When a team has a five-run lead in the 9th inning, that team is supposed to finish the 9th inning easily, go home, and return to the stadium the next afternoon refreshed and ready for another game.

Last night, the Chicago White Sox entered the 9th inning with a five-run lead, and came perilously close to another late collapse, the likes of which plagued them in both Minnesota and Kansas City last week. They'll likely (but hopefully not) come to the stadium today a little more weary, and possibly a little worse for the wear. Somehow, though, they enter tonight's action only 3.5 games in back of the quickly-cooling Minnesota Twins.

Bullpen concerns are certainly starting to mount - both Matt Thornton and J.J. Putz are headed for stints on the DL, far later than they should be (especially Putz, which I'll detail in a moment). Sergio Santos has also been scuffling as of late, since his first collapse against the Twins a couple of weeks ago. The one bright spot is the apparent resurgence of Bobby Jenks, who went three innings on Sunday against Kansas City, and then came in to get a clutch save last night against the Baltimore Orioles. Thornton and Putz's DL assignments are long overdue - especially Putz's, which must go the full 15 days from today because of his aborted appearance last night.

Williams and Guillen made a mistake not immediately DL'ing both Thornton and Putz, though in Thornton's case it only means that they were playing one short in the bullpen for a few days while they had his forearm tested. He'll be listed on the DL retroactive to August 18 (since his last appearance was August 17). What it means is that he'll be out likely another week or so, and they'll bring up someone from AAA (likely Erick Threets) to take his spot for that week. Putz, however, is another story. Since he went last night, he'll have to spend the full 15 days on the disabled list, which means we'll get someone from AAA to pull mop-up duty, and Guillen likely puts Scott Linebrink into a later-inning role as a result). I don't necessarily have a problem with this, but I do have a problem with the fact that Putz's knee obviously was problematic previous to yesterday - three blown saves since August 15 is usually a pretty good indicator that something is not working correctly, especially for a pitcher who had a solid scoreless-innings streak earlier in the season.

In the next week, the offense is going to need to continue to produce as they did last night - timely hitting with runners in scoring position. The bases-loaded situation in the 5th almost was a disaster, but the offense at least produced one run. The later inning situations in the 7th and 8th were better for the offense - 4 runs in the 7th, and an additional run in the 8th (which could have proved very important) put the game out of reach, and the offense will have to continue to use those late inning situations to put games on the shelf for a bullpen which seems balky at best. The White Sox CAN fight through their current issues - but it will take the health and resurgence of Thornton and Putz, as well as the settling-down of Santos, to get them b ack on track.

I don't know how many of you are Hawks Harrelson fans, but don't count me among you. Watching last nights game was one of the more annoying performances I had heard from an annoncer that seems to be wearing out his welcome in the booth.

Maybe it's all the "Hawkisms," maybe it's his love for Yas, maybe it's all the homerism, maybe it's the firing of Tony LaRussa, maybe it's the blaming of the umps all to often, I'm really not sure. But last nights call (or lack-there-of) of the Thome walk-off was a little much for this guy. Watch, if you want to again:

Really "Hawk." Was that amount of dead air necessary? Every Sox fan was mad, but they aren't paying you to sit in silence, not for 50+ seconds.

Alexei Ramirez did all he could last night to keep the Sox from dropping further behind in the AL Central. Unfortunately, it was an old friend who came back to bite them in the end.

Jim Thome launched a two-run homer in the bottom of the 10th to give the Twins a 7-6 win and a four game lead in the division, an extremely tough loss for a team which had fought out of an early season hole. An even tougher pill to swallow than the loss itself, was watching Thome circle the bases in a Twins uniform before tossing his helmet high in the air and joining his teammates at home plate to celebrate the walk-off.

Blame the recent Sox struggles on whatever you want, a bad bullpen, a struggling offense or mediocre starting pitching, this loss will only highlight an issue that has been lingering with some Sox fans for a while, the decision to go without Thome as the DH in favor of a platoon type situation in that spot.

"I don't want a DH just to be a DH," Ozzie Guillen said. "I want a guy to help me different ways."

That was in January, and Guillen got his wish. With the home run last night, it will be very interesting listening to 670 The Score today to hear the reaction from Sox nation regarding that decision.

This was Thome discussing his possible landing spots this past off-season:

A 2-4 homestand, under the best of circumstances, is unacceptable.

Given that every game, the White Sox are playing for their collective 2010 baseball lives, it goes from unacceptable to unpalatable and horrific.

Tack on the fact that the strength of the 2010 White Sox, its bullpen, was a major cause of the meltdowns of the last two days, and the adjectives become more colorful and less useful in mixed company.

