What a difference a few days makes.

Life in the real world has been calling for the past few days, so I haven’t had time to share an update with everyone, but suffice it to say that life is good. I have been quite encouraged by the White Sox starting pitching the past few days, even in the two losses suffered to Minnesota (v. Santana) and Oakland (the 9th-inning collapse). Every one of the starters had a quality start, and they seem to be throwing the ball very, very well.

I am also quite impressed with the fact that the White Sox did not give up a home run at all during the A’s series. While pitchers will make mistakes from time to time, the fact that they haven’t conceded a home run in three games is telling – it means that the Sox pitchers’ mistakes are not so glaring that they travel 400+ feet in the opposite direction, or that the mistakes they make are spaced out among other very good pitches, so the opposing batters do not have the opportunity to recognize the "mistake" pitches in the same way they would as if the White Sox pitching were already throwing only mediocre games.

The offense does need to get it going, however. I’ll give them a pass, though, because of the amount of truly quality pitching they’ve seen over the first 8 games – starters including Sabathia, Westbrook, Santana, and Harden. That they’ve gone 4-4 is not a bad deal, although now that they’ve started to settle into the season, it’s time to start stringing together wins more frequently. Timely hitting has evoked itself over the first few games – Dye’s home run yesterday could not have come at a more opportune moment. And after that, the patience shown by hitters at the plate in the 9th inning allowed them ample opportunity to take the lead, which they did – with walks, singles, and a sac fly. Konerko’s double was just the icing on the cake. I like this – last year, it seemed that the home run was the primary vehicle for their run-scoring offense. So far this year, the home run is more of a useful supplement, which (in my humble opinion) is how it should be.

I hate this cold weather. I can’t wait for the warmth to finally descend upon Chicago. Until later…

When the seventh inning came around, Javier Vazquez started out HBP-BB to the first two batters he faced. The first thought in my mind was, "Here we go again."

And then something strange happened.

He rolled a garden-variety double play, leaving one man on third and two outs in the inning. Andrew Sisco came in and struck out Jeff Cirillo on four pitches. And just like that, the Sox were safe once again. I never thought I’d see the day.

You see, I was still in the mode of thinking that Vazquez would get through the lineup unscathed twice, and then let it go the third time. Instead of folding, though, it seemed that he almost got stronger the third time through the lineup. He was able to vary his pitches more because instead of going to his third and fourth pitches every time he got in trouble, he relied on his fastball more in the early part of the game so that if he ever got into a jam later on, he could fall back on those other pitches more readily and catch the batter unawares. Let’s see if he can have that same confidence in his fastball and changeup in the next few starts because it was certainly working for him yesterday.

And now the Twins play the game they’ve been playing since ’04 now: "Santana, Crain, and pray for rain…"