I never like losing.  Still, you cannot win all games in a long season.  The White Sox started out strong, scoring 2 in the first inning.  They looked like they were going to be able to do more, with some hard-hit balls directly at people, including a line-shot by Swisher to first, doubling off Thome in a double-play. 

Vazquez pitched exceptionally well in the beginning of this game, attacking the hitters and locating his breaking pitches early.  Even though he gave up two homeruns and three runs overall, he was pretty good. Duchscherer was a little better, and Houston Street shut the door at the end.  I never like losses, but I prefer they get beat by the opposition instead of themselves.  They simply got beat by a slightly better pitcher tonight.  I don't like it, but I can accept it.  They'll have to get them tomorrow.

The White Sox and Indians went back and forth the whole night, with Linebrink blowing the save in the ninth on Grady Sizemore's 21st homerun on the season.  That guy is on a tear, with two homers on the night.  Still, AJ matched Grady in the homerun department, which was ultimately good enough to win it for the Sox on AJs walkoff homer just over the fense in right-center.  The White Sox have been perfect on this homestand so far, sweeping the Cubs and now the Indians. They will have a tall order facing Duchscherer tomorrow, who has been excellent with a 1.91 ERA.  Still, they had quite a challenge facing Cliff Lee.  Hopefully they can continue that tomorrow against Oakland.  At 14 games over .500 and with 7 wins in a row, even the red-hot Twins have not been able to gain any ground on the White Sox.  But they do pick up a game on the Detroit Tigers, who are now 7 games back.  Let's keep it going tomorrow...

This was a fantastic ballgame.  When I saw this matchup initially, I wasn't sure how it would go because Cliff Lee came in as an 11-game winner and second in ERA, with John Danks right behind him in ERA.  Besides the homerun to Shoppach for the only earned run off Danks in 8 innings, he was excellent.  Thornton gave up the homerun to Blake, but the team picked him up.  With the Sox down to their last strike, Alexei Ramirez just cleared the left field wall with a homerun of his own to tie the game.  After Wise reached base with a hit and stole second, Cabrera knocked in the winning run for his only hit and RBI of the game.  It couldn't have come at a better time, that's for sure. Timely hitting, home runs, and outstanding pitching is how the White Sox won their first title in 88 years.  What was so beautiful about the way the Sox won tonight is the way they used a variety of offensive tools - the home run, the stolen base, and a couple base hits.  Beautiful. 

And while he didn't get the win, John Danks has done far more than carry his share of the pitching burden this year.  As far as I'm concerned, he deserves a trip to New York in this year's All Star Game.  Danks, Floyd, Carlos Quentin, Wise, and Alexei Ramirez have all been wonderful surprises, enabling the White Sox to be quite deep and consequently, quite dangerous.  They have a variety of tools and have changed the complexion of this team considerably.  Wonderful.  Let's go for the sweep tomorrow. 

The good news is the White Sox won the game, Nick Swisher hit two home runs, one from each side of the plate, with 5 RBI, and Gavin Floyd gave up three earned over six innings.  The bad news is the bullpen was not stellar and Nick Masset made things a little more interesting than they had to be.  Still, only one of those runs were earned after Joe Crede made a bad throw over the head of Nick Swisher.  I'm not too concerned yet about Joe Crede, but his error total is a bit alarming when compared to his past numbers.  Joe has been having his troubles defensively at third this year.  Still, he is capable of making the great, game-saving spectacular play, as he did in the Cubs series. 

The goal every day remains the same - to win.  Hopefully the Sox can do that tomorrow and take the series against their division rivals. 

