James Shields' Bad Luck, The Haskell and Tiger Woods

Once again, Rays pitcher James Shields takes the mound for the Rays, and once again his teammates fail to score any runs for him. Shields pitched 7 1/3 innings, with 7 of those innings being of the no-hit variety against the KC Royals. It's absolutely amazing how this team can lead the league in runs scored for most of the season yet when Shields takes the mound this offense clams up in the run scoring department. Game has just become final and the Rays drop a costly game to the Royals, 4-1.
This is absolutley an unacceptable result for the Rays who are trying to get back into the race for a wild card spot. They simply had to sweep the Royals in this series, and in winning the first two, it looked like they had finally hit some kind of stride. This loss hurts a lot more as the Yanks and Red Sox are both winning their respective games and the Rays will drop a game to each. The Red Sox come to town for a short two game series beginning on Tuesday evening. However the Rays cannot get caught looking ahead as they still must stay focused in order to finish off the Royals in the final game of the series on Monday evening.
Tough loss for Shields. Tough loss for the Rays! Bad loss for the Rays!!

In horse racing this afternoon, The Haskell runs at Monmouth Park. This race will feature The Preakness winner, filly, Rachael Alexandra, and Belmont winner Summer Bird. Rachael is the morning line favorite at 4/5. Those are not good odds to bet into so we need to find some value in this race and I think we have some in the Todd Pletcher entry of Munnings. JR will be aboard Munnings and he knows a lot about Monmouth, as does Todd Pletcher the trainer. We are taking a bit of a chance here in Munnings, who has never been around two turns, but has rated and has the fractions to rival the early pace setting Rachel. Munnings has won his last two starts but both at 7 furlongs. Rachel has wonn all 6 of her starts this year and can become only the second filly to win The Haskell. Clavin Borel will be aboard and we all know that on this filly he does not neccessarily sit in the back and make a run. He will let the filly dictate what kind of early pace she wants to run. There will be a bid from the late running Summer Bird, but Rachel has already shown that she can hold off the closers, while not even at her best! While I am not calling this a two horse race officially, it sure looks like one, with hopefully Munnings coming out on top for a price. Will also play a cold exacta 4/6. As always, this is horse racing so anything can happen. It looks like the weather will be rough and that favors early speed most of the time. It has been a rough day so far at Monmouth as far as falls are concerned, so safety is definitely a concern. Good luck!

In golf, it looks like the rest of the PGA tour players are conceding the tournament to Tiger Woods as none of them are making any kind of move against him!