Sox Squeak past O's, 3.5 Games Behind Twins

The starting pitching was excellent. The offense was there. The White Sox were in cruise control for eight innings until the last three outs were the hardest to earn in the ballgame.

Gavin Floyd bounced back from two consecutive losses of allowing 13 earned runs and pitched seven strong innings in front of 26,273 at The Cell. Floyd, who notched his ninth win of the season Tuesday, surrendered two earned runs, all coming in the fourth, and one off the bat of Orioles DH Luke Scott.

Meanwhile the Sox's bats started heating up after the O's put up a 2-spot in the fourth.

After consecutive runs in the fourth and fifth innings, the South Siders exploded for four runs in the seventh. Gordon Beckham got everyone out of their seats with a long three-run homer to center. Beckham said after the game "We needed a spark, needed some runs, needed to get a hit...it was nice to come thru." Beckham is hitting .333 since the All-Star break. Paul Konerko and Juan Pierre added RBI's as well in the seventh and eighth innings to further the margin.

With a 7-2 lead in the ninth, Ozzie Guillen went to Sergio Santos to mop up the win. If only it was as clean as it should have been.

Santos, who came in with a 1.78 ERA, failed to record an out. After walking the leadoff man and a single by Josh Bell, Brian Roberts singled to left center to make it 7-3. Santos' wild pitch moved the runners in scoring position and Nick Markakis followed suit with a single of his own to score another run. 7-4.

Restlessness came upon the crowd and Santos was pulled.

Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen would say, "It's always important late in the game to have a bullpen that can go in there and shutdown. Unfortunately we hit a bump and that road has a lot of bumps so far."

JJ Putz left the mound as quickly as he got on. After three straight balls to Ty Wiggington, Putz motioned to the Sox bench and was relieved because of right knee inflammation. Putz, along with reliver Matt Thornton, will be headed to the disabled list. In the meantime, the man to seal the deal was Bobby Jenks.

"The last guy I wanted to use out of the bullpen was Bobby" Guillen said.

Jenks, who tossed three innings of 1-hit ball against the Royals, his longest outing of the season, would inherit two men on base with nobody out. Jenks induced a 1-6-3 doubple play to clear the bases. Luke Scott would fly out to center and the Sox held on for the win.

Gordon Beckham would say, "Bobby, hands down, came in and saved the game for us. It was huge."

With Minnesota losing to Texas 4-3 on Tuesday, the Twins' lead is now down to 3.5 games.