• In the series opener, Gavin Floyd, who I once called the Joe Borchard of pitching prospects, took a no-hitter into the 9th inning.
• Yesterday, Carlos Gomez hit for the cycle -- the 8th cycle the White Sox have allowed in the retrosheet era.
• In the rubber match Thursday, Juan Uribe was the hero and Jim Thome recorded his first steal since he was playing in Cleveland, both of which seem equally unlikely.

Just days ago, there was speculation from inside the White Sox clubhouse that Juan Uribe was a goner, a sacrificial lamb for the team-wide hitting slump and 6 game losing streak. Thursday he may have provided the spark to help lift the Sox out of their funk.

While Uribe's 2-run homer in the 5th inning put the Sox up for good, it was hit takeout slide of Brendan Harris in the 8th that really brought life to the dugout.

"Awesome," manager Ozzie Guillen said of Uribe's clean but ferocious slide. "I was the first one that jumped out of my seat.

"When somebody hits a home run, I just sit there and wait for the guy to shake his hand, unless it's to win the game. But when I see plays like that -- clean, play the game the way they should be playing -- it's something we're missing."

The first thing I noticed after Uribe bowled over Harris was the reception he received in the dugout. It was much more boisterous than the homecoming following his 2-run shot. It may have been a while since the Sox have seen a multi-run homer, but it's still something they're used to seeing. A well executed takeout slide, however, was something to be celebrated.

If the Sox are able to come out of their team-wide slump, you know that play will trotted out as the turning point. If the Sox bats head back into hibernation, if Uribe continues to hit below his weight, the simple fundamentally sound play will be forgotten as the calls for Jerry Owens crescendo. I'll stick with the view that it was a good play, and if the Sox get some more plays like that, and the properly executed run down, and, you know, some timely hitting they'll turn things back around.

* * * * *

I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't describe the bizarre circumstances surrounding Thome's first steal in a White Sox uniform. To set the stage, with nobody out in the Thome walked to advance Carlos Quentin to second and bring Paul Konerko to the plate. Konerko worked a 3-1 count, and was unable to check his swing on an inside fastball.

Home plate umpire Doug Eddings --It's always Doug Eddings-- was slow to call anything (sound familiar?). Konerko, hearing nothing, assumed it was ball four and began to take off his shin guard. At the same time Quentin and Thome began trotting towards the next base. Meanwhile, Joe Mauer started asking for help, inexplicably pointing to third base then finding the proper ump at first, who (correctly) called it a strike on a failed check swing. But by this time, Thome and Q were mere steps away from 2nd and 3rd, respectively, giving Mauer no play.

Mauer returned the ball to Matt Guerrier, who ran around the field tagging Thome and Quentin, who now stood safely 90 feet closer to home. Ron Gardenhire came out to argue Eddings' slow call on the play, and eventually got the boot. Meanwhile in the White Sox dugout, Ozzie yukked it up, pantomiming Guerrier looking for outs by tagging anyone within arms reach of him.

The Sox would not score in the inning. The smiles were removed from their faces... until that Uribe slide.

• In a somewhat surprising twist, it seems the person most responsible for keeping Owens off the roster right now is Ozzie. This probably has more to do with Ozzie's inflated view of Alexei Ramirez more than anything else, but it's notable because it seems like Ozzie is always fighting to keep his bantam-weight speedsters on the roster.

• Anecdotally, based solely on my own observation and without going through the game logs or Pitch F/X data, it feels like there is a (negative) correlation between the opposing starter's fastball velocity and their game ERA against the Sox. Put more simply, the Sox can't hit soft tossers. The harder you throw, the better they've hit you (at least since the Baltimore series). If anyone wanted to take the time to dive into the data, I'd be forever in your debt.

