Floyd just as grand for Sox

It was appropriately absurd that Game No. 162 was delayed by rain for three hours Monday on the South Side.

The only surprise was that it didn't go extra innings.

Maybe the White Sox are holding that in reserve for today's drama.

After an almost complete collapse, going a week without winning a game at the most unimaginable time, the White Sox captured their second straight contest Monday in a makeup match with Detroit.

And so The Season That Wouldn't End hasn't because the Sox have discovered again the one thing that sustained them through the first five months:

Their heart.

Gavin Floyd had an answer for anyone who questioned his, and displayed guts along with it, while Alexei Ramirez set a major-league rookie record with his fourth grand slam, and the Sox rallied to beat Detroit 8-2.

This sets up Game No. 163 between the White Sox and the Twins today, and assuming there's a conclusion at some point this evening, one of the two clubs will depart for Tampa after the tiebreaker and get ready to play the Rays on Thursday afternoon in the ALDS.

"Tomorrow, 162 games means nothing,'' said White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. "It's just one game. That's a good feeling.''

At the very least, the 2008 White Sox - who showed great toughness much of the season in overcoming much difficulty - are not going down without a fight.

It didn't look that way the last couple of weeks, as a team out of gas and suffering from too many key injuries looked as if it would go quietly and in embarrassing fashion.

Instead, they have survived, patched it together long enough to take a pair of games, and at least a dozen players on the Sox' roster can say they've never experienced anything of this magnitude.

That will serve them well if they can defeat the Twins tonight, which also would put a nice exclamation point on a regular season in which most critics gave them little chance to compete.

Regardless of how it ends, or how he might pitch against Tampa, Floyd - who looked scared last week in Minnesota en route to blowing a 6-1 lead - showed some serious innards Monday.

His pitch count was elevated early, he was on three days' rest, and he has thrown over 200 innings, much more than ever before in his career.

He was on fumes Monday, to be sure, and without his best stuff, but when he seemed to have nothing left he worked out of trouble in the fifth, limiting the damage to a run, and nearly did again in the sixth before throwing a ball down the right-field line on a dribbler in front of home plate.

That gave Detroit a 2-1 lead, but after a visit from Guillen, when he probably thought he'd be removed, Floyd (17-8) got out of the inning and picked up the win when the Tigers imploded in the bottom of the sixth.

They handed the Sox a 5-run inning with 4 walks, 3 wild pitches and Ramirez's record-setting home run on a first-ball fastball.

"One thing about (Ramirez) is he's not scared,'' Guillen said. "He goes out and performs no matter what the game is.''

But it was Floyd who really saved the club Monday, throwing 118 pitches in 6 innings.

"I'll just say this,'' Guillen said. "He's got the biggest heart and stomach to go out there and do what he did.''

Not only did Guillen give Floyd a chance to grow up on the mound when he left him in during the sixth inning, but it also meant Guillen could avoid getting into his bullpen, which has hardly been reliable for the last month.

So, yes, the fearless Ramirez will get the credit for Monday's win and his granny will be the moment most remembered about 2008, regardless of the outcome tonight.

And for good reason, because it is, so far, the biggest hit of the season.

But lost, perhaps, will be the day Gavin Floyd dug down deep and lifted up high his teammates, giving them all he had left - and even what he didn't possess - when they had no one else to whom they could turn.

You can be sure the men in that room will remember that, too.

brozner@dailyherald.com