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Levine: White Sox Offense A Big Disappointment

By Bruce Levine--

CHICAGO (CBS) -- The White Sox offense has been the biggest disappointment for a team that was built to win this season. Home run hitting, which should be a strong function of this mostly veteran group, has been totally absent through the first 40 games of the season.

Chicago was tied for the fewest home runs in baseball with the Philadelphia going into action on Sunday, with 26. That number alone would be easier for the team to live with if it was scoring runs and driving them in in other ways, but the White Sox are last in the American League and second-to-last in the major leagues with 146 runs.

"Most of my struggles have always been the first two months of the season," said DH/first baseman Adam LaRoche, a well-known streak hitter. "You would think the longer you play this game, the easier it would get. That is just not the case. It gets frustrating for sure."

LaRoche has only hit four home runs, tied with Avisail Garcia for second on the team behind Jose Abreu, who leads with seven long balls. Abreu has been pitched to differently since last year's All-Star break. In the first 312 at-bats of Abreu's major league career, he had 30 home runs, through July 13, 2014. Since then over his last 386 at-bats, Abreu has a total of 12.

"The numbers have not been what we were hoping for," manager Robin Ventura said, understating the obvious frustration of watching games go into the loss column that should be wins. "You are looking at guys and the track record of what they have done in their career, you expect more home runs out of them. You expect when it warms up, then we will have a chance to do that. You look around though and other teams are doing that while we are playing. We want our numbers to be better."

The White Sox upped their payroll by almost $20 million in 2015, giving deals to LaRoche, Melky Cabrera and Adam Eaton, with the rest for pitchers. With a full healthy season projected for Garcia and Abreu expected to pick up where he left off (a 36-homer season in 2014), home run muscle was considered a given. Despite a recent 17-game hitting streak, Abreu on Sunday hit just his second homer since April 23.

"He is not trying for some hitting streak and just slapping it around," Ventura said. "He is taking some healthy cuts in counts he feels good in. He is a good enough hitter to get hits every day, and that is a hard thing to do anyway."

Maybe Ventura is correct. However, Abreu averaging only two homers a month since last July isn't what anybody expected.

"He has gotten into that area of getting the pitcher's best stuff when he comes up there," Ventura said. "He will see the guy's best slider or curveball, their best fastball. You have to be in an elite area to get that. It's hard to tell anyone to hit homers. They would hit them if they could. With him it's all about his stroke and what he's comfortable doing. You want him to just hit it hard somewhere."

Abreu did just that Sunday, going opposite field with a fastball from Twins starter Kyle Gibson for his seventh home run.

"We have too good of a lineup not to score runs," LaRoche said. "That is what is probably driving guys crazy more than anything. We do have a knack for coming back and winning games, or at least making it close."

An 11-game road trip would be a great time for the White Sox offense to come alive and help a vastly improved pitching staff.

"Our starters probably feel like they have to hold the other team to two runs every time out," catcher Tyler Flowers said. "That's great, but we have to help them out more for sure."

Bruce Levine covers the Cubs and White Sox for 670 The Score and CBSChicago.com. Follow him on Twitter @MLBBruceLevine.

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