More often than not I feel Ken “The Hawk” Harrelson gets too worked up over how an umpire is calling a game, but last night I could not have agreed with him more. Mark Buehrle squared off against rookie pitcher Anthony Lerew and you would have thought that Lerew was the veteran with the calls he was getting over Buehrle. That’s how it goes sometimes, but unfortunately it’s gone that way for Buehrle his last two outings. The home plate umps have been squeezing Buehrle and not giving him good calls.

“Mark has to throw it through a teacup,” squawked Hawk in the fifth inning. I could not have agreed more. Four of the five walks that Buehrle had should have been called third strikes, but he was not getting any calls. Still he battled and held the Royals to just three runs over 6-1/3 innings.

Offensively the Sox did not lack hits, just timely ones last night squandering two opportunities including a bases loaded opportunity with one out in the ninth. The main difference from this loss versus a loss like this three weeks ago is the Sox did not give up they just could not get the big hit. Hopefully things get back on track tonight with Gavin Floyd going for the Sox with his .780 ERA over this last three starts. With last nights loss the Sox lost a half a game in the standings and sit at two games back from the Detroit Tigers.