126

The White Sox, fueled by a season-high 14 hits, held on to beat Oakland last night, 8-5. Jose Contreras pitched well enough to get the win, but the bullpen continued to make it interesting. Mike MacDougal walked two and gave up a hit on the way to allowing two runs in the eighth, and Bobby Jenks walked one and gave up a hit before shutting down the A's for his 14th save. While Jenks continues on a healthy 55-save pace, the bullpen has been a little iffy of late.

Going into last night's game, the relievers had blown three saves in the last 11 games, while racking up a hellacious ERA of 10.66. That contrasts with the nifty 3.29 ERA of the first 27 games. The series against the Cubs was even worse, as the bullpen's ERA was 17.47 and the Cubs' batting average against them was .455. It's not all bad though. On the season, the Sox have managed a 15-4 record when leading after six innings; their opponents are only 12-5. The Sox are 15-2 when leading after seven; the opponents, only 15-5. And the Good Guys are 16-2 when leading after eight; the opponents are slightly better at 16-1.

All of this has led to a lot of close games this year. Last night's win was the 17th time this season out of 22 victories that the Sox have won by three or fewer runs -- 86.4%. By contrast, last year's team notched only 58.9% of their wins by the same margin. The Update doesn't know if that's due to the Sox scoring fewer runs (before last night the team was averaging 4.0 runs per game, down from 5.7 per game at the same point in 2006) or the aforementioned relief pitching. Probably a combo of both.

Anyway, the win reduced the Magic Number to 126. It allowed the Sox to remain 4.5 games behind the Indians, who won again last night. The Tribe is now 17-4 in games where they bat last. (The Update hesitates to call them home games since two of them took place in Milwaukee.) Despite the two disappointing losses to the Cubs over the weekend, the Sox have won 10 of their last 15 games and have the fifth-best record in the American League. They're 4.0 games behind Detroit in the Wild Card race, so the postseason is definitely a realistic possibility. Now it's up to John Danks, who is 2-0 with only three earned runs allowed in his last two starts, to shut down the Athletics. Go John! Go Sox!