Tuesday, September 7, 2010

29

Here’s your weekend wrap-up: A sweep of Boston at Fenway for the first time in forever. Seven wins in a row, all on the road, since Manny arrived. Seventeen games over .500 for the first time this season. And the White Sox are still 3.5 games behind the Twins, who are just as hot and have a Magic Number of 22.

Friday’s game was rained out by hurricane-related rains, so the Sox and the Red Sox played a day-night doubleheader on Saturday. The Good Sox won both games 3-1 as John Danks and Gavin Floyd delivered clutch pitching performances. Because of the rainout, Danks will be forced to pitch on three days rest. The last time he did that was in the tie-breaker game against Minnesota in 2008, when he threw a shutout. Let’s hope for a similar result.

Sunday, the Pale Hose came from behind twice, scoring four runs in the ninth inning off Bosox ace reliever, Jonathan Papelbon, to pull out a 7-5 win. The Sox won their fourth game of the season when trailing after seven innings – something they’d done only once a couple of weeks ago. (I missed most of the game because of my grandson Evan’s second birthday party – his actual birthday is tomorrow – but it was worth it.  Of course, the Sox victory added to the festive occasion.)

On Labor Day, the White Sox did it again, this time against the Tigers in Detroit. For the third time over the weekend, they pounded out 13 hits, missing only in game two on Saturday. For the second time, they came from behind to win, this time in extra innings, 5-4. For the first time in his career, Chris Sale, who was pitching in college when the season started, picked up the win, throwing 2.2 innings of scoreless relief, and was rewarded with a shaving cream pie. And for the 13th game in a row, A.J. Pierzynski hit safely, driving in three runs, including the game winner.

So where does all this leave the Sox? Aside from the three games that they and the Twins play each other next week at the Cell, the two teams have some common foes. Both teams play KC at home (Sox three times, Twins twice), Cleveland at home for three games, and the Tigers in Detroit for three games. Both teams play Oakland three games, thought the Sox do it on the road, while Minnesota does it at home. We’ve got three with the Tigers and four with Boston at home and three with the Angels on the road. They’ve got four with Toronto at home and three each with the Indians and Royals on the road. On balance, it looks like we’ve got the harder schedule, in terms of whom we play and where we play them, but the best thing that can happen is a sweep of the Twinkies at the Cell. For those of you saying, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, remember, the fans’ performance won’t suffer by looking down the road at the schedule. It’s the team that can’t do that. Go Sox!

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