140

The White Sox continued to have a tough time winning a series, this time dropping two out of three to the Texas Rangers. The Sox won the opener on Friday night, but dropped the games on Saturday and Sunday, the latter in front of a national audience on ESPN.

Mark Buehrle racked up his fourth win against no losses by pitching just well enough. Buehrle produced his usual Quality Start -- allowing only three runs in 6.0 innings pitched. The bullpen held the Rangers scoreless, with Octavio Dotel (maintaining his ERA at 0.00), Scott Linebrink (keeping his ERA at 1.00), and Bobby Jenks (picking up his sixth save) each holding Texas at bay for one inning. Meanwhile, Jim Thome doubled with the bases juiced to drive in three runs to tie the game. Chris Getz, back from his injury, tripled the winning run home in the 4-3 come-from-behind win.

Jose Contreras has been as consistently bad as Buehrle has been good. Contreras dropped to 0-4 with an ERA of 8.31 for the season. Jose gave up seven runs on seven hits in only 3.1 innings. Unfortunately, Clayton Richard, who was fighting for Contreras's spot in the rotation in Spring Training, wasn't a whole lot better. He yielded two runs on three hits in 0.2 innings. Lance Broadway made a case for his becoming a starter by shutting down Texas for 2.0 innings, but Ozzie says he's going to stick with Contreras for a while longer. The winning pitcher in this 9-6 shootout was none other than Brandon McCarthy, who stepped in during the 2005 season when Contreras was injured. B-Mac's 3-0 record looks pretty good right about now. The only highlight for the Sox during the game was A.J. Pierzynski's Grand Slam. The lowlight could have been Jermaine Dye getting plunked on the wrist and writhing in pain on the ground. It was feared that Dye might be lost for the season, but Ozzie says he could be ready by tonight. Dye is not so sure about that, but it doesn't look like it's a long-term thing.

So the Sox had John Danks on the hill for the rubber game. But for the second start in a row, Danks faltered. He lasted only 5.1 innings and permitted five runs on 10 hits and a walk. Since Ranger pitching gave up only one run in the game, it was pretty clear that the Sox weren't going to win no matter how well the Good Guys pitched. (The Sox won only one game when scoring one run last year -- the 163rd game that got them into the post-season.) More bad news: Josh Fields got hit on the left hand while batting and had to leave the game. On the plus side of the ledger, Jayson Nix, just recalled from a rehab assignment in the minors, went 2 for 3 with a RBI and played a nifty second base. He can play third and might appear there tonight if Fields can't go, as is expected. Other positives: Dotel continued his scoreless streak (0.2 IP) and D.J. Carrasco also blanked the Rangers (3.0 IP). But there's no way to sugarcoat a 5-1 loss when one of your top pitchers is on the mound.

Despite the two losses, the Sox are only 1.5 games behind the Royals, whom they play tonight in KC. They're 0.5 back of the Tigers in the closely bunched Central Division. Some experts were predicting the division leader might finish with 85 wins, and that's looking more and more likely. With a Magic Number of 140, all we can say is "Go Sox!"