106

I don’t have the stats, but I’m pretty sure the White Sox win an extremely high percentage of their games when every starter gets at least one hit, like they did in handing the Oakland A’s their tenth loss in a row, 9-4 at the Cell. Six Sox players had a pair of safeties – Juan Pierre, Alexei Ramirez, Paul Konerko, Alex Rios, Omar Vizquel, and Gordon Beckham – and even Adam Dunn got one, his sixth home run no less. One of Paulie’s hits was also a homer, which gives him 15 on the season, good for fourth place in the American League.

The beneficiary of all this offense was Mark Buehrle. The Sox mainstay stuck around for 7.0 innings and gave up only three runs, seven hits, and a walk, while striking out four and throwing 66 of his 103 pitches for strikes. Jesse Crain and Will Ohman finished up and didn’t blow the lead for Buehrle, enabling him to improve his record to 6-4.

Cleveland was idle, so the Sox picked up a half game on the Surprising Indians. The Good Guys now trail the Tribe by only 5.5 games and sit in third place in the division immediately behind Detroit. The Sox face the slumping A’s three more times this weekend, and let’s hope that new Oakland manager, Bob Melvin, has to wait until his team’s next series to get his first win in his new job. Go Sox!