In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

The White Sox and Angels avoided playoff oblivion Sunday night, but the odds remain long that either team will be able to advance to the American League Championship Series. Still, it's been done before. The Yankees came back from a 2-0 deficit in the division series against Oakland and the very Red Sox that Los Angeles is facing have climbed out of a similar hole twice.

So which trailing team has the best chance at coming all the way back to win their series?

First, let's take a look at the Game 4 pitching matchups. Of course, the team with the best chance to win two games will have the best shot at coming back in the series, but Monday's games are of paramount importance. After all, there is no Game 5 without a victory in Game 4.

In recent weeks the once formidable White Sox pitching staff has been pretty damn awful. After spending the majority of the season with the best ERA in the American League, White Sox starters have had an ERA of 6.75 in the team's last 20 games, and they've fallen to sixth in the league.

So is it that the staff is just going through a rut, and slogging through the dog days of summer, or is there a deeper mental issue? Is the pressure of a divisional race getting to them? If you ask Mark Buehrle it has nothing to do with any pressure, well, unless your Gavin Floyd. That's guy is a mental marshmallow.

''If anything, Gavin might be a guy that's affected,'' Buehrle said. ''[John} Danks is so laid-back, it doesn't seem like anything bothers him. Where Floyd, it seems like there's a little bit more that gets to him. A bigger situation or bigger game might get him more nervous, but Danks isn't a guy I worry about.''

Keep in mind that Buehrle is 8-10 on the season, while Danks is 9-4. Floyd is 11-6. Though I'm not saying that Mark is wrong in his assessment, I'm just wondering why he feels the need to say it publicly. Gavin Floyd is a pitcher that lets things bother him on the mound, and his confidence is extremely fragile, so questioning that in the paper probably won't do much to help it.

Especially when you already play for a team who has a manager that has no qualms what-so-ever about ripping you in public.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Dear Joe Blanton,

Hello there and welcome to your new home, the city of Philadelphia. It's a wonderful place to live, and I can't tell you how excited we are to have you as the newest member of the Philadelphia Phillies. I hope you enjoyed your flight to New York with your new teammates and got to know them pretty well, they'll be looking to you for support tonight.

Now, I don't want to put any added pressure on you, as I'm sure pitching on a new team is stressful enough, but tonight's game is rather important. You see, Joe, tonight we're playing our division rivals the New York Mets. They don't like us much. Something about us making up seven games in the standings last September and winning the division.

Seems the Mets are out for revenge this year, because in the last few weeks they've gobbled up all the space that was seperating us from them in the division, and now we're tied for first place with them. If we lose tonight, we'll be in second place.

We don't want this to happen, obviously, or else we wouldn't have traded for you! So go out there tonight and win us a ball game, would you? If you don't, I wouldn't bother coming back to Philadelphia with the team. The fans here are quite passionate, and they will kill you. Seriously.

No pressure!

Have a good night,
Pat Gillick

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're well aware that gas prices are pretty high right now. That's causing inflated prices of all sorts of goods and services, including airline tickets. Those prices would seem to affect average Joes more than multimillionaire baseball players but that's not the case.

White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle recorded his 1,000th career strikeout in Los Angeles last night, a career milestone you'd expect he'd like to share with family. His father didn't make the trip to the west coast, though, and the price of airline tickets is the reason why.

With the cost of last-minute travel from the Midwest to California a little bit too prohibitive in this specific instance, Mark Buehrle was on his own with one out in the eighth inning and sitting just one strikeout away from this milestone.

Buehrle signed a $56 million contract extension that kicked in this season so you really have to ask yourself how he defines prohibitive. I'm not suggesting he should just throw his money away on anything and everything that comes along but his bank account could probably survive a little splurging now and then. If the surging price of crude forces you to change your travel plans this summer, just remember that Mark Buehrle feels your pain.

(H/T Big League Stew)

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Chicago White Sox (25-20) vs. Cleveland Indians (22-24) - 8:11PM Est.

The White Sox offense has been struggling all season, but fortunately for them, they play in the AL Central where the pitching has been dominating hitters all season. Nobody in the division can hit. The highest scoring team in the Central is the Detroit Tigers, and look what's that gotten them.

Still, the Sox have been able to hang around the top of the division all season long because of their pitching, which has been fantastic. As a Sox fan I've often thought to myself this season "If we could only somehow manage to score four runs a game, we'd be dangerous."

Well, last week Ozzie Guillen finally shook up the offense by switching around the batting order. Jim Thome got dropped from third to fifth, Paul Konerko from fourth to sixth, and A.J. Pierzynski was moved up from sixth to second while Carlos Quentin was moved up to the third spot in the lineup.

Since then? The White Sox are 7-0, and looking to complete their second series sweep in a row tonight. This time against division rival Cleveland.

While most of the talk surrounding Joe Crede, his back, and his impending free agency that dominated White Sox spring training seems to have died down a bit, it hasn't changed the fact that the White Sox still aren't sure what they'd like to do with their third baseman. Crede got off to a real hot start in April, and is hitting .270/.345/.500 to be one of the only consistently productive hitters in the Sox lineup (though all seven of his homers and 22 of his 25 RBI came in April).

HIs back has also stood up to the beating that comes with playing third base on a daily basis, so overall, it looks like the old Joe Crede is back. So what are the White Sox going to do? They still have Josh Fields down in the minors waiting to take over the third base spot.

