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Just when you think the White Sox are out of it, they go and sweep a series against the Mariners. Yeah, they’re still 6.0 behind the Tigers and Detroit’s Magic Number is only 25, but the Good Guys are above .500 again, have taken over second place all by themselves, and have still got six games to play against the Central Division leaders. Let’s take a brief look at the weekend games.

• Friday: Jake Peavy pitched just well enough to win (he’s now 6-6), giving up two runs in six innings, and the bullpen shut down the M’s the rest of the way. Brent Lillibridge, who grew up 30 miles outside of Seattle, performed some hometown heroics for the Chisox. Lillibeast, as A.J. Pierzynski calls him, blasted his 12th home run of the season, a two-run shot, that broke a 2-2 tie and provided the winning margin. With that dinger, the Sox Super-Sub pulled ahead of Adam Dunn in the home run derby. Who’d have predicted that at the start of the season?

• Saturday: John Danks was superb, again. After starting 0-8 on the season, Danks has totally turned it around, going 6-1 since then. In his start against Seattle, Danks whiffed 10 Mariners, which tied his all-time high. The complete game shutout was the second of his career. Paul Konerko drove in the first (and what proved to be the winning run) with a single. Alexei Ramirez plated the second score with a sac fly. And Alejandro De Aza ended the scoring with his second home run of the year to give the Sox a 3-0 win.

• Sunday: Gavin Floyd wasn’t as sharp as Danks, but he was in command on the mound over his 7.1 innings. Floyd allowed only two runs on five hits and struck out six to improve his record to 12-10. Dayan Viciedo staked Floyd to a 3-0 lead with a three-run home run in his first at bat since being called up. (Remember that the August 23 edition of The Update called for the Cuban Tank to replace the injured Carlos Quentin on the roster. Thanks, Kenny, for finally listening.) Tyler Flowers poked his first career grand slam to make the score 7-0, and the Sox hung on to win 9-3. Except for Brent Morel, every Sox starter had at least one hit – which almost guarantees a successful outcome.

The South Siders return home for a three-game series with the Twins before heading to Detroit for a showdown with the Tigers.  (Yikes, we face Justin Verlander, who's 20-5, in the first game of the Detroit series.) The Sox pretty much have to win five of their remaining six games with the Bengals if they’re going to make up the current deficit, but they can’t lose focus when playing Minnesota. More than one loss to the former Piranhas will make the games against the Tigers less meaningful. And we all want meaning in life. Go Sox!