Who would have thought the White Sox and Tampa Bay Rays would be in first place on May 29th.  Most people had them picked for a sub five hundred year and not strong enough to compete with the Yankees, Red Sox, Indians and Tigers.  Well all of those teams are now looking up at the White Sox and Rays in the standings.

Today the two first place teams square off for a four game series in Tampa Bay.  John Danks and Edwin Jackson will be the pitchers for game one. The Sox did meet the Rays once already this year taking two of three games.  The best match up might be on Saturday when Javier Vazquez goes against Scott Kazmir, both are strike out specialists.

You might not see a lot of runs in this series as both teams have pitched good enough to be in the top of the American League in ERA and opponents batting average.  It has been interesting to watch both of these teams making problems for their divisional counterparts as the season rolls on into June and hopefully into July as well.

The key to the series will be relief pitching in my mind as both are improved from a year ago.  The biggest thing for the White Sox is for the offense to hit the starters of Tampa as early as possible because like most teams in major league baseball there is little help as far as middle relief for the Rays.