50-22: Here comes the feeling...

After completing two 5-1 Regicides and a 12-2 laugher over the Cubs, the Sox find themselves with a 10 1/2 game lead after 72 games. The Twins aren't quite done yet, but they have wandered aimlessly, shell-shocked, for the last couple of weeks. Certainly nobody except the drunkest Pale Hose crank would have predicted a Secretariat-like lead at this point in the season.

Just some thoughts:

• Sox send Contreras and Garland against Maddux and, a head-scratcher, Prior for the last two Close Encounters. Prior is one of the great pitching talents of the decade, and I don't get asking him to pitch again four weeks after suffering a slight bone fracture.
• One presumes that once Frank's leg is 100% he'll stop trying to hit everything into Lake Michigan, but it's been fun, hasn't it?
• I think we all know how the Everett/Thomas thing is working out, and I think most of us Soxfans like it.
• The latest negativity buzz from the well of endless South Side paranoia is that Podsednik's getting picked off too much. One thing about White Sox fans -- if there's a speck of a possible problem, they'll be all over it and ignore everything good. I call it the Mike Squires Effect: let's overreact to some marginalia and wound the whole team.
• Latest rumor is Ted Lilly might be coming over to serve as the swingman. But for whom? Keep your eyes peeled for Kenny's Wild Bazaar, something always happens about this time of year.