Thornton saves Sox' win over Rays. This series is nuts.

How much fun was last night's 4-3 White Sox win over the Rayz Rays? So much fun that I just decided I'm going to go to the finale tomorrow. These are the types of things you can do when you don't have a real job. Hurray for a poor economy/degree not worth the paper it's printed on!

Quickly, a few thoughts...

- We all love Hawk here, but one thing that sort of irks me is how he's constantly whining about the Sox not getting calls, but he never goes the other way with it. Case in point: the pitch before Alexei hit that game-tying triple was probably strike three. Looked like it to me. But from the way Hawk called it, you would have thought it was in the dirt.

Of course, Hawk's extreme homerism is what makes him so great - I always think back to Stompy's joke (which I'm too lazy to find and link) about Hawk leading the Sox' cheering section from the bleachers in Game 163 last year (the 'blackout') like a college senior attending his last home football game in the student section - but I'd like to hear him say the Sox caught a break just once. I'm not asking for any real objectivity here - God no - just a modicum of game-awareness.

- Was there any doubt that JD was going to drive in Alexei for the game-winner? No, no there was not.

- Scotty Pods is just nuts. I like to think that us bloggers know it all (ha!) but there isn't one person across the interwebs that thought Pods would be even half this good. Certainly not I. That homer last night was great (is there anyone you'd rather watch hit a home run than Scott Podsednik?) but beating out the throw at first with two outs in the seventh was just as big. Pods probably isn't as fast as he was in 2005, but there isn't another player on the Sox roster that would have kept that inning alive last night.

Let this sink in for a second: through 69 games (281 at-bats), Pods is hitting .306/.367 with four homers....


- Before anyone thinks that Ozzie has lost all faith in Jenks, take a step back. Realize Jenks threw 28 pitches in Game 1, 20 in Game 2. He probably couldn't have gone if he wanted to. That being said, I'm glad Oz stuck with Thronton. Nothing like easy heat. A two-inning, 34-pitch save is a bit heavy, but the Sox have enough other reliable bullpen arms to cover him if he needs a day or two of rest now.

- I could get picky with Torres and say he didn't didn't throw nearly enough strikes (only 53 out of 95) but the fact of the matter is that he almost certainly isn't in the Sox' long-term plans. It was a hell of a spot-start last night, and a very gutsy effort against a damn good Tampa lineup. I would have liked to see Poreda get the call, but whatever. Torres was about as good as anyone could have hoped for. A tip of the hat to him in his first major league start.

- Sox win, Tigers lose, Twins get owned. It means the Sox trail the Tigers by just a game a day before heading to Detroit for a four-game weekend series. Hopefully it'll be all tied up by Friday.