85

It was a long time coming. The White Sox finally won a game on the road in June, beating the Dodgers 6-1. That's right, their last win away from the Cell was when they beat the Rays on May 29. So Mark Buehrle's sterling pitching performance last night was more than welcome after nine consecutive road losses -- it was downright critical. Buehrle lasted eight innings (for the fourth consecutive start), giving up only one run, scattering six hits, allowing no walks, and striking out two. Mark Sweeney, Buehrle's second victim, swung and missed at a 1-2 pitch to become his 1000th career K. (Good thing, Sweeney didn't go down looking; we don't have a backwards K key on our keyboard.) The game moved along with typical Buehrle dispatch, lasting only two hours and five minutes.

The Sox batters did their best to make it last longer, collecting 11 hits. Every Sox starter hit safely except Pablo Ozuna (a late sub for Joe Crede, who was out with back stiffness for the first time since his back surgery) and Buehrle, who shouldn't even be batting to begin with (stupid National League rules). Recent callup DeWayne Wise had three hits and was only a homer short of the cycle. Orlando Cabrera and Carlos Quentin each had two. (By the way, I drew the "Q" tile in Scrabble two nights ago and had to trade it in because all the "U" tiles were blocked. A lot of good that Q-word tribute to Carlos Quentin did me.) Jermaine Dye hit his 17th home run, a two-run opposite field blast in the four-run eighth inning. Dye has been white hot (should that be White Sox hot?) lately, having hit seven homers in his last eight games.

Even the fielding was top notch last night, save for an error by Ozuna. The Sox turned three double plays. The last one came courtesy of Alexei Ramirez, who made a spectacular sliding catch of Jeff Kent's pop fly in center field and threw to first base to double up Matt Kemp.

With the victory, the Magic Number dropped to 85. The lead in the A.L. Central remained at 1.5 games as Minnesota used back-to-back ninth inning home runs to edge San Diego. Sure the Sox have lost several games off their lead, but the Twins have won seven in a row and still haven't caught the Good Guys. Today is the 66th day that the Sox have been in first place, contrasted with only 22 days that they've been out of the lead. Of course, what really matters is where they are on the last day of the season. Go Sox!