Levine: White Sox Try To Protect Division Lead

By Bruce Levine--

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Managers and players often downplay the significance of a single series at this time of year, pointing out that there's so much baseball left to be played, but they still understand these games mean plenty and count just as much as a win in September.

Such is the case for the AL Central-leading White Sox, who Monday welcomed the second-place Indians to U.S. Cellular Field for a doubleheader to kick off a four-game series. Chicago leads Cleveland by 2.5 games.

For the White Sox, their early spring surge has been about being taken seriously for the first time since 2012. Between 2013 and 2015, Chicago was a combined 62 games under .500.

"A little bit of both," White Sox center fielder Austin Jackson said in referencing this being an important series and also the reality of it being May. "I think anytime you are playing in your division, those are important games. I believe it helps to win now, especially in the division. Those games can add up later. If you have a good team, you can lose a lead and still weather the storm and win. Of course you want to maintain the good play that got you on top."

Entering Monday, the White Sox had lost eight of their past 11 games and were looking for better offensive production. They had scored just 21 runs in their last eight games and only 10 runs in the last five.

Can a team have the mentality of protecting a lead in the standings this early in the campaign?

"Ideally, you feel that way," manager Robin Ventura said. "When you are playing games, you can't think about things like that. You compete hard every day. That is the biggest thing. If you hold onto the lead, that's great. If you don't, you are not going to get down and think the season is over."

The Indians have made a nice run toward the White Sox and the top of the division by winning five of their past seven games.

"Of course you have seen teams that try and hang on," Indians manager Terry Francona said.

"That is probably not the best way to go about it, even though it can be human nature. We have an obligation to look at our position and make it a challenge and make it an advantage. I would rather be the one in first place. (The White Sox) have a really good thing going right now."

Francona pointed to a bad experience of his as something you shouldn't do in sports. His 2011 Red Sox had hefty lead in the standings before crumbling and going 7-20 in September. Boston not only lost the division but blew its chance for the playoffs by losing the last game of the season.

"Sometimes it's circumstantial," Francona said. "With the 2011 team, we were definitely trying to hang on. That was literally because we needed to. Obviously at that point, things were not going very well. I do understand the question, but that is why we always teach to stay in the moment. If you start getting into those types of things, you don't need to. If you play today game, then you don't have to worry about what happened two days ago. That type of thinking doesn't help. If it helped, we would do it."

The White Sox would love to defend the turf they have worked so hard to get this season.

"We know where we stand right now," reliever Matt Albers said. "Being ahead a few games in May doesn't really mean a lot. It is where we are at the end of the year. The good thing is it shows us how we have done so far and what we are capable of. We got off to a good start, but we have a lot of work to do."

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