Offense Provided by Juan Man

Phil Humber continued to prove himself on Thursday in Toronto. The White Sox right hander went 7.2 innings scattering 6 hits and 1 earned run giving the White Sox another stellar pitching performance from our starting rotation. The offense was provided by one player who has been starting to pick it up as of late. Juan Pierre, who is on an 11 game hitting streak and quickly earning trust back from his manager.

Pierre knocked in the first run of the ball game on an RBI single in the 5th, only to be countered with a Blue Jays Home run in the bottom of the 6th off the bat of Yunel Escobar. The score would stay tied at one until the 9th inning as both offenses struggled to score. The Sox would catch a few breaks in their last at bats, first on a throwing error by Blue Jay third basemen John McDonald, who fielded Alex Rios's ground ball and threw it into the stands, which of course resulted in Rios being awarded second base. After AJ failed to sacrifice Rios to third, Toronto threw a wild pitch (which essentially was just as good as if AJ had been able to get the bunt down). So after a throwing error and a wild pitch we had the potential winning run on third in the 9th. Beckham was then hit by a pitch and would then steal second with Pierre at the plate. Pierre then hit a ground ball behind the bag at first, which resulted in a foot race to first, as Marc Rzepczynski (Blue Jays pitcher) was slow to cover first, Pierre beat the throw and on yet another break in the inning for the White Sox, the ball was kicked into short right field, allowing Beckham to score from first.

Santos would come in to nail it down and preserve the 3-1 Sox victory.

This was a big win for our White Sox, the offense struggled again, the team is trying to claw their way back to .500 to contend for a division, and we just had a hard loss on Wednesday. All these things in mind, we really needed that game yesterday. We need to close out this road trip in a very strong way because after this trip we go back home and the schedule slowly starts to lighten up. If we can come home at .500 or very close to .500, that is going to put us in prime position to really tear up our schedule.

This win also moved the White Sox up into 3rd place. I know it doesn't sound like much, but when you consider how awful the team was playing just a few weeks ago and how far out of it we were, thats a moral victory right there. We need those small victories to keep us going and to shed light on the fact that we have been making progress, because with the way the Indians have been playing, its hard to feel like you've done much, when you win 11 games out of 14 and you still haven't picked up any ground on the division leading team. We just need to keep chipping away at these teams and we will come out on top. Is that a central division championship prediction for the Sox? Take it as is...

One more thing, did any of you watch for the Toronto fans booing Rios last night like I told you to? Because they definitely did, and it still blows my mind, because they got rid of him....

Anyway, we need this one again today, we have Buehrle on the bump today and first pitch will be at 6:07 over on Comcast Sportsnet. As Hawk would say, we need to sinch it up and hunker down today. Lets get this offense going!