Levine: Resurgent White Sox Win 3rd Straight Series

By Bruce Levine--

CHICAGO (CBS) -- The Chicago White Sox are playing their best baseball of the last two months. In defeating the Twins, 6-5, on Thursday, they took two out of three and won their third straight series. The White Sox have now won three straight series for the first time this season.

Despite having won seven of 10, Chicago has lost three games in the standings to the Cleveland Indians. Looking like he had his best stuff of the season in the early going Thursday, left-hander Carlos Rodon fizzled by allowing two runs in the fourth and two more in the sixth inning.

Rodon took a no-decision after allowing four runs in 5 2/3 innings. He gave up five hits and walked one while striking out six.

"I felt really good in the game," Rodon said. "Everything felt like it was coming out of my hand really well. The home runs were hit well. No excuse on that.

"The key is we won that game. As a teammate first, that is the only number that matters."

White Sox starting pitchers other than Chris Sale and Jose Quintana haven't been throwing enough innings for the bullpen to catch its collective breath. The wear and tear has manager Robin Ventura looking for game-ready relievers almost every night from the sixth inning going forward.

On Thursday, Ventura had his setup man in the game to hold a tie in the seventh. Ventura also had closer David Robertson up in the eighth inning.

"He started getting stuff up over the middle of the plate," Ventura said of Rodon's latter game problems. "The Twins will battle you. They have always done that. They started squaring some stuff up on him with the quick two homers. After that, they really put together some good at-bats on him."

Infielder Matt Davidson, playing his first game as a White Sox, fractured his right foot rounding the bases in the fourth inning after getting his first hit. He will go on the disabled list the same day he was officially called up from Triple-A.

"It's so odd that it happened," Ventura said. "He said he did it running around first base. You could see he was having trouble going from second to third. I know he is not a good runner, but we noticed his movement was remarkably poor at that point."

After J.B. Shuck hit a go-ahead RBI single in the bottom of the eighth, Robertson recorded his 11th straight save and has now converted 15 of his last 16 chances.

"We have had some struggles," he said. "We have certainly seemed to bounce back. We are playing better baseball overall. It's not like anybody has quit in here. Baseball is a tough sport. We were on the losing end of it for a little bit. We are now being able to turn it around. Hopefully, we can get back up at the top of the division."

The White Sox are 8-1 against the Twins this season. That's their only winning record against any divisional team.

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