108

Last night marked the first time that two teams in sole possession of first place in their divisions played a game in Tampa, the city the White Sox used to blackmail the State of Illinois into building new Comiskey Park. (The move from Chicago being the best thing that never happened to the team.) Despite the high quality of competition, a measly 12,636 were on hand to see the Sox beat the Rays 5-1.

John Danks evened his record at 4-4 by allowing only one run on six hits over six innings. Danks, who threw 72% of his pitches for strikes, established a new career high by fanning eight Rays. Matt Thornton, Octavio Dotel, and Boone Logan pitched three innings of shut-out ball in relief to extend the bullpen's streak of scoreless innings to 27. Set-up man Scott Linebrink and closer Bobby Jenks were able to take the night off, thanks to an 11-hit attack that featured two hits and one RBI each for Paul Konerko (batting sixth in the order), Jim Thome (batting fifth), Orlando Cabrera, and Carlos Quentin. Konerko hit a ground-rule home run (different rules for indoor stadiums), his first homer in over a month (95 at bats), and Joe Crede added a round-tripper as well. Q's RBI was his 48th of the season.

The game had all the ingredients of a White Sox win: The Sox scored first; they had multiple homers; Danks delivered a quality start; the team outhit the opposition; and the Good Guys led after six innings. Each of those factors individually has a high victory correlation; collectively, they make an unbeatable combination.

With the win, the Sox moved to 30-23, the seven games over .500 being their high for the season. It allowed them to remain 2.0 games ahead of the Twins, who won their fourth in a row, and to cut the Magic Number to 109. Three more games at the Trop and then the Sox play 26 of their next 32 games in the Windy City (although three of those 26 are in Wrigley.) Let's finish up strong in Tampa and clean up in Sweet Home, Chicago. Go Sox!