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White Sox aim to continue recent surge vs. Mariners

Aug 18, 2008 - 12:49 PM Seattle (46-77) at Chi White Sox (70-53) 8:11 pm EDT

CHICAGO (Ticker) -- Over the weekend, the Chicago White Sox's closest division competitor had the good fortune of sweeping the American League's worst team. Starting Monday, they would like to do the same thing to the Seattle Mariners.

The White Sox hope to remain atop the AL Central and win for the sixth time in seven games when they begin a three-game set against the Mariners.

While Chicago was taking two of three at Oakland over the weekend, the Minnesota Twins (70-53) - a game back of the White Sox on Friday - were sweeping a three-game home set against Seattle.

The Twins will host Oakland starting Monday while the White Sox try to match Minnesota's sweep of the Mariners with one of their own.

The White Sox - baseball's seventh-highest scoring offense - will send Mark Buehrle (10-10, 3.77 ERA) to the mound and have to be thrilled with the prospect of giving their hottest pitcher a lot of offensive support after Seattle surrendered 27 runs to the Twins in the sweep.

Buehrle has rebounded from a pair of poor starts in late July and early August to post wins in each of his last two starts after allowing one run and nine hits over his last 14 frames, including his last outing in Wednesday when he yielded five hits and struck out five over seven innings in a 4-0 victory over the Royals.

Seattle will turn to Jarrod Washburn (5-12, 4.58), who has dropped each of his last three starts. The lefthander took another loss in Tuesday's 7-3 setback to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim despite permitting four runs - one earned - and seven hits over seven innings.