139 (Day Two)

The Cleveland Indians won again last night, picking up another half game over the rest of the idle Central Division. That leaves the White Sox with a Magic Number of 139, sitting in fourth place, 4.5 games behind the Tribe. Cleveland's Magic Number vis-a-vis the Sox is 130 and their Magic Number over the second-place Tigers is 133. The Indians' lead is nothing that can't be overcome, but it's time to start whittling away at it.

As every Sox fan knows, the problem so far this year is that White Sox bats have been cold -- figuratively and literally. The Update looked at each box score this season to determine the temperature and number of hits. We confirmed what we believed to be the case: As the temperature goes up, so does the number of hits. The Sox have played five games with the temperature in the 30s and have gotten only 31 hits, an average of 6.2 hits per game. For games in the 40s, they've collected 39 hits in six games for a per-game average of 6.5. For the five games in the 50s, they've accumulated 36 safeties, an average of 7.2 per game. In the seven games in the 60s, they've banged out 54 hits, or a per-game average of 7.7. There've been only four games played in the 70s, but the Sox have knocked out 36 hits, for an average of 9 per game. And in the sole game when the thermometer reached the 80s, they also reached base safely nine times. It looks like the answer to this season's lumber slumber is a little global warming. Go Sox!