Another great night for a ballgame.

And the ceremonial first pitch is tossed out by... Robin Leach? WTF? I guess he's here for some Illinois Lottery thing - there are people dressed-up as lottery balls all over the park causing havoc.

Would you believe a single-season record 18th sellout of the season at U.S. Cellular Field? In a way, I'm ecstatic, in another way, I'm embarrassed - only 18 in a season?

I can feel it - the team is turning around. Yes, it's the Twins that we're playing and we seem to have the number of every team in the AL Central, so maybe the scheduling was good. Maybe by winning we can pull ourselves out of this funk.

And, oh what a way to pull out - a 6-run 3rd inning. Small ball, long ball, smart ball.. I'm going to cheat here and just include a piece from MLB.com on the recap of the inning:

Scott Podsednik opened the third with a double to right, followed by Tadahito Iguchi's perfectly placed bunt. It was Iguchi's second of four hits on the night, matching a career high previously set on May 3 against Kansas City. A.J. Pierzynski followed with a run-scoring double, marking his first RBI against his old team in 52 at-bats, and Paul Konerko drove in a second run with a single to right.

Dye capped the rally with a three-run blast to right on a 2-2 pitch from Mays, increasing his home-run lead among all Major League right fielders, and producing his second blast in as many nights. Joe Crede added his 21st home run off Matt Guerrier in the frame, equaling a career high.

After the game, before the fireworks, the Illinois Lottery brought out 20 winners of some contest that -as a second chance to a losing lottery ticket - people won brand new cars (Road to Riches). So 20 cars paraded out onto the track all around the field. (This whole thing was MC'ed by Robin Leach and whoever it is that's in charge of the Lottery... oh, I didn't mention it, but just as I had suspected, Leach can't throw a baseball. That ceremonial first pitch was pretty poor). The cars all stopped and the owners got out. In the trunks were signs that showed how much additional money they had won - up to $25,000. 3 of them had Lottery Logo signs. Those 3 people walked to Center Field and chose one of three huge Scratch-off cards sitting on easels. They were given what looked like a snow/ice scraper to scrape off the covering of the cards. It was obvious from the start that no one at the Lottery actually tested these scratch-off cards. The covering wasn't coming off. After many minutes, the contestants were given what looked like credit cards to try and get a better edge to scrape off the covering. No Dice. Finally, someone gave one of them a bottle opener - probably from the Bullpen Sports Bar. Well, that guy was finally able to scrape off the ticket - and he was the Grand Prize winner. In addition to his car he also won $1 million! The other 2 each won $100,000.
this was supposed to have been the largest single lottery event in the nation (with the dollar amount of the prizes given). It was going fine until the scratch cards (or as we like to call them, the scratch-and-sniff cards). Pretty embarrassing for the Lottery. And then it was time for the final fireworks of the season, but the left the cars on the track until afterward (looked pretty cool if you got one of the Pontiac Crossfire convertibles and you can sit in your brand new car, on the field, and watch the fireworks).

First back-to-back wins for the Sox since Sept. 6-7. Let this nightmare be over! Still only 1½ games ahead of Cleveland (They're relentless! They won't leave us alone!) MAGIC NUMBER: 7 (For the AL Central Championship, 6 just to get into the playoffs)

(Boxscore)