Home Stretch

The Sox 'celebrate' a Labor Day holiday with a makeup against the AL's number one seed, the Chicago White Sox. Chicago has some pretty decent starting pitching with Buehrle, Garland, and Garcia with a balanced offense. The principal weakness the White Sox have (if it counts) is that they haven't played an games under pressure for months.

Sure, one could always have a 1964 Phillies collapse for the White Sox(http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/whitesox/cs-050901soxfeech,1,3746.story?coll=cs-home-headlines) but that seems less likely than coasting into the ALDS.

The Sox meanwhile have enjoyed a couple of good days from their starters, which gives Mike Timlin some needed rest and more time for the rest of the bullpen to lick their collective wounds.

Over at the Usenet Sox board, fans are bemoaning the A's inability to handle the Yankees, but the Sox compete against both for playoff position so either way a contender gets a loss.

The Sox clearly control their own destiny, and have the month to get the rotation in order and the bullpen squared away. If they can do neither, then there's little to be gained (aside from playoff dinero) from the post-season.

Meanwhile, the infield has shown increased potency lately, thanks to better hitting from Olerud and Millar, and Renteria has been a .300 hitter since his abysmal start.

Away from the game itself, while over 250,000 Americans are displaced from their homes, the Sox are selling Red Sox Nation cards and Fenway turf maintained in Rhode Island since the post-season. Let's hope that a substantial portion of this booty goes to some relief efforts of the most important kind. We kid about the 'suffering' of Red Sox Nation relieved by the 2005 World Series, but our brothers and sisters are truly enduring indelible suffering that our thoughts and contributions can ease.