Just got back to .500 for the first time in 2 months...feasting on bad teams....

Braves come in for 3. You get Hanson and Hudson in the first two games who are a combined 14-5 and the team is in first place in the East. The ray of hope is that they are under .500 on the road.

Cubs come in for 3 on the weekend and while they have struggled - the BP CUP IS ON THE LINE.

I am in favor of expanding interleague play. The national league is just one big bag of suck....

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This is my signature...

If this team really wants to contend, and prove to everybody that they can contend, they need to win every series from now til the All Star break (with the one exception being a split of the 4 game series with Anaheim).

After the break, they go on a hellava road trip: 4 @Minn, 3 @Sea, 3 @Oak. I know the M's and A's are not very good, but the Sox need to win out west. After that, they come home against the same bad M's and A's team. They go to Detroit for 3 and Baltimore for 4. So there are some crappy teams the Sox play from now until August. Need to make up ground and beat up on most of them.

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Winning out west isn't going to do a damn bit of good unless they win at least 2 of the 4 agains Minnesota.

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This series is all about the pitching matchups:

Tonight: Danks vs. Tommy Hanson
A battle of two of the best young pitchers in the game.
Advantage: Toss-up.

Wednesday: Buehrle vs. Tim Hudson
Tim Hudson is a RH NL-version of Buehrle - eats innings and pitches to contact. Hudson has been lights-out this year.
Advantage: Hudson

Thursday: Floyd vs. Derek Lowe
Depends on which Gavin shows up ... if it's the one from his last three outings than this is an easy Sox winner. But he's so damn inconsistent, you never know. Lowe has been as bad as Floyd this year - a 4.77 ERA in the NL is about a 5.50 in the AL - but he's pitched better of late as well.
Slight Advantage: Floyd

They are bound to cool off, but I'd be dissapointed if they were any worse than 3-3 on this home stand. I'm holding out for 4-2, but I don't trust this offense to score enough runs to win some of these games.

The lineup is in for tonight's first of 3 with the red hot Braves at "The Cell". These are the guys Ozzie put pen to paper and will deal with Atlanta's Tommy Hanson this eve:

1 Juan "I Wear #1 For A Reason" Pierre LF
11 Omar "The Rockies Want Me?" Vizquel 3B
51 Alex "Joe, I'm an All-Star!" Rios CF
14 Paul "Dayan Who?" Konerko 1B
20 Carlos "Yeah, I'm Batting 5th" Quentin RF
7 Mark "Will I Be Dealt?" Kotsay DH
12 A.J. "Not Wanted by Anyone" Pierzynski C
10 Alexei "Web Gems...Really?" Ramirez SS
15 Gordon "Speak for Yourself, Alexei!" Beckham 2B

John Danks does the chucking for the White Sox this eve. As for Tommy Hanson, don't confuse this guy with Johnny Depp's character on "21 Jump Street" back in the '80s. Still, when Sox hitters face a guy they've never seen, it's usually a bad omen...

I don't understand Ozzie. Former players LOVE playing agaisnt their former teams. Look at the list of former players who DESTROY the Sox. Big Frank, Magglio, Crede, Swisher, hell even the Panzy had big games against them. Here is a rare oppportunity for Andruw Jones to play against his former team (who he left under not so good terms) and Ozzie has him on the bench. I'd tell him you're playing all 3 games. Go get 'em!

Johnny's not looking very good. He's leaving everything up and they're making him pay. Can't get down too far against Hanson.

THE! CARLOS! QUENTIN!

The HR drought is OVAH!

and our friends in MIlwaukee just tied up the Twins. Thank you, Mr McGehee!

Hanson sure wet himself after getting a 3-0 lead.

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Fuck Edwards and Zobrist

I feel sorry for anyone who has Danks AND Hanson on thier fantasy team!
























16.34 ERA so far this week......

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Wrong section! I have Danks

Danks's outing has turned respectable. If he can go thru the 7th I will take that I suppose.

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That's a little better than respectable, Frank. Johnny really settled down after the first couple innings and threw the ball well. Of course all those runs the offense scored probably helped a bit.

5-3 Brew Crew!

Nice win, Boys! 7 in a row and a game over .500! Nice outing by Johnny Danks. It's too bad the ass end of the bullpen made it closer than it should have been but Big Bobby came in and shut the door (15-16 in save opp). I hope Alexei's finger is ok. He's been playing great and that would be a huge loss if he misses any time. Keep it rolling tomorrow, Mark.

7-5 Brew Crew. 4.5 games back!

I'm not even worrying about the Twins right now. Haven't they played about .500 ball since the hot start in April?

