Whew

Don't you wish they were all this exciting?

Joe Nathan earned another tough save, putting all of us on the edge of our seats with repressed memories of his last blown save. Against the White Sox. Joe must have recovered his own repression, because he sandwiched Gordon Beckham and Paul Konerko onto the bases around AJ "Trade Bait" Pierzynski's strikeout to give the Sox a threat. Luckily, Alexei Ramirez sucks and got himself out quite handily. To be honest though, I almost enjoy these close, tough victories and saves than the blowout wins. I hadn't felt that tightness in the back of my throat for a while. I missed it. Almost.

Duensing looked on his way to an easy win, though it could have been worse. The Sox were hitting the ball hard... right into Twins' gloves. Brian's been pitching well, but he's also been getting lucky. Luck in this case means hard hit, blind balls that can't see a piece of leather right in front of them. All pitchers give up hits, because MLB hitters are the best. The timing of those hits represents the luck of a pitcher, which is why strikeouts are so important to advanced statistics. Outs on balls put into play have the risk of the falling to the ground, strikeouts lack that quality. Strikeouts with men on base/in scoring position are even more important. Because they avoid the risk that the ball will send those men home. Duensing didn't strike many out tonight, and the hits that he's bound to give up sooner or later, he gave them up at the wrong time. Especially that home run.

But the Twins kept swinging hot bats, so Duensing never surrendered the generous lead given to him. He came close, but managed to go long enough to spare at least part of the bullpen, which was bound to be tired from the night before. Thank heaven for off days, which will give the bullpen and Denard Span time to recuperate and the Tigers time to start losing. I continue to go against my better morals in saying Jermaine Dye's two home run night might be a good thing. If he heats up, the Sox have a much better chance of knocking off the division leaders. Because Cleveland doesn't really seem up to it.