Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports
With their 4-0 loss to the Cleveland Indians this afternoon, the Chicago White Sox finished the month of June losers of five straight. Overall, June wasn’t very kind to the South Siders as they totaled just eight victories for the whole month.
Although the past 30 days have been painful and frustrating for the Sox, who now finds themselves 15 games below .500 and 10.5 games out of first in the American League Central, infielder Jeff Keppinger has been giving Chicago at least one thing to smile about lately. In his past four games, Keppinger has collected eight hits, one HR and four RBI.
Keppinger’s recent success has really stretched much further than just the past couple of days. In the month of June, he batted .317 and drew seven base-on-balls after walking just two times in the previous two months of the season.
The 33-year-old infielder is in his first season on the South Side. After a very slow start, he’s finally starting to show why he was able to hit .325 and strikeout just 31 times for the Tampa Bay Rays last year. By using the whole field and beginning to drive balls rather than flying out softly, Keppinger has begun to perform like the Sox thought he would when they signed him to a three-year, $12 million deal this winter.
Despite Keppinger’s impressive month, the White Sox as a team still find themselves near the bottom in the AL in just about every offensive category. However, hitting can certainly become contagious, and hopefully Keppinger’s hot bat begins to rub off on the entire Sox roster before all hope of a successful 2013 season is lost.
Matt Malecha is a Chicago White Sox writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattMalecha and add him to your network on Google.
