You can trace all of the Sox non-weather related rotation juggling to their desire to keep innings off the young arm of John Danks, who appeared to have a bit of a dead arm in August, unable to put hitters away, and nearing 50 innings over his previous career high. The Sox moves were rewarded, as Danks appeared to rebounded with a series of three strong, if inefficient, performances. But Danks allowed 7 runs in just 4 innings in his last outing, his worst start since allowing 7 to these very Twins in the second start of the season, and he'll be working on 3-days rest for the first time in his career. Who knows what we can expect from Danks tonight?
Ozzie Guillen provided Nick Blackburn with plenty of bulletin board material, as if one would need extra motivation for such an important game, by speaking the truth about his own team's poor offensive showing in the dome, and then refusing to back down from those comments in last night's post-game press conference. Blackburn is similar to the type of pitcher who gives the Sox trouble, but his fastball is just fast enough that they're not completely lulled to sleeep. The Sox had seemed to figure Blackburn out before their meeting in the Metrodome, when they couldn't put together their 8 hits over 5 innings in the right order. Who knows what we can expect from the Sox offense against Blackburn tonight?