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Weekends like this make me wonder why I'm writing this blog.  From Friday through Sunday, the White Sox looked nothing like a team that prompts a discussion of Magic Numbers.  In fact, they looked nothing like a major league team.

Let's start with the batters.  Notice I didn't call them hitters.  That's because they barely got any.  Sixteen hits in three games averages out to 5.33 hits per game.  Hardly the stuff that winning baseball is made of.

All that "hitting" produced three runs and none over the last 20 innings.  Even the most arithmetically challenged among you can do this math: three runs divided by three games equals one run per game.  Since the Sox average about one game per season that they win 1-0, this kind of production ain't going to get it done.  (I know, they did get three runs in one of those games, but their record when scoring three runs is pretty poor too -- only 29 wins in the five-plus seasons since the team won the World Series.)

And the pitching hasn't been much better.  While John Danks, Sunday's loser, is eligible to sue for lack of support, the rest of the staff is as guilty as the offense.  Even including Danks's Quality Start on Sunday (6.0 innings; three runs), the Sox pitchers allowed the Tigers 21 runs on 36 hits.  That's an average of seven runs and 12 hits per game.  During that same 2006 to the present period, the Good Guys have won just two games where they've given up exactly seven runs and 12 hits and have won only 20 games where they've given up at least those number of runs and hits.  In other words, it's not a formula for success.

Nor is playing the first-place Yankees in New York.  But that's what the Sox have to do now.  Maybe the team can revert to playing like it did at the start of the season -- remember, before losing 10 of the last 11, the Sox were 7-4.  But they need to revert soon.  They're in last place in the division, 5.5 games behind the Indians, and it's only that close because the Tribe has lost three in a row.  Go Sox! and Go Now!