Sox Avoid 1st Sweep

El Duque was the stopper for the Sox this afternoon as he prevented them from being swept for the first time of the season. He pitched 6 strong innings giving up only one run before walking two in the 6th and being pulled. Marte came on only to load the bases, and was pulled himself. Hernandez was charged with one more run when one of those walks scored after Politte gave up a sac fly. All in all, it was a well pitched ballgame, especially for the bullpen. Hermanson came on in the 8th with two men on and only one out, and got a linedrive to Paulie who made it to first in time to double up the runner. He stayed on to close out the game and still has yet to surrender a run.
The offense didn't look great against the struggling Tampa starter, Brazelton, but they scrapped together 5 runs and did draw 6 walks from the league leader in issuing BB's, and scored 4 of them. The 5th inning proved to be the decisive one, with a big two out rally putting the Sox ahead. Brazelton couldn't end the inning, and was relieved by Casey Fossum, who shut the Sox down from there on out finishing the game with 4 1/3 innings of scoreless relief.
Next up for the Sox is a four game set at the Cell against the AL east leading Orioles, who this week put the newly aquired Sammy Sosa onto the DL with some kind of foot infection. The Sox have sold over 20K tickets for each game of the series and reportedly had a large amount of early buyer requests for tickets down the right field line, near Sosa's pasture. It figures on his team's one trip to Chi Town he's not going to be playing.
The Sox pitching will be put to the test over the next few weeks facing some of the better offensive clubs in baseball. Now is when we'll see what they're truly made of. I predict a slight regression in ERA, but that should be offset by some of the staffs we will be facing, in terms of W's. This team is fierce, and if they do well in the remainder of this month, every team in the league will fear facing us, if they don't already.

Elsewhere in baseball: Minnestoa went down to Baltimore today even though they started Santana, and fell back to 4 1/2 games behind the Pale Hose...Seattle sent Jamie Moyer to the hill today against the Yanks, even though 7 out of the 9 hitters in the Yankee lineup were hitting over .300 career against him. After the Mariners spotted him 5 runs in the 1st inning, Moyer let the Yankee's right back in it giving up 5 runs himself in the bottom of the 1st. He was pulled in the 3rd inning down 6-5...The ScRubs new closer, Dempster, blew another save for the northsiders, but unfortunately Derek Lee bailed them out with a walk off homer. They continue to hang on the fringes of the cellar of the NL central.