For Crede's part, he'd like to stay in Chicago, and is open to negotiating a new deal during the season. It's just the White Sox will have to be the ones who initiate it.

"We aren't the ones with the money, so I don't feel we need to make the offer," Crede said. "It's a situation were if they want to pay us, they will make the offer. We aren't going to go out and ask for money. That's not how I want to approach it."

"I don't approach teams about player contracts," added Boras, speaking from his suite at Angel Stadium a few hours before Tuesday's first pitch. "They are the employers. I let them know that Joe is happy with Chicago."

If you thought what the White Sox violated blow-up dolls with baseball bats, you should see what they do to space heaters with them. Mark Buehrle didn't have a very strong performance to follow Gavin Floyd's near no-no on Tuesday night, as he allowed 7 runs in 5.2 innings and fell to 1-4 on the season.

Needless to say, Buehrle isn't too happy with the way the 2008 season has been going for him, and he let the frustration boil over after being removed from yesterday's game.

Moments after rookie Carlos Gomez hit a two-out RBI double to cap a five-run sixth-inning rally, Buehrle already was off the mound when he gave Guillen the ball.

Buehrle went to the dugout, grabbed one of Juan Uribe's bats and whacked it five times against a space heater and a dugout bench before tossing his cap and shaking his head.

"It was everything building up," Buehrle said after the Sox lost for the seventh time in eight games. "It was the way I pitched, the way we're playing. It was one of those games where you can't hold it back."

As of now, the League of People For Space Heater Rights haven't filed a complaint, so Buehrle or the White Sox haven't issued a fake apology for Mark's actions yet. When asked about it after the game, manager Ozzie Guillen had this to say.

"It's bull[bleep]. What Mark did to that space heater is [bleep]ing bull[bleep]. That space heater is the [bleep] of Mark Buehrle. Two weeks ago, it was the greatest [bleep]ing space heater in the [bleep]ing history of space [bleep]ing heaters. Now it's horse[bleep]. I'm tired of it. [Bleep]. [Bleep]. [Bleep]......[bleep]."

As I mentioned in a post here at FanHouse last week, Carlos Gomez is quickly becoming one of my favorite players in all of baseball to watch. Even when he's tearing my favorite team up, as he did last night against the White Sox, I still enjoy just watching him play baseball.

On Wednesday night, Carlos became the first Minnesota Twin to hit for the cycle since Kirby Puckett did it in 1986, which is fitting since Carlos may be the most exciting Twin since Kirby. Not to mention, he's also incredibly considerate.

After leading off the game with a home run off of Mark Buehrle, Gomez's home run trot around the bases was faster than half the players in the league can sprint full speed. Why'd he do it? Well, after a nearly two-hour rain delay before the game started he didn't want to waste any more time. "The game today started too late. I say, 'Let me run the bases quick so the game goes fast.' "

Gomez completed his cycle in reverse order, following that first inning homer by tripling in the fifth, doubling in the sixth, and finishing it all off with an infield-single in the ninth. He also managed to score two runs and drive in three others.

He's doing all of this, and his coaches will tell you that at 22-years old, he's still learning the game. Imagine what he's going to be capable of once he actually knows what he's doing.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. After getting off to a hot start in April, the White Sox had caught just about everybody by surprise when they found themselves atop of the AL Central throughout the month. Sure, it had something to do with the horrible starts that the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians had gotten off to, but really, the White Sox actually were playing like a first place team for the first 21 days or so of the season. It seemed as though the offense had returned after taking last year off, and the pitching was far outperforming the expectations.

Then the last few weeks started. The White Sox have lost seven of their last ten, including four in a row, and they've looked horrible doing so. It's gotten to the point where I've been watching and I came to the realization that I hate this team. Seriously, they drive me insane while watching them, and up until yesterday they were in first place.

How does one end up hating their favorite team while they're in first place? It's easier than you think. Especially when your favorite team is hitting an American League worst .235, and continues to waste solid starting pitching. For example, on Friday night Mark Buehrle pitched 8 innings allowing no earned runs, scattering five hits, and striking out seven Blue Jays without walking anybody. His reward? A loss. The Sox were only able to manage two hits of their own that game, both of which came off the bat of Orlando Cabrera.

Now it's pretty easy to just say that the offense is going through a funk right now, and that once they break out of it, I'll fall in love with them again. Unfortunately, I know better than that.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

San Francisco Giants (5-8) vs. Arizona Diamondbacks (9-3) - 10:10PM Est.

The Diamondbacks are already playing the best baseball of anybody in the Major Leagues, and tonight they may get another boost. That's right, the mythical creature known as The Big Unit returns to the mound tonight in San Francisco. The 44-year old Randy Johnson is coming off of his second back surgery, but he won't be on a pitch count of any type tonight, and is free to just let it loose. Unit faced the Giants twice last season, not picking up a decision while posting a 3.00ERA, and is 2-2 with a 2.84ERA lifetime at AT&T Park (though he hasn't pitched there since 2004). If Randy is half as good as he used to be, he'll be giving the DBacks a top three in their rotation that can go with anybody else along with Brandon Webb and Dan Haren. Add to that the fact that everybody in the lineup looks like a Hall of Famer so far this season, and it's just not fair. The Giants will counter with Jonathan Sanchez, who pitched well in his last appearance against the Padres (6 innings, no runs, no decision), but is still looking for his first win of the season. He'll also be looking for his first win against the Diamondbacks, as he's 0-3 with an 8.10 ERA in three starts against them.