Dwayne Wise stepped into the lead-off slot for the White Sox with the injury to Alejandro De Aza, and he goes four for five against the Yankees Tuesday night. New York let him go earlier in the season. He only scored once, but he expanded the offensive context for the rest of the team, as the White Sox took game two of the series 7-3. His one run came on a Kevin Youkilis grand slam, as Ivan Nova had another poor outing.

The White Sox continue to surprise me. While the bottom of the order is terrible, Ventura groups together the good hitters on the team well. He uses six players who get on base well, four of whom also pack a lot of power. Paul Konerko, Alex Rios, and A.J. Pierzynski are all slugging over .500, while Youkilis and De Aza serve as decent table setters. In the middle in Adam Dunn, who does a bit of both. Pierzynski’s numbers are out of whack for both his age and his career, but the White Sox will take those.

The team is fourth in runs per game and fifth in runs allowed per game. That’s more than good enough to make the playoffs. As they’ve shown in the last two games, they can hang with the best teams in the league. They’ll make the playoffs very interesting.