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I'm still having a hard time believing that Freddy Garcia has become the ace of the White Sox pitching staff, but Steady Freddy won his fourth consecutive start last night, 6-4, to improve to a team-best 7-3 record.  Garcia, who gave up eight hits and four runs in his 5.2 innings pitched, had a lot of help from the bullpen.  Sergio Santos (0.1 IP), Matt Thornton (1.0), J.J. Putz (1.0) each earned a hold, and Bobby Jenks (1.0) notched his 12th save, by shutting out the Pirates.  The relievers combined for six strikeouts, and Putz's scoreless effort was his 11th in a row.

The Sox made the most of their seven hits, scoring six runs without the aid of the longball.  Gordon Beckham was 2 for 4, with a double, three RBIs, and a good decoy move that allowed him to score on Juan Pierre's suicide squeeze bunt.  Alexei Ramirez was also 2 for 4, with an RBI and a double.  And Ramon Castro doubled and drew three walks in his four plate appearances.

The Sox are now 5-2 in interleague play (a .714 winning percentage), second only to the Mets' 6-1 record.  Given that they're 24-32 against the American League (a .429 percentage), it seems clear that what's wrong with the Sox is that they play in the wrong league.  Of course, only the Blue Jays, Orioles, Indians, and Mariners have losing records against the other league, so there are a lot of A.L. squads that wouldn't mind a steady diet of N.L. teams.

Unfortunately, Minnesota is one of those.  The Twins won last night over Colorado, so the Sox remain 7.5 games behind the Piranhas in the Central Division.  But the Sox have two more games with the lowly Pirates before visiting me -- oh yeah, and the Nats -- in D.C.  Go Sox!