• As if there wasn't enough misguided, tangentially White Sox related material floating through my inbox and feed reader with the manufactured outrage surrounding latex inflatables in a locker room in the news everywhere, Ozzie went on another one of his Ozzie being Ozzie rants where he says a whole lot of nothing, causing those who don't cover him every day to proclaim he's talking himself out of a job. We all know this is about as far from the truth as you can get, so I'll just continue to point out that the coaches and staff from the '05 World Series team have recurring contracts and Get Out of Jail Free cards that run through 2012.

They say good hitting is contagious. Well, for the White Sox, bad hitting is a plague, an epidemic.

The Sox closed out a road trip that saw them score just 9 runs in 6 games, with Sox hitters going 4-37 with runners in scoring position.

I've been sitting up waiting for more definitive news on the state of the Sox roster, because all I know right now is that changes appear imminent. Adam Russell is gone without appearing in a game, and it looks like Alexei Ramirez is your new starting 2B. Why? I have no idea.

Juan Uribe's presence in the lineup is tough to defend, but he still seems to give the Sox a better chance to win than any of the other options at second base.

Perhaps the turkey leg that fully blocked the fat man's artery came in the third inning when Uribe found himself in an unfamiliar place, third base, with nobody out. Orlando Cabrera grounded to the rag-armed David Eckstein, who was playing what Hawk would call "half way" at short, but Uribe didn't come home. The next batter, Carlos Quentin, lifted a shallow fly ball to right field where the strong arm of Alex Rios made a running a dubious decision. Uribe held again.

Uribe's mistake was amplified by the Sox 14 inning scoring drought and Javier Vazquez' magnificent performance. Vazquez. who was throwing in the mid-90's in his last inning of work, would have finished out the 8th if not for a poor play by Pablo Ozuna. He narrowly missed becoming the third White Sox starter to grab a complete game loss while north of the border.

For his part, Ozuna had an opportunity to take Vazquez off the hook for the loss when he came to the plate in the 9th with the bases loaded and nobody out. -- I don't need to go on about Ozuna. If there's anyone who deserves to be gone (aside from Ramirez) it's Ozuna. -- With the Sox needing just a deep fly ball, and Joe Crede unavailable because of a migraine, Ozuna grounded into the game ending 1-2-3 double play.

I wish I knew the direction the Sox were thinking about taking so that I could make a preemptive post about it tonight while I have the opportunity. All I know for sure is there are no quick fixes available, and all of the conceivable solutions are hardly solutions at all.

Hi. Remember me? I used to write terrible things about wonderful people in this space.

I was going to write a post recapping the month of April, but once I started to delve into the offensive numbers over the past couple of weeks, I thought it deserved its own post.

The Sox offense still sits near the top of the league in runs scored and R/G, but they've recently been unable to produce the big innings we began to get used to in the first two weeks. Heck, they've been unable to get the key hit and produce many 1-run innings lately. So I decided to jump into the numbers using the essentially arbitrary day of April 15th as a pivot point.

What happened? As a team, the Sox hit .249/.345/.436 in the season's first 2+ weeks, and have hit .236/.325/.395 since. That's a marked decline, but it's compounded when you dig deeper.

• Against lefties: .250/.373/.455 before Tax Day, .184/.292/.276 after
• Sox right-handed hitters: .243/.340/.411 before Tax Day, .233/.308/.387 after. This split is quite troubling when you realize that Carlos Quentin has hit .356/.500/.778 since that arbitrary date. It should also be no surprise that he's only managed 8 RBIs over that stretch, as AJ Pierzynski has posted a .224/.255/.306 line in front of him.
• Bases Loaded: (Extremely small sample size warning) .600/.647/1.400 before Tax Day, .077/.263/.077 after. That .263 OBP is nearly all Quentin getting HBP.
• RISP: .309/.387/.553 before Tax Day, .257/.377/.390 after. It's interesting to me that the OBP is nearly the same. They've had nearly the same number of big inning opportunities, they've just been terribly unsuccessful at cashing in their chips. If the Sox didn't have a similarly dismal RISP hitting record last season, I'd actually take the high OBP and number of run-scoring opportunities as a good thing.