One factor of this recent slide that has been overlooked, though, has been the awful at-bats by the middle of the lineup. In the final game against the Twins, the White Sox had five at-bats in two innings with the bases loaded - and failed to record one hit. This is hearkening back to the 2007 campaign, when the White Sox might put up 20 hits in a game and score two runs. It's not a general failure of hitting, but a specific inability to record an RBI hit (or even sacrifice) with runners in scoring position. Breaking down those five at-bats looks something like this:

Bottom of the 5th (Twins lead 3-1; bases loaded, 0 out)

Alex Rios: K-P (Groundout 2-3)
Paul Konerko: S-K-S (Strikeout swinging)
Carlos Quentin: K-F-F-F-B-F-S (Strikeout swinging)

Bottom of the 6th (Twins lead 3-1; bases loaded, 1 out)

Juan Pierre: K-F-P (Lineout 8)
Alexei Ramirez: B-S-P (Popout 6)

For those unfamiliar with the pitch notation: K=called strike, S=swinging strike, B=ball, F=foul, and P=ball in play.

Of those five at-bats, four of them lasted three pitches or less. Where the White Sox were able to work deep into counts during their stretch of winning in June and July, they have now reverted to their old modus operandi: let strike one pass them by, then scramble for the rest of the at-bat. Obviously, for all pitchers, it's important to get that first pitch strike - but if the pitcher is constantly pounding the zone on first pitch with fastballs, the hitters MUST adapt and force the pitcher to get other pitches over on the initial offering. Liriano was encountering no resistance when he threw his fastball for strike one - and while he was certainly placing it effectively, he has to do so because there is little to no movement on his fastball. For hitters to constantly allow him to get the first pitch fastball by them consistently allows him to get into a groove, and does not allow hitters later in the game to work deep into counts since they may as well be going up to the plate with an 0-1 count.

Konerko's at bat bothered me the most, for the main reason that despite his .300 average and above-average power numbers, he has had far too many of those bad plate appearances this season - especially in clutch situations. The thing that makes these bad at-bats stand out is that his value as a player is as high as it has ever been. His WAR (Wins Above Replacement player) is 3.8 - highest in his career. The next highest season? 2005, when his WAR was 3.5.

Fear not, White Sox fans, for all is not lost. On the White Sox' to-do list, though, HAS to be winning two of three in this next series against the Twins. Take a day to regroup, then go into Target Field with a feeling that this team has nothing to lose. Remember, this team was almost 10 games out at one point, so 2 games is NOTHING.  The Sox simply cannot afford to play the kind of ball they played last week. It's time to get on the stick and start playing the smart baseball that got them to this point - in contention, once again, for the postseason.

At the beginning of the season, Freddy Garcia was touted as the White Sox' "stopper" - the pitcher who could be counted on to give 6 or 7 strong innings and stop a losing streak. More recently, Gavin Floyd seemed to have taken over the role. Last night, that job fell to John Danks - and all Danks did was throw 8 innings of 1-run, 6-hit baseball. The strength of the White Sox pitching staff lies in two areas - one, a strong bullpen; and two, the ability for all five pitchers in the rotation to give solid starts and put the team in a position to win.

As we all saw in the Baltimore series, and have seen during the course of the year, the offense is going to be prone to fluctuations in effectiveness. The White Sox only put up 10 runs against the Orioles in a four-game series, but at the same time White Sox pitching conceded only 11 runs. In a short series, statistical anomalies such as this will appear from time to time, but the fact of the matter is that the pitching, which was incredibly strong throughout the 8-game road trip, put the White Sox in a position to win each and every game (save for the 7-1 loss to Detroit courtesy of Carlos Torres).

Tonight's game against the Twins is going to be sort of the litmus test of this series - two strong pitchers who have recently found their groove and are throwing extremely well. Gavin Floyd needs to go out tonight and simply pitch his game. If he does that, it is on the offense to pick up their starter and get him three or four runs. As the Sox have shown before, Floyd can pitch a brilliant game, and get no run support (see: June 13 @ Chicago Cubs). We could be in for a long night if the Sox can't figure out Francisco Liriano, even if just for one or two innings.

I've already heard a great many people saying that this current road trip will be a disappointment, but I'll take three wins out of four games in Detroit any day, and presuming the Sox can earn a split in Baltimore tonight, a 5-3 road trip is nothing to shake a stick at. For those of you who deal in comparisons, the Twins also went 4-3 on a similarly difficult road trip (Tampa Bay for four and Cleveland for three).

Looking ahead, the next two weeks are critical. After tonight's wrap-around game with Baltimore, the Sox return home for three against the Twins, three against the Tigers, then head to Minnesota for three more and a weekend three-game set against Kansas City. If the Sox are going to make serious headway against the AL Central, now is the time. It bears mentioning, also, that after the aforementioned six games against Minnesota, the Sox only have one series left against the Twins - a three-game set at U.S. Cellular Field in mid-September. Even if the Sox were to go 4-2 against Minnesota in those six games, that two-game boost the Sox would receive would be huge as the games dwindled down.

