Forget the September swoon.  Forget the staggering down the home stretch against Minnesota and Cleveland.  Forget about Javy Vazquez needing a heart.  Forget about Paul Konerko having a lousy season until it counted.  Forget it.  Because it comes down to one game.  Yes, I said one game.

Speculating about tomorrow's possible play in game against the Twinkies is, as they say on Perry Mason, irrelevant, immaterial and incompetent.  Objection over ruled.

It's today and the Tigers that matter.  Because if the Sox let up too much and lost to Detroit, there won't be a tomorrow.  If the Sox are thinking about the Twins in their heads, there won't be a tomorrow.

Gavin Floyd, who has been dependable all year faces Freddie Garcia.  Except this isn't your older brother's Freddie Garcia.  This is a coming back from surgery, we're really looking at him for 2009 Freddie Garcia.  Sure, he wants to show Kenny Williams that he made a mistake, but that really doesn't matter.  Garcia doesn't have the goods to walk the walk right now.  And let's hope the good guys don't make him into a hero.

There are a lot of mines to get through today.  The perception that the Tigers won't come to play (they probably won't, but what if they do?) Garcia taking advantage of their impatience at the plate, not taking advantage of scoring opportunities, the lack of speed in the outfield and the use of anyone out of the bullpen not named Thornton or Jenks.  All of these things are things the Sox will have to overcome this afternoon. 

This is about the White Sox not being their own worst enemy.  Clearly, they need to establish a tone early, because we all know how bad they are late in the game.  Take Saturday night for example.

I'm confident, but not cocky that there will be baseball tomorrow.  But you can't think about tomorrow when you need to survive today.  The Sox are 54 outs away from getting back to the playoffs.  But the first 27 could prove to be a real bitch.