The offense isn't clicking right now. It hasn't really hummed since July '06. I'd be on Greg Walker Job Watch again if I wasn't convinced he has a renewable contract until 2012 like the rest of the staff.

Perhaps the best illustration of why there's not reason to panic... yet. Over the last week, the White Sox player with the most hits (other than Quentin) is... Brian Anderson. The rest of the offense, if healthy --which is key-- will not continue to hit for such a low average.

This one had all the makings of the White Sox first 3-game losing streak of the season. Gavin Floyd had a third inning that evoked images of Javy's second inning earlier this week. He didn't seem to want anything to do with the strike zone, and would stake the Yankees to an early 3-0 lead. And then the rains came.

Thank god they came. For the series the White Sox seemed unable to push runs across against the Yankees starter, or the two aces at the end of the Yankees pen. But the rain knocked Yanks starter Phil Hughes out of the game, and gave the Sox offense a crack at the ass end of their bullpen.

Sure enough, the Sox rolled up another big inning, 5 runs in the 4th off Ross Ohlendorf (pronounced Nick Masset). It would have been 6 if not for a would-be Alexei Ramirez triple finding the right field seats resulting in a ground rule double and Carlos Quentin on 3rd base. The Gentleman Masher later added a Walloped Tater to finish the Sox scoring against the spare parts of the Yankee pen.

Floyd would take his lead and generally pitch well. But much like Javy on Wednesday, the Yankees mounted a lightning quick 2-out rally to cut the lead to one and make it a battle of the bullpens for the remaining 3 innings.

You can tell that Ozzie is still trying to get used to his new bullpen. I've yet to criticize Ozzie's bullpen usage this season in part for the same reason.

• Bobby Jenks is the closer
• Boone Logan is the top lefty
• Scott Linebrink is the top set-up man

All other roles are up for grabs, and any move to call on the remaining 4 members can be called into question in a tight game. With the Yankees running out a predominantly left-handed lineup, Ozzie tried to steal an inning with Matt Thornton, but a 2-out single and a walk forced Ozzie to call on Linebrink with the right-handed Morgan Ensberg due up. You know how that worked out.

Ozzie then tried to get multiple innings out of Logan, in part because he breezed through his first inning of work and, as is becoming quite redundant, because the Yankees lineup is littered with lefties. But when Logan had trouble getting his second out in the 9th, Ozzie made the call for the big man, a move we've begged for constantly on this blog. Even DJ tried to convince Hawk why it's in the Sox best interest to have their best reliever on the mound in the highest leverage situation. He didn't put it like that, but at least he's trying.

Jenks coaxed a double play out of Jorge Posada, and looked like he would be available to go in the 10th. The two resident ManCrushes of this site had other ideas.

With one out and Joba Chamberlain locked on cruise control, Quentin, who was in the midst of a terrible night at the plate, battled to get a bit a hanger, which he was able to rope for a double off the left field wall. Four pitches later, Joe Crede, who you might have heard is clutch, buckled his knees and poked a flat 1-2 slider into center field for the game winning single.

I don't want to overstate the importance of a single game, but if that game ends in a loss the last week plus would have had a very 2007-like feel to it. Avoiding the sweep, putting up a fight even when the bullpen blows a lead; this is a different team. I can't say they're a great team, or even a team that will stick around for the rest of the season in the AL Central, but at least they're better, more entertaining, than last season.

I think for the rest of the season we shall refer to games like this--where the opposing right-handed starter expertly changes speeds and hits his spots--as being Sonnanstined. Mike Mussina doesn't have much in the way of stuff anymore, but he made up for on Wednesday night by throwing strikes--good strikes, on the corners--and mixing in some junk. A 65 MPH curveball here, a knuckleball there, 86 MPH with movement on the black, the White Sox hitters were perplexed.

