• 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.

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.

Not much went right for the White Sox and John Danks on Wednesday night. Danks was pulled with 1 out in the third when he forced Ozzie's second trip to the mound of the inning by walking in a run ushering in Masset time.

Danks failed to make it through the lineup twice, facing only 16 batters in his outing. Of those 16, he walked 3 and struck out two. Simple math tells us that 11 balls were but into play, with 7 of them finding a soft spot in the defense. All 7 hits Danks allowed were singles.

Rounding up Danks outing is a simple one. He was falling behind hitters, and paying for it. When he wasn't falling behind hitters, he was unable to put them away. The Twins didn't really hit him hard, but he was visibly out of sorts with the number of piranhas circling the bases.

Nick Masset came on in "relief" and quickly turned a bad situation worse, clearing the the bases of inherited runners and allowing the games first extra-base hit. After limiting damage for a few innings, allowing the Sox to briefly make a game of it with solo homers by Nick Swisher, Paul Konerko, and Joe Crede, Masset blew up in his fourth inning of work. He walked Delmon Young -- No easy task. Delmon entered the day without a walk in his last 97 trips to the plate -- after being ahead 0-2, then gave up a grand slam to Jason Kubel on the next pitch.

The Twins had scored just 23 runs in their first 8 games (2.75 R/G), yet managed to score 5 runs in an inning twice Wednesday. Not surprisingly, Masset was involved in both innings.

Trivially, the Sox have yet to have a lead after the 3rd or 4th inning this season.

* * * * *

Ozzie Guillen has remained true to his word. He's got it turned up to 11, continuing to call out umpire and Sopranos reject Phil Cuzzi.

"I don't like that guy behind the plate, and I'm going to let him know," said Guillen, during his pregame meeting with the media. "It's one reason if you don't like me as a man and what I do, I respect that. But if you don't like me, and all of a sudden you're going to take it out on my players, you're wrong.

"That's unprofessional, and I just let him know I didn't like him the first day I saw him, and I think he feels the same way about me. Every time he's behind the plate, we might have a problem. We might. We have. I think the last couple times behind the plate, we have a problem."

Ozzie must have known the Sox were gonna stink up the joint Wednesday, so he decided to take the heat off his players. That Ozzie, he's sly like a, well, like a something.

* * * * *

Andy Sisco, obtained from the Royals before the '07 season in exchange for Ross Gload, will undergo Tommy John surgery. Of all the moves Kenny Williams made last off-season, the Sisco deal was on the one I liked best. I thought acquiring a high-upside arm in exchange for a perennnially underutilized career back-up was a great move. Of course, I was basing that assumption off Sisco, who lacked in minor-league seasoning, spending all of 2007 in the Charlotte rotation. The Sox put him on the 2007 opening day roster over Boone Logan, and he never settled into a role.

Sisco was always a bit of a long-shot to succeed, but the Sox, like the Royals before them, never seemed to be focused on the long-term with Sisco. With the injury, Sisco is probably done with the Sox, and maybe done with baseball altogether. He'll be out of options next year, so if the Sox elect to keep him (doubtful) he'll have to go straight from the DL to the bigs with only a rehab assignment to get things straightened out.

In short, adios Andy.

In what has already become something of a trend here in the early season, I'll open this recap with another It's Not 2007 Anymore type factoid. Today's: The White Sox 5-game winning streak is their longest since a similar 5-game streak August 10-14, 2006, which also included a 3-game sweep of Detroit.

That 5-game streak put the Sox 25 games over .500, and still 5.5 games back of the division leading Tigers, so I won't get too far ahead of myself here. Three games above .500 is a whole lot better than three games under, but even the '07 Sox managed to stay sufficiently afloat at four games over until Memorial Day.

When Tango came to us asking for help with his Clutch Project, I openly wondered how the rest of you would rate the post-surgery Joe Crede. There was little doubt in my mind that pre-surgery Crede would have been the player most SSSers wanted at the plate with the game on the line. A poor spring erased my optimism regarding Crede's return such that I voted him among the Sox hitters I wanted at the plate, though not necessarily the hitter; so I wondered how that spring effected the rest of you. Turns out Crede did end up being the Sox choice for Tango's Clutch Project.

Crede may have answered some of his doubters with a 2-out grand slam off of one of the toughest right-handed relievers in baseball for his second late-inning, go-ahead homer in a week.

In truth, Crede hasn't been swinging the bat well. His doubters, myself included, have noted Crede's lack of consistently hard contact thus far, including 8 pop-ups in the first 7 games. His at-bats certainly don't look like those of a batter who currently owns a 1.100 OPS. But we'll certainly take 'em. Being a supporter and a doubter is not mutually exclusive.

* * * * *

Continuing a theme from last night, the Sox lineup just feels so much better with Nick Swisher and Carlos Quentin in the outfield.

I know Pierzynski isn't going to OPS 1.400 for the rest of the season, nor is Crede going to 1.100, or JD 1.250, or Q nearly 1.000. I also know that Paul Konerko and Jim Thome aren't going to perform as poorly over the whole season as they have to start the year. The additions of Swisher and Quentin have made a huge difference to the Sox lineup, as evidenced by their ability to score runs in bunches -- second straight game with a 5-run inning -- without the need to over-rely on Thome and Konerko.

Ozzie has said that he intends to leadoff Swisher "for the foreseeable future."

"You have a leadoff hitter who can run, that's a plus," Guillen said. "But to be a leadoff hitter, you've got to get on base. You can't steal first.

"I'd rather be a guy who gets on base. [Swisher is] hitting [.261] and all of a sudden he gets on base six times in a row by walks, and we need people on base when you have [ Orlando] Cabrera and [ Jim] Thome behind you. You get on base, you're going to score a lot of runs."

Sounds good to me. While batting Swisher first is unconventional, and might waste a bit of his slugging ability, it's certainly a step up from what we've had since Ray Durham left town. It also seems to indicate that he's looking at the Swisher-Quentin tandem as our longer-term starters in the outfield, even if Jerry Owens were to return fully healthy. And that's the biggest benefit of Swisher leading off; the lineup is far more likely to contain Carlos Quentin.

* * * * *

On the mound, Javier Vazquez had something of a bizzaro-2006 outing. He struggled with command and looked to be just one pitch away from giving up a big inning in the early going, then retired the last 10 batters he faced with greatest of ease in the 5th, 6th, and 7th.