112

Eighth time's the charm. At least it was for Mark Buehrle, as the Sox pitcher picked up his 100th career victory after seven unsuccessful attempts to reach the century mark. The leaky sieve of a bullpen tried to give the game away, but even Dewon Day's walking two of three batters he faced, Boone Logan's walking the only man to come to the plate against him, and Bobby Jenks's allowing two inherited runners to score couldn't overcome Buehrle's fine effort. Jenks, by the way, picked up the save his 16th in a row. The Mark of Zero (think back to Buehrle's no-hitter) got plenty of offensive support from Paul Konerko, who was a triple shy of the cycle. (The only way Paulie hits a triple these days is to fail to touch home plate on a ball hit over the wall. He hasn't had one since 2000 and has lost quite a few steps since then.) Andy Gonzalez garnered is first major league hit, following by one day Josh Fields's picking up his first hit of 2007.

The win, only the third in the last 15 games, reduced the Sox Magic Number to 112. They trail Cleveland by nine games, which is a surprisingly small margin given how horribly the Sox have played. They're 27-32, and are 7.5 games out of the Wild Card berth . Even the Update's personal mojo couldn't snap the Sox out of their funk. We were there on Friday, attempting to jump start the team like we did on September 20, 2005 (the "Crede extra-inning home run to win it" game that ended the September skid that was threatening to waste our dream season) and July 9, 2006 (the 19-inning win over the Red Sox). Let's hope yesterday was just a delayed reaction and the Sox take off on a winning streak to get back in the race. Go Sox!