If the Sox have the Twins lead at or less than 3.5 games at the All Star break, I'm a believer. I'm happy that they are winning, but they still need to show me more. Taking a series against one of the best teams in the NL and against the Cubs (Those Cubs Sox series, regardless of how good or bad the teams are, usually end up being pretty tough) is a great start to showing me and everybody else that they are for real.

SOX!

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Frank, I still have that seat saved for you on the bandwagon though you may have to fight SHARK for shotgun. GD has a spot too but it's in the back between John Cusak and Southpaw.

You should still be worried about the Twins. They are 10 games over .500 and still the favorite to win this division. The Tigers are also playing really well lately. The Sox look real good on this stretch, but they need to keep it going once they get back to playing AL teams. I just do not trust them yet. As good as they have looked on this win streak, they could just as easily go on a 7-8 game losing streak and look horrible and everyone will be back on the edge of the ledge.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

The lineup is in for tonight's game vs. the Braves' Tim Hudson. It seems hard to believe, but Tim will be starting at U.S. Cellular Field for the first time since 2002 in an Oakland uniform. Anyway, Ozzie's using the same lineup that did the job last night vs. Tommy Hanson. For those with short attention spans, here it is:

1 Juan Pierre LF
11 Omar Vizquel 3B
51 Alex Rios CF
14 Paul Konerko 1B
20 Carlos Quentin RF
7 Mark Kotsay DH
12 A.J. Pierzynski C
10 Alexei Ramirez SS
15 Gordon Beckham 2B

Mark Buehrle toes the rubber for the White Sox, hoping to win their 8th in a row vs. the National League this eve.

I'm not as demanding as Frank. My jump on point was over .500 and less than 5 games back. That extra weight in the back was me jumping aboard.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

My point is that the Sox need to continue this well against AL teams. I'm not a believer yet of the White Sox so I'm not going to worry about what the Twins are doing untili the Sox show me they are for real. If they do, they will have their shot at Minnesota, who I don't think is running away with anything.

My enthusiasm is tempered at best. I'm not getting carried away about this White Sox team by any stretch of the imagination. This Braves' team the Sox are now playing through Thursday at U.S. Cellular Field is the first true Interleague test of the year, and so far, they've got 1 win in this series. The Cubs, Pirates & Nationals are all bad, and the Sox have no control over who's on their schedule. There are still questions about this team's offense, how much of a contribution you're going to get, if any right now, from Dayan Viciedo and Brent Lillibridge, how much longer Omar Vizquel can continue to play a steady third base, etc. The Sox go back to A.L. play in Kansas City Monday night and head back to that 100 degree oven in Arlington, TX next weekend... Let's not get too carried away.

for all you wet blankets, this team is one poorly executed 2nd and 3rd with no one out situation from winning 13 in a row...and they will be favored in each of their next 7 games as well

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Aren't they winning against some pretty bad teams though?

A big part of this streak has been against bad teams, but the Braves are good and 12 of 13 is good no matter who youre playing.

Okay. They still look down in most offensive categories and the way this season has started...it just looks a little "fake". I can't telll if they are good or just doing well for now. I don't watch much baseball though.

The Sox are playing good baseball. The funny thing about baseball is that even the worst of teams can get on a hot streak and beat the best teams for a short time.
We will know in another couple weeks which category the Sox fall into.
Right now, they are pitching when they need to and hitting when they need to. If some of the players that got off to a rough start come back to the mean, they may very well challenge the Twins who are having a rough stretch right now.

It still come down to the pitching, however.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

The Cubs/Sox series are always tough games no matter how good or bad the teams are, which is why historically these series are almost always split. I think, iirc, the Sox have a 3 or 4 game advantage in the overall series but thats because they took 2 of 3 from both series last year, and won 2 of 3 during the first series this year.

The Pirates are bad, but they swept them. The Nats are bad, but Strasburg didn't beat them and they gave up a grand total of 4 runs over the 3 game series. That is getting it done regardless of if the team you are playing is in 1st place or last place.

Going into Monday, the Braves had one of the best records in the NL and the Sox lit up thier best pitcher.

They are also winning with good situational hitting and scoring runs after 2 outs. Good pitching and 2 out runs are the biggest things that good teams do well.

This really started in early June against the Indians. Buerhle goes out there and gives up 6 runs on like 13 hits in 3 innings. The Sox ended up coming back to win that game, then took 2 of 3 against the Tigers, and they've been rolling since. I'm not convinced that they are a playoff team yet, but if they get to say 4 or 5 games over .500 by the All Star break and are still hanging around the Twins, it could be thier division to lose.

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