95

It's a good thing the White Sox didn't fire Greg Walker after the disastrous final three games in Tampa. If he was to blame for their hitting woes, as Ozzie was implying a week ago, then he deserves credit for the rebirth of the South Side Hitmen. In the three wins over the Twins since Friday's edition of The Update, the Sox have scored 10, 11, and 12 runs, on 16, 16, and 15 hits, respectively. In the three wins over the Royals before that, the Good Guys scored 9, 6, and 6 runs, on 11 hits in each game. That works out to an average of 9 runs and 13+ hits per game during this homestand, which stands at 6-0 so far, with a makeup game Monday against Minnesota left to play.

The Sox are the hottest team in baseball and Joe Crede the hottest player in the game over the last week. After the Tampa Bay series, Crede was batting .264; after Sunday's game, he's up to .295 -- a gain of 31 points in just five games (since Joe missed one game with an injury). And he hit five home runs and drove in 12 runs to boot. By the way, Crede does credit Walker with making an adjustment to his swing, so our opening line isn't just hype. As for Crede, Kenny Williams needs to sign this guy to a new contract right now.

Winning three from Minnesota was like taking a chain saw to the Magic Number. It was 101 before the series started and it's 95 now. The Sox had a 2.5 game lead when the Twins came to town, and now have a 5.5 game bulge. The margin over the Indians is 8.5 games, and the Sox are 10 games ahead of Sports Illustrated's pick to click, the Tigers. Detroit is where the Sox head next, but first things first. Let's keep piling it on against our friends from the Land of 10,000 Lakes (before heading off to Michigan, which has over 11,000 lakes), and make it two sweeps on the homestand by winning Monday's game against the Twinkies. Go Sox!