If the Chicago White Sox succeed in 2008, they may look back at Friday afternoon's game in Detroit as a water shed moment.

With a shaky Jose Contreras on the mound continuing to allow the Tigers in the game after the Sox took the lead twice, the Sox bullpen shut the door and allowed the offense, led by the white hot A.J. Pierzynski, to rally in the seventh and win the game 8-5.  It was, for a moment, as Yogi Berra said "Deja vous all over again."  As in 2005 deja vous.

Let's face it.  Contreras had nothing and time and time again went to trying to sidearm the ball which just kills him.  Ozzie was pretty upset with him about it. But the Sox kept fighting back, first on a home run by Carlos Quentin, then on doubles by Jermaine Dye and Pierzynski and finally on a three run bomb by Pierzynski.

One aspect of the game that has gone unnoticed was Ozzie sticking with Contreras for five innings.  In doing this, Ozzie kept long reliever Nick Masset off the mound to be ready today if Pink Gavin Floyd gets hit early or if Mark Buehrle has another 2 inning meltdown.  Honestly, that's a huge part of what makes Ozzie a good manager.  Even though he has Masset up, burning him yesterday would have rendered him moot for today and you'd much rather have him ready to back up Floyd, who most likely will not get near the slack on his chain that Contreras did.  Oh and memo to Hawk and DJ: Contreras did not "keep the Sox in the game."  He damn near took them out of the game.  Fortunately, the Sox were hitting against Nate Robertson, who is owned by Jermaine Dye.  If that had been Justin Verlander out there, the Sox would have been out of the game in the third inning.

The truth is, the Tigers are not as bad as they are, but injuries and a shaky bullpen have gotten in the way of them winning a game this year.  The Sox, who could as easily be 3-1 as they are 2-2 if not for some terrible calls in the opener against Cleveland, look so far like a better team than the one that lost 90 games last year.  However, it should be hastily pointed out that it's only four games in and last year, the bullpen was great in April.  We'll see how it goes, but yesterday was the kind of game you need to win if you plan on competing for the playoffs.