Crain: Winning Games Against Division Is Key To Comeback
(WSCR) If it seems like year-after-year the Minnesota Twins make a strong push at the end of the season to compete for the American League Central Division title, it's because they do.
And one member of the White Sox has a lot of insight into how the Twins have been able to win six of the last nine AL Central titles.
Reliever Jesse Crain was a member of four of those division winning teams in Minnesota and if his key to a comeback is right, the White Sox certainly still have a chance in 2011.
"When I was with the Twins, what saved the Twins and allowed them to come back in the division (was that) they played so well within the division," Crain told the Mully and Hanley Show Tuesday on 670 The Score. "We beat Kansas City, we beat Cleveland when we should, we beat Detroit when we needed to and obviously the White Sox. So if we want to make a run at this, we need to win the games in our divisions because we have so many of them left. We haven't even played close to half of the games we play within our division. So if we can have a winning record in that, it's going to give us a great a big chance to come back and maybe take the lead in this division."
Listen: Jesse Crain on The Mully and Hanley Show
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For the rest of this interview and other 670 The Score interviews click here.
Indeed, the White Sox have only played 17 divisional games to this point, meaning they have 51 left this season, including 19 in a row after this weekend's series against the Cubs. And, despite a sub-par 38-41 record, the White Sox are only five games behind the division-leading Tigers, meaning they will have plenty of opportunities to make up ground in the second half of the season.
The question is, can they win those games against their division?
