57

If you had asked me before the series with Detroit if I'd be happy with the White Sox winning two out of three from the Tigers, I'd have said "sure." So it's not fair for me to be disappointed that we didn't pull off our seventh sweep of 2008 -- but I am, and I bet you are too.

After coming from behind to win the first two games, anything less than a win in the finale wasn't going to do. The win on Friday marked the first time all season that the Sox won a game after trailing going into the ninth inning -- they were 0-37 in those situations before then -- and they were down to their last strike when Carlos Quentin got a hit and Jermaine Dye smashed a two-run home run to provide the winning margin. Saturday's comeback win, the 29th time they've done that this season, raised expectations that the Sox would come back one more time on Sunday. But that didn't happen.

By meat-loafing Detroit, the Sox hung on to a 2.5 game lead over the Twins and reduced the Magic Number to 57 over Minnesota. (For those of you keeping score at home, the Good Guys have a 6.5 game lead on Detroit and a Magic Number of 53 vis-a-vis the Tigers.) And now it's on to the Twin Cities to do battle with the Piranhas for four games. At the end of the series, we'll be somewhere between 6.5 games ahead of (Sox sweep) and 1.5 games behind Minnesota (Twins do it to us). We've got our hottest pitcher -- Mark Buehrle -- ready to take the mound on Monday. It's hard to call a series in July crucial, but that's what this one is shaping up to be. Go Sox! Beat the Twins!