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.