Over at TKS Jim Geraghty reports that Kerry boasted last night about the Red Sox gaining a game on the Yankees. Now, I know he has a lot of things on his mind and is very tired, etc., but this is just the kind of thing you don’t get wrong if you are a real fan, or even follow this race slightly. Last night, if (in the unlikely event) Derb had asked me when we saw each other what the Yanks’ margin was in the AL East, I’m sure I would have managed to say something like, “Nghrk, 3 1/2 games, spltfftz, 3 in the loss column.” (A loss column footnote: My girlfriend has become quite the baseball fan and comes up with stuff that sometimes blows me away (e.g., “without some lefty help in the bullpen, the Yankees are going to be hurting”). But I have never been able to explain properly the importance of the loss column to her, for some reason.)