Blue Jays the last thing the White Sox need

September 9, 1:01 PMChicago White Sox ExaminerJJ Stankevitz

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Roy Halladay and the Blue Jays have an eight-game winning streak.

You may never have guessed it, but the two hottest teams in baseball right now are the Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays. 

While Houston actually is in the hunt for the playoffs (five games behind Milwaukee for the NL Wild Card heading into Tuesday), Toronto seems firmly out of the playoff picture, sitting 8.5 games back of Boston for the AL Wild Card.

However, nobody wants to play the Blue Jays right now—but the White Sox have to, as their four-game series with Toronto begins with a day-night doubleheader today.

The White Sox will catch some tough pitching in the series, including perennial Cy Young candidate Roy Halladay on Wednesday, who has compiled an 18-9 record with a 2.64 ERA so far in 2008. Get this, though—Halladay has walked just 34 batters in 218.0 innings, and that's not even his career best. His K/BB has literally been off the charts in past years. To say Halladay is a good pitcher is a gross understatement.

AJ Burnett has a solid record (16-10) and excellent strikeout numbers (201 in 193.1 innings), but he's been maddeningly inconsistent this year, leading to a 4.47 ERA heading into his start Tuesday. You never know which version of Burnett will show up—the one who will go 8.0 innings, allowing one earned run with 13 strikeouts, or the one who will last just 5.2 innings and allow four runs with just four strikeouts.

Lately, Burnett has been going deep into games and racking up a lot of strikeouts, but he has allowed a few runs in those starts. It's never easy to score off a pitcher like Burnett, but if the Sox can keep him from getting into a groove, they should have a shot at beating him.

Jesse Litsch will start the nightcap of Tuesday's doubleheader, is coming off a complete-game shoutout of Minnesota September 4. In three of his last four starts, he hasn't allowed a run. Scoring off Litsch will be a difficult task—but beating him will be even harder, as the inconsistent Clayton Richard will get the nod for the White Sox against Litsch.

The White Sox will close out the series against Shaun Marcum, who, in early June, had one of the lowest ERAs in the American League. However, he ran into elbow problems and his performance plummeted from mid-June until August. His start Thursday against the White Sox is a big one for the 26-year-old right-hander, as he threw 7.0 innings of shutout ball September 6 against Tampa Bay. Back-to-back good starts against potential playoff offenses would go a long way toward getting Marcum back on the right track for the Blue Jays.

Over the weekend, the White Sox beat some good pitching—namely, Saturday night against John Lackey and Francisco Rodriguez. Beating the pitching Toronto is going to throw at them in these four games would go a long way towards getting the White Sox to the playoffs, especialy because Minnesota will get a reprieve with a three-game home series against the lowly Kansas City Royals.

The thing that scares me is that facing all this good pitching will put the White Sox in a slump that will be difficult to get out of without Carlos Quentin in the lineup.

With just 20 games left in the season, the White Sox will have to really battle to hold on to their lead in the AL Central, which currently stands at 2.5 games. It's likely safe to say that the division is the White Sox' to lose, as Minnesota has had a lot of problems lately and the Sox currently have the advantage. Look at it this way: the White Sox can win one less game than the Twins and still win the division.

Barring some insane Twins hot streak (which isn't totally out of the question), the White Sox have a clear path to the playoffs. They just have to take care of business, and that starts with this four-game series against Toronto.