White Sox GM Hahn: We haven't buried ourselves yet

The Chicago White Sox are broken, seemingly from the top to the bottom.

Go ahead and place the blame on chairman Jerry Reinsdorf for signing off on the James Shields trade that was hatched by general manager Rick Hahn and obviously green-lighted by vice president Kenny Williams.

On the field, Robin Ventura seemingly can't manage and the players can't play winning baseball.

Down on the farm, now that shortstop Tim Anderson has arrived, good luck finding another prospect that is close to being major-league ready.

Sox fans are angry, again, and who can blame them?

The many I hear from want Reinsdorf to sell the team, want Hahn and Williams gone, want Ventura gone, want hitting coach Todd Steverson gone and they want to see the roster detonated and rebuilt with young talent.

I have no clue what is going to happen with the White Sox in the short term.

It's really up to Reinsdorf, who is having his patience tested yet again.

I'm actually a big fan of that old-school character trait, patience.

There is so much change for the sake of making a change going around these days, especially in professional sports.

But in professional sports, winning is the only thing that matters. There are no alternative options.

After three straight losing seasons, Hahn and Williams did another roster overhaul and brought in Todd Frazier, Brett Lawrie, Austin Jackson, Alex Avila, Dioner Navarro, Mat Latos and Jimmy Rollins.

Latos and Rollins have already been released, and Shields was acquired on June 4, at a cost of $27 million through the 2018 season. He is 0-2 with a 21.81 ERA in 3 starts with the Sox.

The new faces blended in nicely at the start of the season, and the White Sox were the talk of the American League through April and into early May while going 23-10.

But they've gone 11-26 since the auspicious start, and that has put Ventura, Hahn and Williams back on some hot seats.

Winning fixes everything, and the White Sox pulled off a big one Monday night at Fenway Park, beating the potent Boston Red Sox 3-1 in 10 innings.

Looking for something - anything - to get the season turned back around, the White Sox might have found a rallying point.

With the score tied at 1 in the bottom of the ninth inning, Zach Putnam walked the bases loaded with no outs and a fourth straight appeared inevitable.

But just like that, Zach Duke relieved Putnam and worked out of the jam with a big defensive assist from catcher Alex Avila.

The White Sox won, and now they get another chance at showing they can be a good team.

The Sox still believe the pieces are all in place and so does Hahn, who was at Fenway on Monday.

"We very much believe the talent is there to be in the thick of things come October," Hahn told reporters. "Obviously, we have to stop squandering opportunities, especially in our division, where we've performed poorly over the last few weeks. But we have not, thanks in large part to the quality start, we haven't buried ourselves yet. We need to get it turned around fairly quickly, though, so we can continue saying that and reinforce our notion, our belief in ourselves, that this team has the ability to contend."

Hahn was asked about Ventura's job status, but he again declined to give a specific answer and reiterated that winning Monday's game was all that matters.