Give them an Edwin Jackson, a Dana Eveland, a Daniel Cabrera, they'll mount a credible offensive attack. But if you've got a Sonnanstine, a Lance Broadway with control, these Sox are probably in for a long night.

Joe Crede and Carlos Quentin provided all of the Sox offense against Moose, each with a solo-shot, the former on a poorly located fastball and the latter on a hanging 73 MPH breaking ball. The rest of the Sox combined to reach base just twice in 7 innings against the veteran hurler.

For the second straight night, the Sox provided some excitement by destroying the non-Joba/Mo part of the Yankees bullpen. But for the second straight night, Girardi smartly called on one of his aces in the hole to put out the fire and end the Sox hope of a comback.

The loss is the Sox' 5th straight versus the Yankees at USCF, and their 7th in their last 8 meetings on the south side. It's the Sox first losing streak since back-to-back losses on the 9th and 11th of the month.

They've played 11 games since those two losses, during which I've routinely lauded their play, going 6-5 in the interim. That's not exactly tearing it up for a team that's "playing well." Perhaps it's time to reconsider that notion.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Javier Vazquez' inconsistent outing on the night. At times, Javy was attacking hitters and having easy innings. At others, like the second inning, for instance, he seemed like he wanted nothing to do with the strike zone and paid for it. Then, just for good measure and to put the game just out of reach, he was hit hard as he threw lots of strikes to end his outing.

* * * * *

My favorite part of the broadcast--when I wasn't tuning out Hawk and DJ as usual--was when Jorge Posada hit his third double of the game. Hawk made a comment, which was met with silence from DJ, about the hit "sounding weird." I can understand why DJ was silent, as it seemed like Hawk was insinuating that Posada was corking his bat. After a measured pause, DJ asked him in directly indirect fashion "did you think that bat had a weird hollow sound?" Hawk immediately laughed it off, No, that's not what he meant. He knows that sound, chuckle.

But what I really liked from the exchange was a few pitches later when DJ asked Hawk "Have you ever seen that show Mythbusters?" He would then go on to explain their baseball myths episode, and how when they tested corked bats they found no difference (or a negative effect, I don't remember now) in ball speed off the bat. DJ, expressing exactly the same concern I had with their conclusion, said it's not about ball speed off the bat, it's about the speed of a bat itself. After all, you can get a 31 ounce bat around faster than a 32 ouncer.

There's also something of a psychological effect to the corked, slightly lighter bat. It's the same reason you swing with doughnut on your bat in the on deck circle. If the bat feels lighter in the box than it does normally, you've got a better shot at getting around on some major league heat, or fighting off those tough breaking pitches.

* * * * *

We had a major outage during the game, as I'm sure most of you are aware. I'm not exactly privvy to the details of the outage, other than to say it was a problem with our server structure. All I can say is that I'm positive we have a number of people working hard to make sure it doesn't happen again.

When you pick up your morning paper later today, you'll probably be greeted with stories crafted around the idea that the White Sox needed to bounce back from the brutal loss Thursday at the hands of the Orioles. I'm wasn't exactly concerned about how they bounced back.

This team is playing very well right now. Since last Saturday, they've lost two games, each by a run. The first came at the hands of a lefty making his second career start, and the second being the aforementioned bullpen meltdown in Baltimore. During that stretch they've also shutout Detroit, twice, and allowed more than 2 runs just once.

There's a feeling about this club that they can -- nay, should -- win every time they take the field. And when you've got a team going like that, you don't worry about how you'll respond to a tough loss; you can't wait to get back on the field and get back in the W column.

I was not at all surprised to see Javier Vazquez and the offense right back at it, doing exactly what they've been doing all season. Vazquez was able to pitch over a terrible HBP call and a poor defensive decision by Pablo Ozuna in the second and was quickly rewarded. The offense put together two big innings on the strength of back-to-back Jim Thome and Paul Konerko homers in the 3rd inning and took advantage of an Evan Longoria throwing error to get things started in the 4th. It was a laugher before the game even reached the half-way mark, giving Ozzie the opportunity to play the back-end of the bench.