 

Turnabout is fair play, and all is fair in love and baseball I suppose.  The White Sox returned the favor of the Northsiders for last week's Wrigley Field embarassment, soundly beating the Cubs tonight 5-1 to complete what was for me as a White Sox fan, a glorious three-game sweep.  And while a sweep of the Cubs, something that has not happened since 1999 was sweet, it was really necessary since the Tigers and the Twins don't lose baseball games anymore.  Ever since the White Sox awoke the sleeping Tigers they have gotten themselves to within 5 games of the White Sox, and the Pihrannas continue to annoyingly knip at the heels of the White Sox, winning again and just 1.5 games behind the White Sox.  The Twins, somehow behind the efforts of the mighty Boof "I changed my name to that legally" Bonser and the great Slowey have managed to win without end, a trend I certainly hope will not, nor do I expect to continue.  The Tigers have some serious offensive juice, but whether their pitching can be good enough in the long haul remains to be seen.  If pitching wins, the White Sox, behind their American League best bullpen and excellent starting pitching should be there all year, if not the favorites.  I'm not sure they will win the division by 6 as Lou Piniella predicted in yesterday's press conference, but they seem to have gotten some things together offensively lately, and I hope that will continue.

The Sox pitchers finally decided to pitch these Cubs in, completely neutralizing Aramis Ramirez, who was O for the Cell, and Derrek Lee, who has hit Buehrle hard in the past was struck out twice, and was O for 3 after going 5 for 5 yesterday. At Wrigley, these guys were diving out over the plate and killing the Sox pitchers.  I'm glad to see an adjustment was made in this series.  When Linebrink induced Ramirez into a double play in the eighth to kill a rally, I thought it was perfect redemption for the walk-off homer Ramirez hit off Linebrink last weekend.  Amazing what a difference a week, and a venue can make. 

It was sweet payback indeed, and I was priviledged to be able to attend at least half this game tonight, after watching some of it at Mitchell's where Chris Rongey and Matt Abbatacola from the Score were hanging out.  Lots of fun for White Sox fans.  They will have to keep things moving forward with Cleveland coming to town tomorrow. 

An incredible ballgame.  This was not without late-inning heroics and outstanding clutch pitching on the part of the White Sox bullpen.  They were fantastic, and Bobby Jenks was incredible, stranding Derrek Lee on third with just one out, inducing two ground balls, one to the ever-dangerous Aramis Ramirez.  I held my breath as I watched the last out, as Jim Edmonds grounded out to Alexei Ramirez to end the game. 

The Cubs are probably the best team in baseball, and the White Sox have thus far handled them quite well at home.  I always want the Sox to beat the Cubs, but I want the Sox to beat any team standing in front of them.  The Twins finally lost a game, putting the White Sox back to a 1.5 game lead.  This was a test for the White Sox, a test they have so far passed.  They need to beat good teams and not so good teams.  It's good to see them win a series against a good team like this. 

I'm still not too happy with what has been happening to the starting pitching.  Contreras and now Vazquez was not particularly good, struggling to find the strike zone, always behind in the count.  I think the key with this Cubs team is to throw strike one with a secondary pitch - like the breaking ball.  At Wrigley, they pounced on the first fastball thrown and got on base a bunch.  In this series, they have been let on with the walk and gotten big hits when our pitchers have gotten behind in the count.  With a good offense like the Cubs, you have to have command of everything - secondary pitches as well as the fastball.  You have to attack them and get ahead of the hitters, as Ozzie said in his postgame press conference.  What has saved the starting staff of late is the bullpen, that is so vastly improved with Dotel and Linebrink it is like night and day.  Masset has done a very good job as well as the long relief guy out of the Sox pen.  You win as a team and lose as a team, so it is good to see the bullpen picking up the starters of late.  They have been nothing short of outstanding.  It was nice to see the bullpen able to close the door today, when they failed last week.  It has been nice payback, and more importantly, very necessary to the Sox' psyche.  They can beat these guys - good teams as well as not so good. 

Regardless of what happens tomorrow, I still consider this a victory for the White Sox in winning a series against the best team in baseball.  Still, I would love a sweep tomorrow, as it would complete a full 'payback' to our neighbors from the North. 

