After this, no telling how far these guys might go

How quickly fortunes change in baseball.

Just a few days ago, White Sox hitting coach Greg Walker stood in the dugout and talked about how ugly it had been on the South Side but how quickly he'd seen events turn in the past.

It did in 2005, he said. It did for the Rockies last year, he added. It could happen again right now, just that fast, Walker insisted.

And just like that, just like Walker predicted, 3 victories later, all of the pain from September is gone, the final week of the season a distant memory, the misery of devastating injuries forgotten.

The White Sox are the 2008 American League Central Division Champions.

And they're only 11 victories away from winning the World Series again.

Young John Danks, both exhausted and fearless, was the hero Tuesday night, as Gavin Floyd was the previous night. Danks (12-9) tossed 103 pitches on three days' rest, allowing only 2 hits in 8 shutout innings.

Jim Thome produced all the offense with his 34th homer, the Sox played great defense, and, when Bobby Jenks got the final out for his 30th save on a diving catch in center by Brian Anderson, the Sox had a remarkable 1-0 victory over the Twins in a very memorable tiebreaking game on the South Side.

"I've been blessed to be in the postseason, but you never get tired of this,'' said Thome, whose bomb was so mammoth it should have counted for 2. "I'm just so grateful I could do something to help.''

It may sound ridiculous to even ponder another World Series appearance after the untold trauma and unbelievable drama of the last few weeks.

But so did it sound unlikely Sunday morning when Walker suggested that by late Tuesday night the Sox could have won three straight and found themselves drenched in champagne, while hastily packing to go to Tampa.

"You never know,'' said Paul Konerko. "That's a great team in Tampa, but everyone's 0-0 now. We'll enjoy this tonight, after all we've been through, but then we have to get focused for Thursday.''

Win or lose in Tampa, the result of the last couple of days is the future of the franchise - Floyd and Danks - can take home for the winter their season-saving performances rather than having to live with their ugly starts of last week.

"I was humiliated leaving that last game. I wanted to crawl in a hole and cry,'' Danks said. "But I learned a lot from it and took that into tonight. It turned out better than I imagined.''

It's a fitting conclusion considering the amount of grief GM Kenny Williams got when he traded for them, and again when he dared to count on them coming into this season.

"Not a lot of people saw it, but these kids really came together last year and we had confidence in them,'' Williams said. "Hopefully we can keep this ball rolling a little bit.''

All logic says they shouldn't win even a single game against the Rays, what with every starter in the rotation dragging pitching knuckles on the ground, their bullpen questionable and their lineup battered and bruised.

Still, stranger things have happened, and there's no substitute for the newfound confidence the club has acquired through 3 victories under the most stressful of times, knowing a single defeat would end their season.

There isn't anything they'll face in the next week or three that can be more trying than that, and let's not forget there are plenty of rings in that room, and now a home crowd back in the game.

It was a blacked-out madhouse on the South Side on Tuesday, one that didn't get to see any of the four clinching games in 2005. The ballpark was louder and more alive than at any time since that magical October.

More than 40,000 crazed fans stood for innings at a time, propelling Jenks to throw near 100 mph and keeping Danks from remembering the fatigue in his arm.

"This was the best atmosphere I've ever seen,'' Danks said. "The fans really carried us tonight. They were huge in this for us and they will be in the playoffs.''

There was symmetry in this three-game winning streak, too, having knocked off Cleveland and Detroit - the two teams most experts picked to be 1-2 in the division - and then Minnesota, the gum the Sox can never get off their shoe, no matter how hard they scrape.

This time, they left the Twins on the parking-lot pavement, remnants of an early-fall cleaning.

Three down, 11 to go.

Somewhere, Steve Perry is warming up his vocal cords.

How quickly fortunes change in baseball.

How sweet it is.

brozner@dailyherald.com