White Sox Hit June With Eyes on Prize: ‘We Want to Win It All'

Sox hit June with eyes on the prize: 'We want to win it all' originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago

Two months down. Five to go.

The road to the World Series is a marathon, not a sprint, and the Chicago White Sox find themselves on a good pace as the calendar flips from May to June.

They're in first place in the American League Central, with a 33-21 win-loss mark that stands among baseball's best. Since being on the wrong end of a sweep in The Bronx, they have won seven of nine, including a four-game sweep of the Baltimore Orioles.

RELATED: Abreu plays hero in ways surprising, not in extra-inning win

While Twitter spent the season's first two months up in arms about nearly everything manager Tony La Russa did and said, La Russa's team was busy being among baseball's finest. As of this writing, the White Sox ranked in the top five in the game in OPS (.751) and ERA (3.23), with only the San Diego Padres boasting a better run differential (plus-80).

They are true contenders and have done more than just stay afloat as they've watched two of their most important hitters sidelined with significant injuries.

Indeed, injuries aside, it's where the White Sox have long wanted to be. It's where the front office planned for them to be. This is what all that rebuilding was for, to be a power with a legitimate chance of reaching the lofty World Series goals that were the talk of spring training.

"It is a good feeling to be on a winning team that has a chance to win every night," White Sox third baseman Yoán Moncada said through team interpreter Billy Russo before a split in Monday's doubleheader in Cleveland. "Definitely different from those years when we were rebuilding.

"Those were tough years because things didn't always go our way and we had to battle. Even though we knew that we were in that rebuilding phase, we took all those losses and all those years hard. It wasn't easy.

"It's good to be at this moment with this team. We are having fun, we are playing very good baseball. ... We have a good team. But we can't be too complacent. We have to keep working hard, keep doing our thing because it's a long season and we want to win it all."

The absences of Jiménez and Robert will continue to loom large, of course, and might just force Rick Hahn and his front office to make some tough decisions come trade-deadline time.

What those injuries haven't forced yet is the disastrous downslide they looked capable of when they occurred. Yermín Mercedes and Andrew Vaughn have stepped up. But it's been a true cast of characters that have seemingly proven the oft-used baseball cliche that "it's a different guy every night" correct, something that is a product of the seemingly unshakable culture inside the White Sox clubhouse.

"There have been guys who (have) stepped up and (are) doing a very good job for us and (are) helping us, and that’s important, too," Moncada said. "It shows how good we are, how cohesive we are as a team. That’s important because when Eloy and Robert join us, we’ll be in a good position because we’ll reinforce our strength.

"Everybody has been doing their job, that’s why we’re in this position."

Sweeping the Orioles is one thing. Beating their closest competition in the Central is another, as the White Sox would prefer to check a division championship off their to-do list before winning the whole shebang.

In the first game of Monday's doubleheader, the White Sox edged the rival Cleveland Indians in extra innings, an entertaining ballgame that was reminiscent of playoff ball and hinged on late-inning contributions from the MVP, José Abreu's efforts highlighted by a go-ahead sacrifice fly, the end result of a plate appearance La Russa described as unforgettable.

In the second game, the White Sox offense showed it could certainly benefit from having Jiménez and Robert's bats back in the lineup, failing to cash in on opportunities and mustering only one run.

But the White Sox have made it this far thanks in no small part to dominant starting pitching. And youngster Jimmy Lambert, stepping in for the injured Michael Kopech, who prior to this holiday weekend was a fixture in doubleheaders, showed that even the subs get revved up by the mission this team has in front of it.

"It's one of the first things that I noticed. I was in the clubhouse for most of the first game, and guys come in and out. And guys, they want to win. That's what this is all about," Lambert said. "Every time I came (back) into the dugout, it was, 'Way to keep us in the game,' stuff like that.

"It's all about the win, that's all that matters. And it adds a little bit more to each outing, that's for sure, to each inning, to each pitch. It's a lot of fun to pitch for a team that's maybe one of the best in baseball."

Lambert was mostly fine, but he coughed up a two-run home run to José Ramírez for the deciding blow in Game 2, an example of how these Indians apparently aren't dead yet, despite trading away Francisco Lindor during the offseason. Though you can scratch your head and wonder where the offense is going to come from, the Indians keep sending winning ball clubs out each year on the backs of their pitchers, and 2021 has so far been no exception.

The Minnesota Twins, the Central's back-to-back champs who were pegged in the preseason to be the White Sox top challengers, fell on their faces out of the gates and sit at the bottom of the division standings. That leaves the Indians as the White Sox unexpected summertime foils and makes for some important baseball as early as this week.

You could feel the importance watching Game 1, when Abreu's sac fly was followed by an Adam Eaton two-run homer in extra innings that seemed a bit of a flag-planting moment, of sorts, as this four-game series opened with a White Sox win. It felt like the kind of win that would make the end-of-season highlight reels, should the White Sox end up with something big to celebrate, with a season worth looking back on.

"I think any team that does well late in the year, in the postseason, and gets to the World Series, you kind of look back at wins like this where you don't really want to be denied," Eaton said. "You kind of come to the park wanting to win, expecting to win. And when you get in those one-run ballgames, you just know someone's going to do it.

"We have guys that can handle the bat, do anything to win, and you can see it on a day-to-day basis."

Eaton should know, he's got a World Series ring on his finger after winning the whole thing with the Washington Nationals in 2019. He's said he sees parallels between that group and this group of White Sox.

The White Sox want far more important days than these three in Cleveland. They've got aspirations of playing deep into October, to the end of October. What they've shown in April and May is that it's certainly possible.

But as Eaton was quick to point out, there's a whole heck of a lot of baseball left to be played.

"Anybody can do it for two months," Eaton said. "You've to to do it for six-plus."

So let the marathon continue.

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