Pale Hose Sitting Pretty After Sweep of Dodgers

The Sox moved to 7 1/2 games up on the Twins in the Central with their two come from behind victories over LA on Saturday and Sunday to complete the sweep. The Sox were down to their last strike on more than one occasion in the 9th inning in Saturday's contest, trailing 3-1. After coming up with 2 runs to tie it up, AJ hit a 2-run walk off blast to left-center.
Much of the credit for Sunday's victory should be credited to sPod in my opinion. After being dominated by Jared Weaver through the first 7 innings, (yet again making a pitcher with mediocre numbers look like Nolan Ryan for much of the game), Scotty's speed turned the whole game around. In the 8th with Pod on 1st, Weaver became preoccupied with holding him on and tripped while turning on one of his throws over to 1st, throwing the ball into the stands and advancing Pod all the way to 3rd. (Why the umps gave him 3rd is a mystery to me) That ended up being the turning point in the game. Another clutch hit from Aaron Rowand later in the inning gave the Sox a 1 run lead which they would not relinquish. Hermy came on for the save in the 9th, albeit an ugly save. (He gave up a couple walks and nearly gave up a game tying HR, but it hooked just foul.)
The Twins dropped 2 of 3 to San Deigo over the weekend, falling to 7.5 games behind the Sox as I stated earlier. Cleveland has come on strong, winners of 9 straight, climbing to just 1 game behind Minnesota in the Wild Card standings, 8.5 back of the Sox. Detroit is also in the mix, just 4 back of the WC lead.
If Twins were to go 58-39 (.600) the remainder of the season, they would need the Sox to go 50-46 (.520) to force a tie for 1st place in the division. (Stat courtosy of SuperNova at BlackBetsy) Even if the Twins exceed that .600 win percentage and win 60-65 games (.619-.670) the rest of the year, the most the Sox would have to win to still hold a lead in September is 58 games, a win percentage. of .604, which is still below the pace they are currently on. (.676) Although it is unrealistic to expect them to keep up the pace they are currently on, (if they do, they'll wind up with about 110 wins) it is hard to imagine them playing much worse than about .600 the rest of the way.
Through 68 games, the Sox lead the central in runs scored with 323, ahead of the Twins 311 and Tigers 299, and are second in all of baseball in runs allowed with 261, one behind the Indians 260 and ahead of the Twins 272. (LAAAAA is 3rd in MLB with 265 RA, and the Twins are 4th, so the AL owns the top 4 pitching teams in MLB. I'd bet that the AL has never had the top 4 teams in RA this far in to a season)
Tonight the Sox face KC and will send Brandon McCarthy to the mound for his 3rd career start. Tonight marks the beginning of an audition of sorts for the kid, as El Duque has been put on the DL for the second time in a month and KW doesn't sound very happy about it. According to the GM, McCarthy has a shot at solidifying a spot in the rotation if he handles his next few starts well. I wouldn't put much stock into that happening because in my opinion it was just posturing on KW's part to try and light a fire under Duque's arse. Not only that, but I doubt the Sox brass will be very enthusiastic about paying Duque's contract if he is only throwing out of the 'pen.