Floyd, Quentin lead Sox to 5-1 win
Remember back in April, and especially May?
The White Sox couldn't come up with any reasonable answers to explain why they were playing such bad baseball.
They preferred to keep plugging away and waiting for their luck to turn.
It turned all right.
The arrow went from down to up so fast the Sox are again at a loss to explain why their season is suddenly such a rousing success.
"It was a very crazy first half, obviously," Paul Konerko said after Saturday night's 5-1 win over the Kansas City Royals at U.S. Cellular Field.
"I think before the season if you had said we'd be right where we're at, I would say that makes sense give or take a couple games. But the way we got here, it's been crazy."
On June 8, the Tigers slaughtered the White Sox, dropping the Sox' record to 24-33. That left the Sox 91/2 games behind the Minnesota Twins in the AL Central, prompting a vow from general manager Kenny Williams to make wholesale changes.
Fast forward to Saturday.
Behind another gem from starting pitcher Gavin Floyd and a pair of home runs from Carlos Quentin, the White Sox (48-38) are a season-high 10 games over .500 and remain a half-game behind Detroit.
They have won seven in a row, which comes on the heels of an 11-game winning streak that ran from June 15-26.
Like Konerko said, crazy. Crazy good.
"I've never seen a turnaround like this," the Sox' captain said. "I've never been on a team that's had such an attitude, not so much an attitude, our attitude's been pretty good all year.
"Professional, doing our work. As far as execution of the game and things turning like that on a dime, I don't think anybody saw this coming."
Manager Ozzie Guillen never lost complete faith during the ugly start, but he too is shocked by the run of 20 wins in the last 24 games.
"It's how you handle it, and we handled it very well," Guillen said. "We stuck together. And I think the reason they came out of this hole is just because they believed it can't be worse than what it was.
"I said that all the time, 'Don't worry, guys, it can't get worse than this. We're going to turn it around.' And they did. The thing that killed me was it was just so fast. That's a good thing. We didn't have to wait little by little. It happened so fast, and now we're here."
The Sox will be at the all-star break after playing Kansas City on Sunday while shooting for a 7-0 homestand.
And if the starting pitching, clutch hitting, solid defense and back end of the bullpen holds up in the second half, it's really going to get interesting.
"We're in a great position to do something here in the second half," Konerko said. "Let's just try to get tomorrow's game, finish on a good note, and make sure we come out strong again because we've got Minnesota right after the break."
Scot Gregor's game tracker White Sox 5, Royals 1Floyd stays in fast lane: Gavin Floyd pitched 72/3 innings and allowed 1 run on 6 hits. The right-hander is 3-1 with a 1.07 ERA in his last 7 starts. In his last 4 starts at home, Floyd has allowed just 2 earned runs in 272/3 innings.Shades of 2008: Carlos Quentin hit 2 homers and drove in 3 runs. In his last 15 games, the right fielder is batting .356 with 9 HRs and 19 RBI.Streak tracker: The Sox (48-38) have won 7 in a row, 20 of 24 and 24 of 29. They also have won 13 of their last 14 at U.S. Cellular Field and are a season-high 10 games over .500.False447512White Sox's Paul Konerko congratulates Carlos Quentin after Quentins' second home run of the game against the Royals in the fifth inning.Associated PressFalse