Though the White Sox still hold a 2 1/2 game lead in the AL Central, and by no means is the Indians’ playoff ticket punched, the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Bud Shaw has a gloating tone turned up to eleven this morning.

Early Monday night, the scoreboard of fered a reminder of the White Sox slogan: “Win or Die Trying.”

That sounds a little too valiant, since winning and choking are the only two options available to Ozzie Guillen’s team.

“Some people treat my team very badly,” Guillen said Monday before the Indians rallied on Aaron Boone’s two-run single to help beat Chicago, 7-5, and cut the White Sox’s lead to 2½ games. “Like we’re [terrible].”


(Streetball enthusiast Aaron Boone, improving at his 2nd favorite sport with a 2nd inning HR)

The nerve of some people.

Honestly.

Major League Baseball needs to get to the bottom of whomever gave the White Sox up, blowing their cover as a 90-win team and selling them out as a troubled bunch that lost two of three to the Royals last week.

Karl Rove, was it?

How does stuff like that get out there anyway?

“Right now, we stink,” Guillen said after one of those excruciating losses to Kansas City.

Oh, yeah. That’s how.

One down, five more chances to go. Panic is setting in among White Sox fans, and it’s looking like a contagious strand.

“The Chicago fans have earned the right to feel a little nervous,” said White Sox GM Ken Williams. “But we have a good group of players to pull for. They want it very badly. So hang in there, and stay off the ledge.”

Easier said than done. In June when the White Sox could not lose, Guillen said, “It feels like something special is going to happen.

Felt that way after Monday night, too. Like the something special that happened to the 1964 Phillies, who wasted a 6½-game lead with 12 to play.