What's working for the White Sox? Jose Abreu and Carlos Rodon

Jose Abreu

White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu always has been a second-half hitter, and August historically has been the best month of his career.

Abreu has a lifetime .330/.389/.571 slash line with 28 home runs, 31 doubles and 79 RBIs in 125 August games.

The calendar says August, and the Sox's most accomplished hitter is once again tearing it up. In his past 14 games, Abreu is hitting .327/.361/.673 with five home runs, four doubles and 14 RBIs.

On Wednesday, Abreu went 3 for 5 with a home run and three RBIs in a 6-5 win over the Detroit Tigers. He now has 21 home runs and 73 RBIs this season, and with 42 games to go, he needs 27 more RBIs for his fifth consecutive 100-RBI season.

He'll have to stay hot, but I'm not going to count him out.

The other bright spot for the Sox: starting pitcher Carlos Rodon (4-3), who earned the win Wednesday.

Since July 1, Rodon has made seven starts, going 3-0 with a 1.60 ERA. He's thrown 50.2 innings, an average of more than seven a start, and he's allowed only 27 hits and two home runs over that span. He has struck out 42 and walked 20, so that means he's allowing less than a base runner an inning.

Against the Tigers, Rodon pitched eight innings, allowing three runs on five hits. He struck out six and walked only one. This particular start is the only one in the past seven in which Rodon allowed more than two earned runs.

The Tigers on Wednesday got all three of their runs in the third inning, and frankly, I'd chalk it up to a fluky inning. Detroit had runners on second and third with no outs before Rodon struck out Victor Reyes for the first out. The next hitter was Jeimer Candelario, and on a 1-2 pitch, Rodon poured a fastball right over the outside corner. Candelario could not pull the trigger, but the umpire missed the call. That should have been strike three and two outs, but instead, Rodon hit Candelario on the next pitch with a back-foot slider to load the bases.

Jose Iglesias followed with a bloop single, and Nick Castellanos hit a grounder with eyes for a single, and all of a sudden the Tigers had three runs on not much solid contact.

But Rodon settled down after those tough breaks and allowed nothing over the next five innings. In fact, four of the six base runners Rodon allowed were in that third inning. He dominated the rest of the game, and the offense supported him.

Matt Davidson's two-run homer in the fourth inning gave the Sox the lead for good at 4-3. Abreu added a two-run shot in the fifth for a 6-3 lead.

The Sox bullpen coughed up two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to make it stressful. The Tigers had both the tying and winning runs on base with two outs before Luis Avilan retired Reyes on a fly ball to center field to end the game.