149

The White Sox regained first place in the A.L. Central yesterday with a 4-1 win over Oakland on brilliant pitching by John Danks and a three-run homer by Carlos Quentin. Danks blanked the A's for 7.2 innings, yielding only five hits and two walks. Scott Linebrink gave up one run before Bobby Jenks came on to notch his fifth save (second in the A.L. behind Baltimore's George Sherrill) with a scoreless, hitless, walkless ninth inning. Update reader Les Reiter points out that Jenks got three outs on just two pitches! Meanwhile, Quentin provided all the offense the Sox would need with his second homer of the season and three RBI (giving him 13 on the year, just three behind league leader Joe Crede, who tacked one on to his total yesterday). The win allowed the Sox to leapfrog back into the division lead over the Royals, who lost to Seattle, and dropped the Magic Number to 149. At 8-5, the Sox own the best record in the American League.

Random Thoughts, Part I: The Chicago Tribune noted that Ozzie Guillen's lifetime batting average was .264. We never thought of Oz as a good hitter, but compare his average to the guys playing yesterday for the Sox. Seven of the 10 batters to come to the plate for the Good Guys are hitting below Ozzie's lifetime mark: Quentin and Orlando Cabrera are at least above .200, while Paul Konerko, Alexi Ramirez, Pablo Ozuna, Juan Uribe, and Toby Hall fall below that mark. In fact, among those with enough at bats to qualify at this point, there are 18 players in the A.L. hitting at or below .200 and three of them are White Sox (Konerko, Uribe, and Jim Thome, who was suspended yesterday as a result of his recent ejection). Interestingly, of the 23 players in the A.L. hitting at or above .300, three are Sox -- league leader A.J. Pierzynski, Jermaine Dye, and Crede.

Random Thoughts, Part II: Today is the 60th anniversary of WGN's first telecast of a baseball game. The Sox defeated the Cubs at Wrigley, 4-1 (the same score as yesterday's win). Jack "Hey Hey" Brickhouse was the announcer.

Random Thoughts, Part III: The attendance for yesterday afternoon's game at the Cell was only 18,254. The Cubs drew 39,130 for a night game at Wrigley. C'mon fans, we're in first place. Yes, Sox fans have jobs, but take an afternoon off and support the team. Go Sox!