Great to see the big wood broken out today by the White Sox offense, with a big third inning, capped off by a grand slam by Nick Swisher.  Jermaine Dye did not homer, but went 3-for-5 and made two outstanding defensive plays, one to end the ballgame right against the wall on a ball hit by Fukudome.  Fantastic day for JD.

Jose Contreras was not great, but was good enough to get the win, much better than last weekend's disasterous game against the Cubs.  He surrendured three solo home runs, but that was not enough to dent the Sox' big offensive attack in the third.  Even though the White Sox did not need anything more than they got in the third inning, I'm glad they continued to add on, with a run in the sixth and then the eighth.  That is something the Sox did not do yesterday against the Dodgers, and something they have generally not done much lately.  I also liked the aggressive baserunning, with Cabrera taking the extra base twice, challenging the arm of the inexperienced Eric Patterson. With Patterson and Ward playing the corner outfield positions, the White Sox showed some excellent aggressive baserunning.  Very good to see. 

While a sweep would be fantastic, I don't expect that to happen.  I do hope the Sox can pick up the series win at least with a victory tomorrow.

 

The good news is, John Danks was outstanding once again, now posting the lowest road ERA in all of baseball, and the White Sox got a win and a road series win at that.  The bad news is, the Sox left 11 guys on base.  Watching this game reminded me a bit of last weekend's Cubs series when the Sox scored early, but could not add on.  The difference today is it didn't cost them, as the bullpen finished the job in a way they could not last weekend. 

I understand Don Cooper being frustrated with Sox fans, but we've been watching the same thing all season long - an inability to drive runners in, leaving them stranded.  The invincible Twins meanwhile have won nine in a row, and what was a 6.5 game lead is now down to just a 1/2 game lead.  That is why fans are upset.  The pitching has been excellent all season, but it was bad last weekend against the Cubs - the worst overall pitching performance they have posted against the worst possible team to do it against - at least for fans.  I think Don Cooper is being defensive because he knows his pitchers didn't get the job done.  If anyone should be mad at the anemic offense it should be him, but I will give him props for not throwing the hitters under the bus. 

The White Sox will begin Round 2 of the Fight for Chicago Baseball Dominance tomorrow.  I only hope they can at least be respectable in this one, and demonstrate why they have one of the best pitching staffs in all of baseball.

This was painful to watch tonight.  Gavin Floyd was not great.  It seems if he cannot locate his curveball, he gets hit hard on his fastball.  Still, even had he been perfect, the Sox would have still lost, being shutout once again.  The White Sox defense was spotty too, with 3 errors on the night. 

This game was virtually unwatchable.  One popup and flyout after another, four lousy hits.  It's the same old thing with this team.  Any left hander who has a good changeup is unhittable to this squad.  With Minnesota's win tonight, the Sox' lead has all but evaporated in the Central - down to just 1/2 game up.  They haven't deserved to be called a first place team anyways.  This team is offensively streaky, its defense shaky, and its pitching is becoming inconsistent.  It is quite possible once this team relinquishes first place, they will never return to it.  I hope I'm wrong.

It was a game to be celebrated for the team as well as individuals.  The White Sox finally got a road win with a 6-1 victory over the Dodgers, and everyone who was not a pitcher, except Pablo Ozuna, got at least one hit.  Jermaine Dye continues to be on fire, going the opposite way with a 2-run homer in the eighth.  He had been aced by sinkerballer Lowe earlier, looking bad on a couple of at bats - striking out once swinging way out of the zone and the other looking.  Dye ended up getting the last laugh, adding insurance to a precarious 1-run lead. 

Mark Buehrle got strikeout number 1,000 on the evening.  Being a contact pitcher, that is quite an accomplishment, and while Buehrle can be hot and cold, overall he has been fantastic for the White Sox and has been quite dependable overall.  Congrats to Mark Buehrle for reaching a personal pitching milestone. 

As for the team, it was good to see the Sox get some clutch hitting last night.  They will have to continue that this series, and definitely against the Cubs this weekend.