* * * * *

Jerry Owens officially came off the DL and was promptly optioned to Charlotte, where he was on rehab assignment. This is a clear sign that the Sox are happy with their current 25-man roster. Who can blame them when they're leading the AL Central with a 10-6 record, and playing this well? But I'd actually like to see Owens on the roster.

Owens is never going to be anything more than a 4th or 5th outfielder on a good team, while Alexei Ramirez might be able to hold down a starting role on a good team in the near future. I could see keeping Alexei around if he was getting some starts on the infield, but Juan Uribe has started all but one game at second, and Ozuna appears to be the primary backup on the infield. With the emergence of Carlos Quentin, who has been the left field starter every game since game 2, there just aren't enough at-bats to go around. I'd rather those at-bats not be given to Owens than Ramirez, who could clearly use some more development time.

It got that close.Bobby Jenks and the White Sox's win probability after retiring Ramon Hernandez was 94%.  With two strikes and no balls on Roberts, it had to be 99%.  Thanks to the magic of mlb.tv, there's going to be a recap and I've been watching the ninth so far.  Bobby has the stuff and the control, so I'm figuring this is going to end well right?

Not so much.  But again, Bobby got to 1-2 against Mora and made out pitches.  He nearly had Mora frozen on an 88 mph slider/cutter that was high according to the umpire and he busted him in earlier with a hard fastball that Mora sliced off defensively.  With the drama of the game gone since I knew the outcome, I just kept looking for what was missing this time and can't come up with anything.  The one pitch we didn't see is that 82-83 mph-er that falls straight down off the table, but I liked what I did see.  If by default every team wins and loses 50 games each, then we should drop this one in the Lose 50 bucket.

Gavin Floyd had another good outing, but at this point through three starts he has 10 K's to 8 BB's in 19.3 innings.  He's gotten a ridiculous .865 DER (league leader according to THT) and sports a .136 BABIP with an unsustainable low line drive rate and the same fly ball rate that has plagued him since coming here.  There's nothing there to suggest that he won't be reliant on the hope that all of these fly balls land in gloves and not seats.  More or less, he's the '07 version of what we saw, though I do think Coop is helping mechanically.  My dad leaned over last night while I was trying in vain to pick out some screen shots for Floyd's delivery and said, "He doesn't pitch the same way twice."  Grains of salt, sure, but suffice it to say it's an uphill battle.

Carlos Quentin, meanwhile, is making Kenny Williams looking like a genius.  He's batting .244/.370/.556 through 54 PAs.  His line drive rate is low and is suppressing his BABIP correspondingly, but all of the secondary indicators are in line.  He doesn't strike out much at all and while I doubt he'll keep up his .312 ISO, he's flashed power we didn't expect.  It's not easy to know exactly where he'll end up at the end of the year, but it's hard to keep from expecting good things.

And Carlos is one of those reasons this isn't '07, even if superficially all the elements were in place.  I know my real ball players from my Andy Gonzalezes and these guys pass the whiff test.  That said, it's also clear defense is going to be a major issue throughout the season.  The OC (don't call him that) made a nice throw from the hole for once, but I couldn't help wonder WWJUD on that grounder that Mora sent through the middle past Jenks and Cabrera.  Buehrle, Vazquez and Contreras all sport a DER substantially below .700 while Danks has a .741.  Outside of the four and five spots, the Sox defense has not been good for their starters.  Without a single strikeout pitcher on the staff save Javy, the long term outlook on the Sox' chances to keep runs from scoring looks bad.  That makes Cansequito all the more central to our slim but seemingly tangible post season possibility.

White Sox match 2007 high water mark

Ho Hum. Just another well pitched game won on the strength of the 3-run homer.

