Season-best four-game winning streak could be teaching White Sox some valuable lessons

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The White Sox first four-game winning streak of the season isn’t likely to end up vaulting the South Siders into the playoff race.

At least, not this playoff race.

Not to make too big a deal out of four consecutive wins against the Kansas City Royals and Tampa Bay Rays, but this season is all about development for the White Sox, about young players learning how to become, one day, a perennial contender in the big leagues. Many of the faces who figure to make up that next contending White Sox team aren’t here yet, still developing in the minor leagues. But the manner in which this current group has won these last four contests could serve as an important lesson.

Rick Renteria has talked about “learning moments” all season long, and the last four games could be an important one of those. The White Sox won four straight close contests — the first by two runs, each of the next three by one run — and often had to do it after surrendering a lead. Each of the four games was won in the White Sox final at-bat.

“Most games are going to be won with that type of game, that closer game, and especially as you get to the playoffs and stuff like that, you’re not going to win by a huge amount,” designated hitter Matt Davidson said before Monday’s game. “It’s important to be in those games and to win and pull those games out.

“The experience of those games is something that you’ve got to go through and be in those situations, playing defense and taking those at-bats, taking those pitching scenarios of being in those situations. You can’t really just think about them, you’ve got to actually play in them. And that’s something that we’re going through right now. So it will definitely be good for us.”

This is just the third time this season the White Sox have won three consecutive games, an indication of where this team sits in the standings and how development at all levels of the organization has been the priority in 2018. But there’s plenty to accomplish at the major league level as the regular season wraps over the next two months.

Players like Yoan Moncada, Tim Anderson, Lucas Giolito, Carlos Rodon and Reynaldo Lopez are expected to be big parts of the future. Plenty of other young players could play their way into discussions about the team’s long-term plans. And so, for that group of players — which could certainly get bigger with any promotions that might occur over the next two months — gaining the ability to win games like this adds an important tool to the tool box, one that could come in handy when the place in the standings is different and when the August and September games get more meaningful.

“When you win close games, at the end of the day they’re looking at how they did it. They didn’t quit, they didn’t give up,” Renteria said. “We had a couple leads change hands. We had some really big at-bats, coming through in order to score some runs. Is it good for them to experience that, yes. Just feeling confident about themselves, knowing what they’re doing, having an idea of what they want to do, ultimately just giving themselves a chance. There’s never a guarantee that they’re going to do it, but they put themselves in a good position.”

With a contending Yankees team in town, this win streak might end up being just a four-game blip in the middle of a 162-game season. But the “learning moments” Renteria talks about come in all shapes and sizes. Who’s to say what Davidson or Moncada or Anderson learn during an August weekend during this developmental campaign won’t come into play a year or two from now, when the situation is a lot more important?

Isn’t learning how to win games like this part of development?

“That’s the most valuable thing is the experience and actually doing it,” Davidson said. “And it’s good to see us doing it, going through those scenarios and succeeding with them.”

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