Orlando Cabrera is growing into his role as the White Sox leadoff hitter, and his teammates are learning to follow his lead. Yesterday, he showed them how to give away outs on the basepaths, and today he set the tone with a 1-pitch at-bat to start the game. Following his lead, the next 8 Sox batters needed just 20 pitches to make their outs.

Justin Verlander was the story of the night. He threw strikes, and the Sox offense seemed more than happy to quickly put them in play. Weakly. In the air. Verlander wasn't missing bats--he'd have to work deep counts to do that--but he got by inducing consistently weak contact on his fastball.

The Sox only put together one rally, when Cabrera doubled down the left field line to break up the no-hit bid and was then followed by an AJ Pierzynski single down the right field line. Continuing the theme of the series, Pierzynski was thrown out at second base (though replays showed he was safe) to kill the rally.

Verlander's counterpart, Javier Vazquez, was undone in the second inning by a 14-pitch at-bat by Miguel Cabrera. Vazquez (and Hawk) thought he had Cabrera struck out on the final pitch, but the umpire disagreed. The perceived blown call and a dropped ball by Orlando Cabrera on what would have been a spectacular fielder's choice, seemed to bring back First-Half '06 Javy. He threw hanging slider to Marcus Thames, who is a poor hitter with a 'slider-speed bat,' that ended up in the left field bullpen, effectively ending the game. Vazquez racked up his strikeouts, but the rest of the outing had that sort of disinterested, You Guys Let Me Down vibe to it, as Javy tried to be too fine with his pitches, walked some guys, and gave Detroit a couple more insurance runs.

• The White Sox 3-8 hitters combined to go 0-19, with #9 hitter Brian Anderson recording half of the Sox positive at-bats on the evening.
• The 4 hits snapped a streak of 9 straight games with at least 10 or more hits, and marked their lowest total since... wait for it... 9 games ago when they got blanked by the Rays.
• The 9 game streak was the Sox second longest of the retrosheet era (since '56), behind only a 13-game streak by the '97 squad.

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.

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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.