For Sox, so much good after so much bad

As a player, coach and manager, Ozzie Guillen has been around major-league baseball for 25 years. He is "shocked."

Arriving on the South Side in 1999, Paul Konerko is the White Sox' senior-ranking member. The 34-year-old captain deemed the first half of the season "crazy."

But give Bobby Jenks credit for best describing the Sox' astounding 25-5 finishing kick into the all-star break.

"If we would have told people this was going to happen," Jenks said, "they would have laughed in our face."

Who's laughing now at these first-place White Sox? And what in the name of Nyls Nyman has happened with this crew over the first half of the season?

Pull up a chair as we try to explain it in three segments:

The uglyThat would have been the first two-plus months of the season.Let's take you back to June 5, when the Sox dropped their second straight home game to the woeful Cleveland Indians to fall nine games under .500.Always the go-to guy in the White Sox' clubhouse, Konerko admittedly was clueless when asked for his thoughts."I don't know," Konerko said. "I'm like everybody else around here; you're kind of out of answers."You can keep an eye on it, are guys hustling? Are guys fighting as hard as they can? And all of that's there."After that I don't know anybody else who has answers. Come forward and let us know."As the strained relationship between general manager Kenny Williams and manager Ozzie Guillen dominated the headlines - accurate or inaccurate, at least it took the focus off what was happening on the field - the underachieving White Sox were at least able to stink it up in relative obscurity as the Blackhawks rolled to their first Stanley Cup championship in 49 years.But eventually, on June 9 to be exact, a seething Williams finally came out and admitted he had seen enough.Was he going to detonate the roster? Or was he just going to move some pieces around?"Some changes need to take place," the GM said. "I don't know what and I don't when, but some changes need to take place. Things aren't happening the way that we envisioned, and when they don't happen the way you envision you've got to make an adjustment."The badBig picture-wise, the White Sox weren't able to explain why they looked like legitimate playoff contenders while beating Cleveland 6-0 on Opening Day and Little Leaguers while going 4-11 over their next 15 games.But a closer look at every area provides plenty of clues.Offensively, the Sox had only two hitters - Konerko and Alex Rios - performing up to their potential from Day One.Leadoff man Juan Pierre was batting .193 on May 1. Carlos Quentin was batting .187 on May 1 and .234 on June 1. Alexei Ramirez was batting .231 on May 1 and .253 on June 1. A.J. Pierzynski was batting .169 on May 1 and .211 on June 1."After the first game of the season, a lot of the guys started scuffling and I didn't like the body language," hitting coach Greg Walker. "There was a lot of anxiety, just like that. If you start feeling sorry for yourself at this level, you've got no chance."Over the same sorry stretch, White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper was dealing with similar adversity.Starters Mark Buehrle, Jake Peavy and Gavin Floyd were hit hard during the first two months and doubting their abilities. And Jenks was dangerously close to losing his closer's job after his ERA soared to 6.23 in mid-May.As for the defense, it also was shaky.Mark Teahen, who has been on the disabled list the past six weeks with a fractured finger, looked lost at third base. Ramirez was off to another slow start at shortstop, and Gordon Beckham was taking his offensive woes to second base.The goodSimply winning two games in a row was a major achievement for the Sox in April and May.But after Williams vowed to make major changes in early June, the White Sox somehow managed to flip some invisible switch and pull it all together.They won 11 straight from June 15-26. Then they won their eighth in a row Sunday.And now for the really good stuff - the White Sox' 25-5 surge to end the first half matches the best record in major-league history. The 1975 Cincinnati Reds and the 1990 New York Mets also won 25 of 30 heading into the all-star break.The starting pitching has sparked the amazing turnaround. Before rookie Daniel Hudson was roughed up for 5 runs in 4 innings in Sunday's 15-5 win over Kansas City, Sox starters were 19-5 with a 2.23 ERA and 27 quality outings in the past 30 games.The offense has broken out as well, with a .317 average in the last 12 games. Quentin, in particular, has been off the charts, The right fielder has 6 home runs in his last four games, a club record.Defensively, Rios has played like a Gold Glover in center field all season, and Ramirez, Konerko and 43-year-old Omar Vizquel also have been outstanding.It all came together very fast for the White Sox, and it has been something to see."It's a testament to the 25 guys, and the guys called up, that never stopped believing, even when the media was about ready to rip the whole team apart," Pierre said, obviously forgetting it was Williams who first pulled the plug on the season."It's good to be in first, but I want to be in first after the second half of the season. This is fine, but we have a lot of work to do."Much of it already has been done.