Chicago White Sox: Three keys to winning AL Central

Embrace small-ball

The White Sox offense has been mashing this season. They lead the American League in batting average, hits, RBI’s, and runs scored. The White Sox have done most of their damage with the long ball also leading the AL in home runs, slugging percentage, and OPS.

Hitting coach Frank Menechino warned us on the problems of leaning too heavily on the long ball. On August 20th he said, “if we’re only going to score with home runs we’re in trouble”. While the long ball has come easy to the Sox thus far it might not come so easily in the postseason. The pitching gets better and the weather gets colder. The Twins led the league in homers last season only to be swept out of the ALDS by the New York Yankees.

Relying on the home run won’t just be a problem in the playoffs but could also provide problems for the White Sox down the stretch. The weather also happens to get colder in September and the pitching they are in line to face provides a daunting task. They play the Indians, who have the best rotation in baseball;  the Cubs, who have NL Cy Young candidate Yu Darvish; and the Reds, who have two aces in Trevor Bauer and Luis Castillos.

The White Sox need to find other ways of manufacturing runs. They are capable of doing that because they hit for a high average and have an abundance of speed. Get guys on, move them over, and drive them in.