Yesterday it was Carlos Quentin who provided the offense with 3-run shot off Dana Eveland; today it was Jim Thome's turn. Thome, who had been benched yesterday even before receiving a 1-game suspension, hit his third HR of the year and his first since opening day in the first inning after falling behind Adam Loewen 0-2. He has yet to hit a HR off a right-hander.

After that, it was about as boring of a game as you can get with Jose Contreras on the mound. I missed the first two batters of the game, and tuned in just in time to see Thome fall behind 0-2. Two hours and fifteen minutes later, Bobby Jenks nonchalantly put this one in the books.

If I was one of those writers, I might say this is a team that just knows how to win. But I'm not. The Sox are winning because they're getting good pitching -- The pitching staff has allowed 4 runs in their last 5 games -- they've embraced the idea of putting guys who get on base at the top of the lineup, and they've always hit home runs.

For his part, Jose was as crisp as he's been since May of 2006. He's still is dropping down too much, as almost every non-forkball pitch he threw to a righty was from the drop-down position, but he had good movement, and more importantly, great location on his pitches. He didn't walk a batter for the first time since an August 17 loss to Seattle last year.

His velocity was in the low 90's -- Gameday says he was touching 93 -- but he'll probably never have the 95 MPH with movement on the corners he displayed during his remarkable '05-'06 run. That's fine by me if we see a whole lot more of the low-90's control pitcher we saw tonight.

* * * * *

• Bobby Jenks and Scott Linebrink, who combined to close out the last two innings allowing only 1 baserunner, each seemed to have some extra life on their respective fastballs. Linebrink was touching 94 on the WCIU gun, and had similar Gameday readings, while Jenks hit 95 on both.

• Carlos Quentin is quickly approaching his longest at-bat streak without hitting a double. He's gone 42 at-bats this season without hitting a two-bagger. The good news is he's still been an effective offensive force. The bad news is I don't think he's quite 100% yet, which I suppose could be construed as good news as well.

  I bring this up because Q is not really a homerun hitter. He's more of a gap hitter. He hit nearly twice as many doubles as he had HR in AAA, and continued that trend to his brief pre-White Sox major league career.

  During the Civil Rights game, Kenny Williams mentioned that Carlos wasn't quite all the way back yet. And that he'd be "all the way back" when we saw him pounding the ball to the right center field gap. I don't think I've seen anything but a lazy fly ball to that field from Q this season. Hopefully we start to see it soon. Then we'll really know what we have in Quentin.

• The Orioles wiped out two Sox scoring opportunities with outfield assists.

Instead of recapping the shellacking the White Sox handed to the Tigers for the second straight game, I thought I would look back at the first two weeks of the season as a whole.

The Sox opened up the season with a pair of losses to Cleveland, allowing 17 runs in the first two games of the season. It looked like it was going to be another season of S.O.S, Same Old Sox.

But these Sox bare only the smallest of resemblance to the '07 Sox. Observe.

• In 11 games, they have attempted 1 stolen base, fewest in MLB. That steal came in the first inning of Game 1. That means they've gone over 100 innings (101 to be exact) without attempting a stolen base.
• In 11 games, they've attempted 2 sacrifice bunts (one successful), none since Game 4.
• They employ a leadoff hitter for whom speed is his 5th best tool, but who has posted a .378 OBP since the start of the '05 season.
• In their one game with Swisher on the bench, they batted not-quite-a-rookie who boasts a .413 minor league OBP, and similar speed as his 5th best tool status.
• The prospect of the 1.5 tool Jerry Owens getting significant playing time in center field and leading off continue to shrink by the day. Owens is 0-8 at the plate in his two rehab starts thus far.
• The two young starters have each carried a no-hitter beyond the 5th inning to help snap a 2-game losing streak that felt longer thanks to off-days.
• The 4 pitchers who make up the go-to portion of the bullpen (Jenks, Linebrink, Dotel, and Logan) have combined for an ERA of 2.75 in 16.1 innings.

