It's all down to the series starting Tuesday in Minnesota. Twins need to win at least two of three to stay in it, and really, they probably need to sweep.

But the Sox look exhausted and banged-up, and the Twins are playing with their backs to the wall. It'll be interesting, to say the least.

While the Twins will still technically be alive if they win 2 (actually, they'll technically be alive even if they only win one, albeit on life support), realistically they're dead if they don't sweep. They're 5-1 against the White Sox this year in the HubieDump, and they guy who took the loss (Livan) isn't with the team any more.

I think both teams are playing tired. The key for both teams will be getting their starters deep into the game. Ozzie Guillen pitched all three of his starters in this series on short rest in their last outings to get them set up for this series, and only Mark Buehrle pitched well. Buehrle and Gavin Floyd have done well against Minnesota, Vazquez has not. None of Minnesota's starters have been consistently effective against Chicago, although Kevin Slowey did shut them out at home earlier this year.

I still like the Twins, although they're running out of games. The White Sox have a game with the Tigers that might still have to be made up.

-- MWE

I still like the Twins, although they're running out of games.

Pretty bold. The Sox's magic number is 5 with 7 games remaining.

I understand the numbers behind people saying that the Twins need to sweep, becauser the Twins have put themselves in a really bad situation. But if they take 2 out of three, I think there is still the same amount of pressure on both teams heading into the last weekend of the season as there would be if it was a sweep.

With the extra last game against Detroit, both sides would have to treat that half game as not really being there, because the White Sox don't want to have to play that game, and Twins will take that if they have a chance. So, to the Twins, it would feel like a 1 game deficit at that point, and the pressure is really on both teams. The Twins would still be huge long shots (they'd need to make up one game over the weekend, plus have Chicago lose on Monday, plus beat Chicago on Tuesday to make the playoffs), but it keeps everything very interesting for the final few days of the season. So far, this has been the least thrilling playoff "race" in a long time, maybe this week makes up for that.