How To Give All The Copy Editors a Layup for a Headline...

...because if you can't come up with a way to work in "Crazy Eights" into the banner recap of today's second inning between the White Sox and Yankees, you clearly need to find another line of work.

I don't why I feel the urge to actually write down what happened with the Sox over these past three days in the Bronx, other than the feeling that maybe regurgitating it will make it hurt less. I don't think it's working. In any event, the Sox actually did a little lumber work of their own today, using a key Robinson Cano error to hang 8 runs on Roger Clemens, who was making his final start as 44-year old.

The snowman would've seemed like enough, but when Sox pitching has tossed 13 long-balls in 16 innings against the Bombers so far this year, you knew they had a run in them. Heck, you'd know that just by remembering this is the same team that allowed Cleveland to turn 11-2 into 11-10 with the go-ahead run on base - in the eighth inning! Surely the Sox bullpen would rear its ugly head once more, right?

Wrong. Oh, don't worry, this time it was starter Jon Garland's turn to get beat like a piñata, yielding 8 runs on 9 hits in just an inning and a third. But the Sox bullpen, awful as it is, rose to the challenge. After Boone Logan yielded an RBI double to Jorge Posada to knot the score at 8, he retired Cano to mercifully end the second after an even 60 minutes, 16 runs, 17 hits, and 90 pitches. It was just the second time in major league history that both the top and bottom of the same inning featured at least 8 runs being scored. It also seemed to serve as a call to arms for the Sox pen, as Logan, Matt Thornton, Ryan Bukvich, Mike MacDougal, and Bobby Jenks yielded five hits and 1 run (a Bobby Abreu solo shot in the sixth off Bukvich) over the final seven frames. Jermaine Dye and Paul Konerko supplied the power in the late innings for the Sox in what ultimately turned out a satisfying, if mentally exhausting, 13-9 win.

Final tally for the Yanks in the three game set: 15 home runs over 24 innings, yet not one of them by Alex Rodriguez. Multiple jacks for Shelly Duncan, a homer for Wilson Betemit in his Bronx debut, but no #500 for A-Rod. So the Sox can at least feel good about that.

Tomorrow: White Sox-Tigers, Mark Buehrle vs. Andrew Miller, 6:05 PM CDT.