From the weekend:
The White Sox entered Friday on a nice little run, winners of six of their last seven -- albeit all but one of those games came against the Cubs and Twins, arguably the two worst teams in baseball. So Cleveland represented a pretty decent measuring stick of how the White Sox are actually playing, right?
The Sox won on Friday 9-3. On Saturday, the final was 14-7. And Sunday saw the White Sox complete a sweep with a 12-6 win. In total, the Sox scored 35 runs and out-scored Cleveland by 19, and they moved within a half-game of first place -- although they insist they're not concerned with the standings yet.
Keying the offensive outburst was Paul Konerko, who raised his batting average from .384 to .399 and his on-base percentage from .462 to .476 in the series. He's hitting out of his mind, although he figures .400 is out of reach:
Gordon Beckham, Alex Rios and Adam Dunn all had solid performances over the weekend, too, and while Jake Peavy struggled on Saturday, those players have bounced back well and are giving Kenny Williams a good return on his investment.
Brent Morel will begin his rehab assignment in Triple-A this week, and he says his back is feeling much better.
And maybe when Morel returns, he'll get caught up in the contagious hitting of the rest of hi steam:
MLB
Around the division: Detroit closed out a sweep of Minnesota on a go-ahead blast by Miguel Cabrera, Francisco Liriano is moving back to the Twins' rotation, Billy Butler is on fire and Eric Hosmer crushed a double.