I told you the other day that the White Sox needed to send a clear message to the Cleveland Indians.  With their three game sweep, the Sox not only sent a message, they had an exorcism!

Gone is the ghost of C.C. Sabathia who prior to Tuesday was 14-2 lifetime against the Sox.  Gone too is the ghost of Paul Byrd who tempted the Sox with his assortment of lolly pops inly to cause them to fly out harmlessly or beat the ball into the ground. 

It was a glorious series, full of great pitching and timely hitting.  And that's with Paul Konerko and Nick Swisher struggling and Jim Thome starting to come out of it. 

The key to the Sox success is their ability to score after the seventh inning.  Last year, the Sox offense died late in the game.  This season it seems that even if a pitcher gets to them in the first half of the game, they can rally to win in the second half of the game.  This is part of the formula that helped the Sox win the World Series in 2005.

While it is way too early to purchase playoff tickets, this series showed how good the Sox can be, even if they aren't clicking on all their offensive cylinders. 

The other aspect of this team that has gone virtually unnoticed is how hard they are playing.  Juan Uribe's hard breakup of a double play against Minnesota got this team going a couple of weeks ago and Wednesday night, A.J. Pierzynski's breakup of a double play gave the Sox a chance for some late inning heroics.  They are back to doing the little things this year, something they did not do in 2007.

Sox fans are smiling this morning for the first time in a long time, maybe even since April of last year.