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Alejandro De Aza was batting 1.000 and slugging 4.000 after his first at bat yesterday, which was also his first in the big leagues this year. The math whizzes among you know that this means the recent White Sox call-up – he played for Triple A Charlotte on Tuesday – homered in his first trip to the plate. De Aza’s two-run blast constituted the entirety of the Sox scoring for the day, but thanks to good pitching from John Danks, Chris Sale, and Sergio Santos, the Good Guys prevailed 2-1 over the Tigers in the rubber match of the series.

I was actually surprised that De Aza was in Chicago, having expected Dayan Viciedo to be the next player promoted from the minors. But Viciedo has a sore thumb and Kenny Williams said that he did not want to bring up a player that couldn’t play. Makes sense to me and you can’t argue with the results that De Aza provided in taking over for the terminally bad Alex Rios.

Danks, who is 4-0 and has given up only four earned runs in his last six starts, pitched very effectively. He worked 6.0 innings and allowed only one run – a solo home run by Austin Jackson – despite giving up six hits and three walks. Danks worked his way out of jams thanks to 10 strikeouts and help from Sale. The reliever tossed 2.2 innings of no hit, no run ball before giving way to Santos, who retired one batter for his 21st save.

Adam Dunn merits one offensive note. (Not offensive. Offensive.) The Big Donkey reached base four times yesterday on a hit and three walks. This follows a game where he homered, so maybe our long national nightmare is over. Wishful thinking or the start of something good? Stay tuned to find out.

Off the field, the Sox were busy. Edwin Jackson and Mark Teahen were traded to the Blue Jays for pitchers Jason Frasor and Zach Stewart. Frasor is a reliever and Stewart is a highly rated prospect in the Toronto minor league system. (Jackson wound up in St. Louis in a subsequent transaction.) And there’s plenty of time to make more trades. We’re not predicting that Kenny’s doing more deals, but he seems to like trading as much as any GM out there.

The win tightens the Central Division race a bit. The Sox are now only 3.5 games behind Detroit and only 1.5 games back of Cleveland. On the other hand, the South Siders are only 2.5 games ahead of Minnesota. None of those four teams is going to be the wild card, so it’s division winner take all as far as the playoffs is concerned. And speaking of division winners, the Sox entertain the Red Sox for a three game set. We’ve had their number lately. Let’s hope it stays that way. Go White Sox!