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Levine: White Sox Playing For Pride Now

By Bruce Levine--

CHICAGO (CBS) -- There are 54 games left in the season, and nine teams are ahead of the Chicago White Sox in the American League standings. Reality is setting in, that any chance of getting a wild-card berth to the playoffs is fading rapidly.

So, what can be done now?

Winning the AL Central appears hopeless. Chicago trails first-place Cleveland by 10 games and second-place Detroit by seven. Boston has an eight-game lead over the White Sox in the loss column for the second wild card, and the Blue Jays are nine up in the all-important loss column for the first wild card.

In order to play. 600 baseball the rest of the season, the White Sox must go 33-21. That would give them 85 wins. Since starting the season 23-10, Chicago has gone 29-46. A run production breakdown has once again impacted way too many games with a negative result.

The trading deadline came and went with little movement for the White Sox, other than left-hander Zach Duke being moved to the Cardinals for young outfielder Charlie Tilson. The immediate direction the organization is going is difficult to determine. We see a team in need of controllable position players for the future. Only Adam Eaton, Jose Abreu, Tim Anderson, Avisail Garcia and Tyler Saladino will be under team control after 2017 from this present group of position players.

The present task of manager Robin Ventura and his staff is to get the best out of a group that likely isn't a valid playoff candidate.

"Not worried about these guys," Ventura said. "They show up and play every day. Even the last game in Detroit we lost a tough one the night before 2-1. They came right back and even with injuries and weird things that are happening the focus was still there for playing."

Ventura and his professional coaching staff are all on the slippery slope for next year. Ventura is winding up his fifth season as manager and may want to do something else in baseball other than manage. The White Sox brass may also want a different voice going forward.

For now, the team must conjure up some real emotion and solid play for the last third of the year.

"We of course want to win every day," Eaton said. "You must keep that mentality. You lose two of three and then you say we have to play .650 ball. That is not going to help you in the moment. We need to focus on the task at hand right now and not look too far ahead. I know I sound like a broken record, but it's true -- you look at them one at a time. If we can do that and be successful, we will be in a good place in September."

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

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