Captain Konerko likes Sox' chances of winning the Central

GLENDALE, Ariz. - Hopefully Twitter-mania has run its course at White Sox training camp.

The regular season is less than two weeks away, so it's an ideal time to turn off the tweets and turn it over to Sox captain Paul Konerko.

Before rolling over the Arizona Diamondbacks 10-3 in a Cactus League game Wednesday at Camelback Ranch, the Sox were 0-4-1 in their last five games and 6-11-4 overall.

Expected to make a strong push for the AL Central title this season, the White Sox were playing some pretty ragged baseball in the desert before putting it together Wednesday.

"It's very hard to tell in spring training," Konerko said. "From here on out we kind of have our team, so we can get a better feel for the lineup and how things are.

"Up until now it's like you get guys playing every other day; guys really haven't been playing together too much. But there's a really good feeling with this team."

It all starts with the pitching - particularly the rotation - but Konerko said the White Sox are far from one-dimensional.

"We have enough pieces in every area," he said. "No one's just going to give us the trophy; I don't think we're good like that.

"I don't think we can just roll the ball out and win games, but as a team, every year you go into the season and you ask: 'Do you have enough to win the division?' If the answer is yes, you have to be happy with that and then you see what you do with it.

"I would say we have enough here to win a division. Are there other teams in our division that might be better at something than us? Probably. But we might be better at something than they are.

"I think we have enough here to win; I know we do. Now it's just a matter of coming together as a team and jelling together, and that's a six-month thing."

If they were playing in the AL East or West, the White Sox likely would be considered a middle-of-the-pack club. The American League Central appears to be a big step down from the other two divisions, but Konerko is not apologizing.

"I think this division over the last five or six years, if you predicted it right than you're a genius because it's been so up and down," he said.

"You have teams going from last to first, second to fourth. Everything is on the table; that's the way I look at it. Every team in our division can take a crack at first place. If you're not careful, you can fall way down in the division, too, because of the head to heads.

"We're a very balanced division with competition. The level of that competition, that's for somebody else to talk about it. 'We're not as good as we used to be; we're not as good as the (AL) East or West.'

"Who cares? In this division, it's going to be a tough game no matter who you're playing."

Before breaking out against Arizona on Wednesday, the White Sox' offense ranked 12th among AL teams with a .261 preseason batting average.

As Konerko said, it's difficult to tell what is what early in spring training. But the veteran first baseman already has a good feeling about newcomer Juan Pierre.

"He's showing us basically what Pods (Scott Podsednik) showed us when he came to the team last year," Konerko said. "A leadoff hitter is ultra-valuable. It's huge, it's a big deal.

"You cannot underestimate the power of a leadoff hitter, a true leadoff hitter. It's nice to be going into the season without that controversy, without all of that talk about who's going to lead off. We have that taken care of."