CHICAGO | "Be ready for Freddy."

That was Ozzie Guillen's Ernie Banks-style slogan Sunday about his relative and Detroit Tigers pitcher Freddy Garcia, a former White Sox ace who will pitch today against the South Siders as the wacky 2008 American League Central race goes into overtime.

Thanks to Mark Buehrle and some timely hitting, the Sox have lived to fight another day to face Garcia and the Tigers in a rain makeup game from Sept. 14 that will determine if they will play the Minnesota Twins in an AL Central tiebreaker contest Tuesday.

The Tigers have been relatively competitive, scoring runs against the Sox, who have an 8-6 record this season. Tigers outfielder Curtis Granderson, a TF South graduate and a Lynwood resident, will have some particular motivation coming home to inject his 21 homers, .283 average and 111 runs scored into the Sox-Twins affair.

Buehrle's vintage quick and efficient pitching spurred the Sox to a 5-1 victory over the Cleveland Indians as the Sox remained a half game behind the Twins, who salvaged the final game of their series against the Kansas City Royals.

The Sox are now 87-74, and the Twins have completed their entire schedule with a record of 88-74.

Finally, after so much bad baseball the past five days, the Sox executed the fundamentals big and small. Yet the way their pitching had gone into the dumper, it would have gone all for naught had Buehlre not come up with the best regular-season pressure performance of his career.

Keeping his pitch count (111) under relative control, Buehrle (15-12) kept use of the flammable Sox bullpen to minimum, going seven innings. He gave up Jhonny Peralta's second-inning homer. He gave up eight other singles, but induced the Indians into four double plays and picked off Franklin Gutierrez in the fifth -- his seventh pick-off of the season.

"It was one of those days where I made the right pitch at the right time," Buehrle said.

The popular southpaw said he felt strong in his sixth career start on three days' rest, with his record now 4-1 with a 2.70 ERA in such conditions.

"Ever since about the fifth inning of that Minnesota game (Wednesday) and all of (Sunday), my arm felt great," Buehrle said. "It felt loose.

"Obviously, we had to win to stay alive for (today). In '05, anytime you were pitching in the postseason and World Series, those games are bigger. I don't think there's been one this big since then."

Paul Konerko hit his fourth homer (No. 21 overall) in his past three games to start a three-run Sox second. Indians third baseman Jamey Carroll's bobble of a possible double-play grounder enabled the Sox to score the other two runs.

The Sox added two insurance runs in the seventh on Jermaine Dye's two-run single.