've been rooting for the O's to keep the pressure on Boston and New York, but at this point the division race is looking like another Red Sox-Yankees duel. That is, if the Yankees are up to the challenge. Maybe Steinbrenner can shift the focus of his R&D department from cloning Derek Jeter to finding some way to combine Shawn Chacon and Al Leiter into something that doesn't suck.

For some reason--maybe they were bored--the Orioles dealt Larry Bigbie to Colorado for Eric Byrnes. Poor Eric Byrnes has already been traded once this season, but at least he's getting upgraded to a better team this time around.

Frank Thomas has had another season-ending ankle injury and Minnesota has lost Torii Hunter for at least a month. Hunter's loss is bad news for my fantasy baseball team and even worse news for the Twinkies, who lost ground to both Chicago and Oakland tonight.

One last note: Baseball Prospectus is offering a free preview of its premium content until August 3rd. Go check it out.