Your first place Chicago White Sox

I gotta admit, I thought James Shields was just the guy to shut down the hot hitting Sox for a night. Couple that with Phil Humber going and I was thinking a loss for this evening. Even as Shields seemed like he was cruising along, the game was close enough that a few key hits here and there would get the Sox the lead.

A bit more than "a few key hits" was had in the Sox half of the sixth inning as it seemed Shields was figured out and the Sox went to town.

With the Sox trailing 2-1 entering the sixth, nine guys came to the plate and connected for five straight hits to open up a four run lead.  Even more impressive none of the five runs scored off the long ball. Three straight singles by Alex Rios, A.J. Pierzynski, and Dayan Viciedo, an Alexei Ramirez double, an Orlando Hudson single and Alejandro De Aza force out accounted for the five runs.That's what we call efficient.

As usual, no Sox win would be complete without the use of the long ball. Today it came in the eighth courtesy of Dayan Viciedo who destroyed a Cesar Ramos offering to dead center field to cap the 7-2 victory.

I should've done a count of times Hawk was pimping White Sox season tickets during the broadcast. Seemed every other batter Hawk was reading promo copy pushing season ticket plans. Most likely because as usual, Kenny Williams came out yesterday and did his annual "fans need to show up" speech.

Just a little memo to Kenny and Brooks; Yes, the Sox are playing some very good baseball as of late. (And when I say as of late, I mean in the last two weeks.) Sox fans have been fooled before in seeing a hot streak turn into nothing. Hopefully the winning baseball keeps up and The Cell fills up. Fans should come out for the upcoming 9 game homestand starting Friday. Unfortunately, the dynamic pricing structure the Sox do for ticket sales now doesn't do any wonders for fans wanting to come out to see a good Sox team on the field. Ticket prices are lowered when tickets are less in demand (when they're losing) and seem to raise when the tickets are higher in demand (when they're winning, playing "marque" teams, etc). The upcoming homestand should be an interesting indicator of how the faithful feel about this team.

But back to positive stuff. The Cleveland Indians were dispatched by the Royals this fine evening meaning the Sox move into first place by the slimmest of margins, a 1/2 game with their 28-22 record. As I right this, the Red Sox are beating the Tigers, which is also a good thing because you know at some point they're going to wake up.

Tomorrow the Sox will look for the sweep of the Rays. Jose Quintana (1-0, 1.54ERA) will make his second career start for the Sox and will face off against Alex Cobb (2-0, 2.25ERA)