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).