145

Don't look now, but the White Sox are in first place. Okay, they're in a virtual tie for the top spot with Cleveland (Indians .588; Sox .579), but who cares? The Good Guys rallied to beat KC last night 9-7, employing timely hitting and manufactured runs. They used 11 hits, including five doubles and a Joe Crede homer, four walks, and two Royals errors. The first run exemplified Grinder Baseball. Darin Erstad, who had two doubles on the night and drove in two runs, reached base on catcher's interference; moved to second on a wild pitch; took third on a grounder to the right side; and scored on Paul Konerko's sac fly (one of his two RBI in the game). Javier Vazquez, who usually starts well but fades, reversed the pattern. He gave up four runs in the first and then settled down for a while. Relievers Matt Thornton and Mike MacDougal couldn't hold the lead, but the Sox rallied in time for Boone Logan, who struck out two batters in two-thirds of an inning, to notch his first Major League win. Bobby Jenks earned his eighth save, throwing seven of nine pitches for strikes in one inning of scoreless, hitless relief.

Two trends continued last night. First, the Sox are now 9-1 when they outhit the opposition. That is the stat that appears to have the highest correlation with a White Sox victory. (Opponents are only 5-2 when they outhit the Sox.) Second, the team is now 6-1 when Tadahito Iguchi bats second, but only 5-7 when someone else hits in that spot. Ozzie can't control how many hits the Sox get, but he can control where Iguchi bats. Keep Gooch as the Avis of the batting order, Oz. (For those of you too young to remember, Avis used to advertise that it tried harder because it was No. 2.)

With the win, the Sox sliced the Magic Number to 145. As noted above, they're in first place, tied with the Indians and a half game ahead of both Minnesota and Detroit. The Sox get a chance to stretch that lead over the Tigers tonight when they take on the Bengals at the Cell. Go Sox!