Over the next two weeks, pitching is going to be the name of the game - as it usually is on the south side. Edwin Jackson is going to be the keystone of the starters during this time frame - in his first start with the White Sox, he put up numbers consistent with his season line, with the one exception being the walks given up. Where in Arizona, Jackson's BB/9 was 4.0, he only gave up one walk in seven innings of work against Detroit. That is where EJ's focus is going to have to continue to be the rest of the season - pitch to contact, don't walk batters, and make them earn every base hit they get. Jackson, without a doubt, is going to give up base hits - 9.6 H/9 is his current number. The rest of the White Sox starting rotation (with the exception of Danks) has similar numbers as well, indicative of a pitching style that Don Cooper has drilled into his starters' heads - pitch to contact. The Sox starters force ground balls off the bat, and while those grounders will occasionally find holes in the infield, more often than not those grounders will find their way into the defense's mitts, and turn into easy outs. This is also why errors and walks seem to kill the Sox more than they might other teams - on a team that relies on the ball being in play as a form of defense, allowing the opposition extra outs and baserunners is a death knell to any pitcher, both mentally and physically.

Some other tidbits:

- Freddy Garcia is 35 years old? When did THAT happen?

- Chris Sale didn't exactly have a debut to remember. His ERA? Mathematically undefined. He can't even say his ERA is infinite, because Tony Pena bailed him out of his jam on Friday.

- From the archives: In 2005, not one regular starter for the White Sox had a .300 batting average. The highest was Scott Podsednik, at .290. This year? The lone .300 hitter for the Sox is Paul Konerko, at .302. However, the team ERA in 2005 was 3.61, and the team ERA this year is only slightly higher, at 3.84. The big change is that the top four starters in '05 all had sub-3.9 ERAs, while three of the top four this year have 4+ ERAs. The current bullpen is stronger than '05, however, with the '05 bullpen featuring Damaso Marte and Luis Vizcaino both with 3.75-area ERAs, while the three main set-up men (Matt Thornton, J.J. Putz, Sergio Santos) this year each have sub-2.5 ERAs (we'll just ignore Bobby Jenks's 5.13).

I think if the White Sox really wanted to get Prince Fielder they should send this kid to do the negotiating:

Wanna see something like this again? Then screw chemistry and get better.

It's good to see that 20-year veteran Omar Vizquel isn't worried about stating the obvious when it comes to the White Sox needs this trading season:

"If it's not another pitcher, probably it's another hitter," Vizquel said. "This is a time where we really need to make a step toward getting better and to separate between the teams that are around, having a chance, and the teams that really need to go on to the playoffs.

"This is the last time to make a change, and I think that with another guy on the team we might secure the next step."

All true. The one objective here is to win a championship, and if Adam Dunn can be brought in with his .925 OPS, 23 home runs and yes, even his enormous strikeout numbers, you do it. If you care about the feelings of Mark Kotsay or whatever "chemistry" you think you have you are misguided. The simple fact of the matter is this: if you can add another good player, you do it.

David Haugh writes yesterday,  "...adding either player guarantees the Sox nothing but change. And change makes a first-place team as uncomfortable..."

While I understand his premise there, I don't really care. I don't care if it makes guys a little uncomfortable, it is all about making a team better, and better players will do that and good players will adapt.

Haugh continues, "It's all about winning the Central first, and tinkering with the roster would disrupt the flow of a team that thinks it has something special going. It doesn't matter if you agree or if the Sox actually do. It only matters that they believe they do."

Right, I don't agree, and for that matter I once again don't care. When Ozzie Guillen says, "You know how you make chemistry? Win games,'' now that is a philosophy I can adopt.

Because you know who's job it is to make sure that the chemistry is there with or without a big name trade? Ozzie's.

Jose Bautista could be the right guy for the Sox, and not just for 2010

While one team in Chicago is looking to dump salary, the other has gone from movers to buyers. The White Sox appear to have be ready to make a big splash, as Kenny Williams often does, and the three big names that come up Adam Dunn, Prince Fielder and Jose Bautista.

Any of the three would provide some major pop in the middle of the lineup, none having less than 23 home runs. But who would be the best fit for the Sox provided Kenny could pull one of these deals off?

With Dunn you get a guy with a huge bat from the left side and a good presence in the clubhouse, but you also get a poor fielder and a lot of strikeouts.

With Prince you get a huge bat from the left side, fewer strikeouts, a so-so 1B, and a contract that you won't have to deal with until 2012. With him however, you get his agent, Scott Boras.

With Jose Bautista you get a 3B for the future, a big home run bat, but a guy who is hitting just .238 on the season (a career .238 hitter as well), and a right hander.

It's hard for me to envision Williams standing pat, knowing that the AL Central race will likely be won by who makes the best move in the next week or so. The only two questions I have are: can he pull it off, and which one of these guys is the best fit?