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Mark Buehrle won his first game since Opening Day as the White Sox broke their five-game losing streak by beating the Orioles last night, 6-2.  Buehrle was in trouble the whole night, giving up eight hits and four walks, but wiggled out without allowing a run in his 6.2 innings.

The bullpen preserved the victory, with Jesse Crain tossing 1.1 innings of shutout ball to lower his ERA to 1.26.  Chris Sale, mired in a sophomore slump, gave up two runs in 0.2 innings to raise his ERA to 7.15.  Sales's problem is his control -- only 15 of his 34 pitches were strikes.  His ineffectiveness forced Ozzie to bring in Sergio Santos.  The Sox closer put out the fire, striking out the only batter he faced to end the O's threat and keep his ERA at 0.00 for the season.

Paul Konerko took charge of the offense, powering two home runs, his seventh and eighth of the year (and Alex Rios hit his second).  There was a lot of talk about Paulie's being unable to duplicate his stellar 2010 performance (especially after landing that fat contract extension), but the Captain is gettin' 'er done.  Hopefully, he'll keep it up and the rest of his mates will join him in having a good season.

The win allows the Sox to pick up a half game on the idle Indians, who are 9.5 games in front of them.  And now the Good Guys face the Twins.  The Sox are 2-10 in their last 12 games against Minnesota and 6-22 in their last 28 contests.  The Twinkies have taken four straight and 11 of 13 at the Cell.  But these Twins are having problems of their own, trailing the Sox by a half game in the standings.  Let's hope that makes for a different outcome than that ugly recent history reflects.  Go Sox!