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The White Sox Meat Loafed the A’s over the weekend, winning the first and third games of the three-game series, allowing the Good Guys to hang on to first place. But just barely. By a half game over the hard-charging Twins.

The Sox won Friday behind rookie Lucas Harrell, who became the first Sox pitcher since Kip Wells to win his first start in the big leagues. Harrell, called up to replace the traded Daniel Hudson (sent to Arizona along with minor-leaguer Mike Holmberg for pitcher Edwin Jackson), gave up only one run in his debut. The Sox bats supported him quite nicely with six runs on 13 hits, including three by Dayan Viciedo, and a pair each by Paul Konerko, A.J. Pierzynski, and Gordon Beckham. With the acquisition of Jackson, Harrell won’t be in the rotation, but it’s nice to know that he can do it if needed.

We won’t talk about Saturday, other than to say John Danks didn’t have it for a change, the offense didn’t bail him out, and the Sox lost 6-2.

Sunday saw the continuation of Gavin Floyd’s journey from scrap heap to top of the heap. Floyd threw seven innings of four-hit, one-run ball, and earned his seventh win (preserved for him by the Big 3 – Matt Thornton, J.J. Putz, and Bobby Jenks). Since June 8, in our view, no one’s been better, and the stats back us up. Floyd is 5-2 with a 1.06 ERA (9 runs in 76.1 innings). Opposing batters have hit only .198 against him (54 hits in 271 at bats). And even when he didn’t get the wins, he still pitched great. Oh, yeah. Brent Lillibridge struck the big blow, a bases-loaded triple that provided three of the runs in the 4-1 victory.

Now it’s on to Detroit for four games. Although the Tigers have been slumping lately, they’re still 35-17 at home, while the Sox are 26-25 on the road. Meanwhile the Twins travel to Tampa Bay to take on the Rays, who are 32-21 at home, while Minnesota is 26-26 away from Target Field. The good news is that the Rays are hot too, so maybe they’ll do us a favor and beat the Piranhas. Go Rays! Go Sox!