White Sox see final games as meaningful to rebuilding progress

Patience is the watchword on the South Side these days.

Well, it’s been the watchword for a lot of days, if we’re being honest.

But fans are still being asked to be patient with their White Sox in the thick of another rebuild.

The highest drama during the season’s final two weeks figures to be whether these Sox can avoid a third consecutive 100-loss campaign. They’ll have to play .500 ball or better in their last dozen games to do it.

So patience is required for those waiting to see the next contending club at 35th and Shields.

But Sox brass is trying to make it happen, with general manager Chris Getz leading the latest overhaul and spearheading the waiting game as the organization’s top talent makes its way through the minor leagues and to the big league team.

There’s plenty to celebrate for those hoping for brighter days ahead, with a core of position players emerging at the major league level that’s symbolized real progress on the rebuilding front. Shortstop Colson Montgomery, second baseman Chase Meidroth and catchers Edgar Quero and Kyle Teel have all arrived from the farm system and impressed, as sure a sign as any to the front office that they’ve been working in the right direction.

“It obviously looks very different today than it did at the beginning of the season,” farm director Paul Janish said Monday. “You talk about some of those young guys … potentially a core position group starting to form, hopefully.”

“The young players we’ve had have shown tremendous growth this year,” said right fielder Mike Tauchman, often cited as a team leader. “The way that we’ve performed in the second half speaks to that, from a win-loss record standpoint.”

But even with that improved second-half play, the Sox still have the worst record in the AL, serving fans a steady stream of losing. That future-focused progress has only been worth so much in the present day.

It leaves the architects of the rebuilding effort praising more intangible strides — much like all the talk of strengthening organizational infrastructure in earlier years under Getz’s leadership — that are adding up to a promising future.

“The other thing I would highlight is the way that they are playing the game,” Janish said. “We can talk about defense, we can talk about pitching and hitting. But one of the things you see … of late is the ability to come back in games.

“You see the major league team coming back in games late, getting down and not flinching. It’s a real strong indicator of the makeup and, hopefully, what’s to come, because it is a core group of guys. You can almost see them molding together.

“The competitive nature that the team is playing with and the ability to come back — kind of get knocked down and get back up, which we haven’t seen a ton recently prior to some of those young guys getting there — that’s what’s encouraging to me.”

Stuff like that, in the eyes of the guys in charge, adds meaning to the final couple weeks, even with the Sox long out of playoff position.

“We talk about how meaningful these games are for us,” manager Will Venable said. “We know that we don’t have playoff implications, but we certainly have a lot of things internally that are important to us.

“These guys have done a great job building the foundation of our culture and how we go about our business every single day. … Every day we get an opportunity to grow that and protect that.”

Whether they hit triple digits in defeats again remains to be seen. But avoiding it would mean a more than 20-game improvement from last year’s record-setting 121-loss season.

That would be a big deal, but not big enough to drag them out of the AL Central cellar.

That’s what those patient fans are waiting for.