134

Welcome back, Jim Thome. No, he wasn't really gone; it just seemed that way. But last night Thome walloped a pair of two-run homers that boosted the White Sox to a 7-4 win over the Indians in Cleveland. Thome's blasts raised his career total to 547, which leaves him one tater away from a tie with Mike Schmidt for 13th place in the all-time home run derby. Thome picked a good time to come out of a horrendous slump that had a lot of us wondering if he was washed up. And he did it against a lefty, which is not something Thome does all that often. Big Jim has 446 bombs off righties, but including last night's, only 101 off lefties.

Clayton Richard could have been the beneficiary of Thome's power surge, but he didn't pitch well enough and therefore didn't last long enough to pick up the win. Richard did a decent job of replacing Jose Contreras -- that is, if you're looking for someone to duplicate No Way Jose's sorry stats. Richard allowed four runs on six hits and three walks in 3.1 innings. In fairness, one of those runs scored when D.J. Carrasco was on the mound. D.J. let one of the two runners he inherited score, which was charged to Richard. Even so, D.J. got the win, his first of the season. Matt Thornton threw 1.2 innings of scoreless ball to garner a hold. Octavio "Big O" Dotel also earned a hold, shutting down the Tribe for an inning and keeping his 2009 ERA at 0.00. Bobby Jenks, who is $750 lighter in the wallet as a result of being fined by MLB for admitting that he threw behind Ian Kinsler, also tossed an inning of shut-out relief to notch his eighth save of the season.

One other game note deserves mention. Corky Miller threw out Grady Sizemore on an attempted steal. That's only the second time anyone's been "caught stealing" by the Sox this year. And speaking of the second time all season, last night's win was just the second time the Sox have allowed at least four runs in a game and won. Their record when giving up four or more is 2-14. By contrast, they're a sparking 13-3 when the other team scores fewer than four runs. The Sox are 12-5 when scoring four or more and a dismal 3-12 when scoring fewer than four.

Despite the win over Cleveland, the Sox remain in fourth place, but they're only 2.5 games behind the first-place Tigers and Royals and a half-game back of the Twins. The Magic Number is down to to 134. And we've got Mark Buehrle, the one bright spot in the rotation, on the hill tonight. He's facing Cliff Lee, but will likely do so without Carlos Quentin (sore left heel) or Jim Thome (see above re: lefty pitchers and day game after a night game) in the lineup. Go Sox!