139

Raindrops kept falling on their head (two delays totaling 85 minutes) but just like a man whose feet are too big for his bed (does anybody really know what that means? does anybody really care?), the White Sox hung in there to hand Yankees phenom Joba "the Hutt" Chamberlain his first career loss. Bad Bobby Jenks picked up his first win of the season when Joe Crede drove in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth for a 7-6 victory.

Crede's hit was one of ten for the Sox, with every starter garnering at least one safety (Paul Konerko collected two). Only Juan Uribe (who took over second base after Alexi Ramirez moved to center to replace Nick Swisher, who moved to right to replace Jermaine Dye, who injured himself on a slide) failed to get a hit. But that's not too surprising since he's not even hitting his weight (225). Hell, at .164, he's not even hitting my weight (170). Jim Thome, who's also not hitting his weight (.236 vs. 255 lbs.) did hit his 513th career home run, breaking the tie with Banks and Matthews. And Thome has done it without ever being linked to steroid use. (Speaking of steroid-free sluggers, Update favorite, Frank Thomas, signed with the first-place A's and played last night. Welcome back, Big Hurt.)

The win last night kept the Sox from being swept in the series, a fate they have avoided all season. In fact, this was the team's first series loss since the opening set of games at Cleveland. The Sox now have a Magic Number of 139 over Cleveland and Minnesota, who are tied for second, 2.5 games back. Don't look now, but the Indians and the Tigers are starting to get hot. The Tribe has won three in a row and Detroit four. They're both too good to have played like they started out. It's going to be a dog fight, but we've got some big dogs of our own. Go Sox!