Chris Sale earned his first major league victory with 2.2 spotless innings of relief Monday.
The win pushed the White Sox winning streak to 7, but thanks to Minnesota's 8-2 record over the last 10 they haven't really made up much ground. The con-Manny Sox have made a habit of coming back with dramatic late-inning rallies, a feature that was sorely missing in August and led to much consternation over the bullpen.
Ironically, now that the bullpen is shortened, Ozzie has been at his best managing them. He seems to be pushing all the right buttons on this trip. In the last 3 days he's allowed 3 different pitchers to close out a game; Jenks twice in a double header, Matt Thornton in his first game back from the DL, and Monday with Sale, a kid who was in a second, maybe-third-tier college program a little over 3 months ago. That takes balls, and is one of the skills that makes Guillen's other foibles more bearable.