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Well, at least Edwin Jackson did his part. The recent acquisition by the White Sox pitched six strong innings, giving the Orioles only one earned run (two total) on six hits and one walk, while striking out seven. But it wasn’t enough because two usually reliable teammates couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain, leading to a 3-2 loss in ten innings.

Paul Konerko, whom we think of as having a high baseball IQ, had a brain cramp. With the bases loaded and one out, Paulie fielded Matt Weiters’s sharp ground ball, turned, appeared to step on first, and then threw home too late to prevent Luke Scott from scoring from third. The obvious play was to come home with the throw for the force and have A.J. Pierzynski whip the ball back to first to get the second half of the double play. Even if the batter beats A.J.’s throw, you’ve still prevented the run from scoring and still have a force at any base. After the game, Konerko explained that he realized his mistake midstream, intentionally did NOT step on first base, and fired home to try to get the force. Paulie said, "But what actually happened on that play, if you watch the replay, I never touched first base. The first-base umpire, if you watch the replay, called that guy safe -- and then out for running out of the base line.” Either the home plate umpire didn’t realize that the force was still on, or the throw was too late to nab Scott.

The other steady performer who failed in the clutch was J.J. Putz. After Konerko redeemed himself by knotting the game in the top of the ninth with his 28th home run, Matt Thornton came in to pitch the bottom of the ninth and struck out the three batters he faced. The Sox wasted a chance to score in the top of the tenth, and in the bottom half of the frame, Putz came on to pitch. His first pitch to Brian Roberts was a ball. His second pitch was a walk-off homer, and the Sox lost their third game of the four-game series to the team with the worst record in baseball.

Of course, if the Sox had hit better last night – they had only five hits total – or scored more runs during the series – they had a total of 10 in the four games against a horrible pitching staff – the Good Guys might still have a lead over the Minnesota.

But they didn’t and they don’t. The Twins come into the Cell tonight tied for first with the Sox at 63-49, both teams 33-20 at home and 30-29 on the road. Using Bill James’s log5 method of determining the chances of winning a single game between two teams, we see that the home Sox (.623 winning percentage) have a 61.65% chance of beating the road Twins (.508 winning percentage). It’s a complicated formula, but when neither team has an exceptionally good or bad record, a rough approximation of the formula would be to add the difference between the two team’s percentages to .500. Here, that works out to .623 - .508 + .500 = .615 or 61.5%. Close enough and a number we like. Now they need to turn that theory into reality. Go Sox!