I could go through all sorts of offensive stats where the Sox rank first in the AL, but I don't think listing them is particularly useful. There are a number of guys hitting well above their true ability, and it almost goes without saying that they won't continue to score at a rate of over 6 runs a game, at least not unless Pierzynski and Crede can continue to channel Ted Williams and George Brett, respectively.

What is important are those first few bullet points. I never understood the notion that plugging in a couple of speedsters makes the Sox a more dangerous club. Sure it would be nice if Thome, Konerko, Pierzynski, Crede, and Dye ran faster. But you'd have to overhaul the entire team for that speed to even approach a team with above-average speed. The Sox are a plodding, station-to-station club, an Earl Weaver 3-run homer crew.

Adding a couple light hitting "adept handlers of the bat wasn't going to change anything. That would be like putting a spoiler on a Hummer and expecting it to get better gas mileage. The Sox resisted overhauling their core -- They'll be that lumbering Hummer for at least another two seasons -- so it's best to trick this Hummer out with some truly complimentary accessories.

It's not that I've ever been against adding speed to the lineup; I've just always wanted it added in the form of multi-talented players. For almost the entire existence of this blog, I've been clamoring for "a multi-tooled .800 OPS outfielder." With the addition of Nick Swisher and Carlos Quentin, it appears the Sox have found not one, but two of them.

They're a far better offense for it.

Gavin Floyd overcame some early-game shakiness to put together a nice outing Saturday, making a run at a no-hitter and eclipsing his 2007 win total in the process.

It looked like it was going to be a rough one for Floyd in the first inning. He walked The Unsinkable Clete Thomas after AJ Pierzynski dropped a 3-2 foul tip. Thomas would immediately steal second, and move into third on Placido Polanco's flyout. A nice pick and throw home from Joe Crede when Thomas went home on the contact play saved a run from blemishing Floyd's line. Carlos Quentin crashed into the outfield wall to catch a near-homer from Magglio Ordonez to close an eventful, unscored upon first.

The hard outs and walks would keep on coming through the first few innings. Nick Swisher made what is becoming his trademark defensive play, a basket catch on the warning track in the third, and Jermaine Dye had to run one down in the gap in the second. Floyd used double plays to wipe out walks in the third and fourth, so it's little wonder I hadn't realized he had a no-hitter working up to that point.

Floyd might not have known either.

He must have gotten a glimpse of the scoreboard as he took the mound in the fifth, because he started to put hitters away the rest of the game. There was one good drive by Pudge in the 5th, but other than that, the Tigers didn't mount much of anything against Floyd until Edgar Renteria's bloop single broke up the no-hitter in the 8th.

Floyd is now 3-0, with a 2.43 ERA in 37 innings against the Tigers. His two quality starts to begin the season give him 7 in his last 8 starts dating back to last season.

Scott Linebrink needed just two pitches to erase Renteria's single, recording the White Sox third double play turned of the game. Unofficially, as in I'm not sure this stat is 100% accurate, that gives them 19 on the year in 10 games. I tried querying Baseball-Reference's Play Index in every way I know how to find the Sox season record for DP's turned, but came up empty. Though I do agree with Larry, I remember it being from the 2000 team (189 is my guess). [Update by The Cheat, 04/12/08 6:21 PM CDT ]: Larry found the answer, 190 double plays turned in 2000.

Orlando Cabrera's solo homerun was the offense for most of game. But when Justin Verlander provided some free bases in the form of a walk and two HBPs in the 8th, the Sox demonstrated their renewed ability to break a game open. Pierzynski, Quentin, and Juan Uribe provided the two-out damage to turn a nail-biting pitcher's duel into a laugher, and the third time the Tigers have been shut out this season.

* * * * *

Jerry Owens is scheduled to begin his rehab stint tonight in Charlotte. I'm taking this as good news because Alexei Ramirez hasn't received a start since game 2 -- not that I'm complaining, but I'd rather see him getting regular work in Charlotte. And the quickest way to accomplish that feat is to have Owens taking his spot on the bench.