White Sox turn on the power

CHICAGO -- It wasn't exactly pitching or defense, but the Chicago White Sox definitely showed you something Wednesday night.
It was a combination of power and persistence, a blend of three-run shots and resilience that turned a bad night into a heartening event.

You find out something about teams not when they are cruising, but during the bad times. The first 2 1/2 games of this Interleague series against the Arizona Diamondbacks qualified as the worst of times for the White Sox this season.

They had been outscored, 18-4, the first two nights, losing the first two games of a three-game series for the first time this year. Nothing was working for the Sox. Wednesday night, through 4 1/2 innings, it looked like the bad-news trifecta. The Sox were down, 6-1, and Jon Garland was turning from newly emerged ace to Victim No. 3 of the D-Backs attack.

But part of the new deal on the South Side goes beyond a reliance on pitching, speed and defense. It is the basic belief that this team can win, regardless of circumstances. The White Sox, and anybody else who will listen, get a daily dose of this from manager Ozzie Guillen.

And after 65 games, with the White Sox still with baseball's best record at 43-22, this can no longer be considered so much managerial smoke being blown.

Shortly after reaching the Interleague depths Wednesday night, the White Sox not only changed directions, but exploded this entire contest. They scored 10 runs in the sixth inning, with three home runs, Frank Thomas opening the festivities with a solo shot, Juan Uribe and Paul Konerko following with three-run homers. They turned a 6-2 deficit into a 12-6 victory.

It may be true that the Sox were aided by two uncharacteristic fielding gaffes by D-Backs shortstop Royce Clayton. But the point is that this Chicago team appeared to be truly determined to immediately turn this thing around. And it had the necessary tools to turn this determination into production.

"I feel so proud of these kids, what they did," Guillen said. "They didn't play good the last two days. Having this comeback you should feel good about your players. They never give up. They keep pushing.

"It feels good to win a game like this after you play so poorly the last two days."

The explosion of power was a bit out of character for the Sox, but it was on the scoreboard so it must have been real. "A lot of people think we don't have enough power, but you saw what we did with men on base," Guillen noted.

What did it all mean? This wasn't a typical White Sox victory, but the standings only ask how many, not how. The 2005 White Sox are now tied for the best 65-game start in franchise history with a couple of much older versions, the 1917 and 1954 clubs.

Garland was the beneficiary of the outburst, becoming the first 11-game winner in the American League this season. It wasn't his finest hour, but there have been plenty of times this season when he had to be at the top of his form to win.

All in all, this performance reflected what Guillen has been consistently saying about the nature of his club. There have been suggestions that the Sox need to obtain another hitter to stay at this level. Maybe not.

"I truly believe that with what we have we can do the job," Guillen said. "It's up to the players. My coaching staff will not panic. We have a lot of confidence in what we have. I think we don't need anything right now. It's up to them (the players) how far we're going to get.

"We're going to hit a lot of bumps in the road. Hopefully, we get those bumps out of the way and we keep playing."

Guillen had said Tuesday night that the two losses to Arizona were so one-sided that they seemed like 20 losses. But he has a way of keeping this thing in a healthier perspective than the rest of the population.

"I was out on the street walking today," Guillen reported, "and people were saying to me: 'Don't worry, you're going to be back.' I go: 'Wow. We only lost two games.' "

Those two games, as bad as they were, will now look like mere bumps in the road because the White Sox had enough of the right stuff to not only avoid a sweep, but to turn a looming catastrophe into a morale-building triumph.

The trick for this team would be to keep the attitude, without turning to the 10-run, three-home run inning as a basic plan of attack.

Even the relentlessly optimistic Guillen had a cautionary word in that direction at the close of festivities Wednesday night. "We got to continue to play the way we played all year long," the manager said.

True enough. The White Sox will win with their newfound reliance on pitching, defense and speed, the old baseball virtues that have become new again on the South Side. They will not win by regularly outslugging people. But the thing was, on this Interleague evening, when they really needed an impressive outburst of power, they managed to find it.

Source: http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/