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CHICAGO -- Chicago White Sox general manager Rick Hahn appears to have seamlessly slid into his new role as the top baseball executive in the organization. Although former GM Ken Williams has a title above Hahn’s position, it is clear the Winnetka, Ill., native is calling most of the shots. The team's early struggles with key injuries that have contributed to a slow start have not changed Hahn’s optimistic demeanor or his accessibility.

Having had ten years in the trenches as the club's assistant GM appears to have made the transition easier for the people he works with."There is always a change when someone new takes over,“ said second-year manager Robin Ventura. “I don’t think anything has changed here philosophy wise. For me, it has been easy because we spent a lot of time together last year. We are dealing with different issues but handling things in similar ways. Rick and Kenny are just different personalities.”

Hahn has a less aggressive style by nature than Williams but is known as a stone-cold hardliner when it comes to making decisions on talent and money issues. The friendly exterior person he projects should not be confused with the single-minded executive who has shown he is not afraid to say no or turn away from a bad deal. Hahn made his bones by saving the franchise millions of dollars in contract layouts. He signed young players like Mark Buehrle to long-term deals in the early stages of their careers. That type of proactive move worked two-fold: It provided security for the player and another revenue stream to add other good players to the White Sox mix.

The only player who has been here longer than Hahn is team captain Paul Konerko. The veteran first baseman looks at Hahn as a top communicator and a shrewd handler of people. “There won’t be any times where Rick would be caught saying 'why didn’t we think of that?‘" Konerko said in explaining Hahn’s penchant for detail. “Rick and Kenny are the type of baseball men who are dialed in 24 hours a day.”

Hahn has had to adjust to people treating him in a different matter rather than the reverse. “I have seen a difference in the office staff at times but not with the baseball scouts and personnel,“ he said. “Everyone means it out of respect, saying things like ‘I know your busy,‘ when in reality I was the one who initiated the conversation.”

The Sox's poor start as a team while losing two starting position players within a week has tested the 39-year-old executive early in his tenure as GM. “I certainly feel more responsible when things get difficult as you weigh various depth options maybe knowing that right piece isn’t there waiting for you,” Hahn said. “It already has been a rough year injury wise, and, for the most part, we have had someone to come up and help. I do feel a greater responsibility when things don’t go how we planned it to go.“

The White Sox GM is still working closely with Williams, who is out looking at high school and college players for the June draft. “He is always there as a resource even if he isn’t here on a daily basis,” Hahn said. “This has been a little bit of a transition for him. So far, I think it has been good for both of us."

Chicago White Sox right-hander Gavin Floyd left Saturday's game against the Tampa Bay Rays in the third inning with a flexor muscle strain in his right arm.

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CHICAGO -- Chicago White Sox starter Jake Peavy finally got the run support in Friday’s 5-4 win over the Tampa Bay Rays that he had been missing in his first four starts.

The Sox offense previously had averaged 3.55 runs per game when Peavy took the mound, including his last start against Minnesota, when he received a no decision after allowing only one run in seven innings.

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CHICAGO -- You can see a different hitter evolving in the batter’s box these days, as Adam Dunn is slowly starting to make more consistent contact.

Slumps are nothing new for the Chicago White Sox slugger, but so far this season he wasn’t even getting his usual walk numbers.

A recent slump doesn’t support the hypothesis that Dunn is getting it together, (3-for-50 in his last 13 games before Friday), but nonetheless, he and his hitting coach Jeff Manto see a good streak coming. Dunn went 2-for-4 Friday with an RBI in the Sox’s 5-4 win over the Rays.

“He has been working on his base and his base has gotten better,” Manto said before Friday’s game. “We began to see some better at-bats from him in Toronto. He has taken those better at-bats through the homestand but doesn’t have raw numbers to prove it. We see it and we are taking small steps right now. If you watch him flying out to left and left center that is a good sign and he is doing that right now.”

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The early wildness Chicago White Sox starter Chris Sale displayed Thursday night -- including two walks in the second inning -- was remedied by a brief conversation with catcher Tyler Flowers.

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Chicago White Sox announcer Ken "Hawk" Harrelson may have started a new ad campaign for the team when he offered "the will to win" -- TWTW -- as an alternative to sabermetrics.

Harrelson engaged in an animated live TV discussion with MLB network host Brian Kenny on Thursday. The argument was over the use of sabermetrics and the intrinsic value of stats as the final determination for evaluating players.

Harrelson became animated during the heated discussion that took place via a live hookup from U.S Cellular Field.

Some of the highlights included Harrelson quotes:

• "TWTW. The will to win. You can’t put numbers on those things."
  
  
• "The more numbers you have, the more information you put in the game, the more instincts you take out of the game."
  
  
• "How are you going to accumulate a team W if the pitcher doesn't get his W?"
  
  
• "TWTW is going to supersede anything sabermetrics brings in."
  
  
• "Numbers are the most overrated thing in baseball."
  
  Harrelson and Kenny ended the discussion by saying they liked each other but agreed to disagree.
  
  "The good thing about sabermetrics is they have created an interest in some fans who were not baseball fans before," Harrelson told ESPNChicago.com.
  
  As far as "TWTW," Sox outfielder Alex Rios tweeted it after the interview, and the Sox made up T-shirts with the slogan and sold them at U.S. Cellular Field on Thursday.
  

CHICAGO -- Over the past 10 days Chicago White Sox manager Robin Ventura and Chicago Cubs skipper Dale Sveum have been questioned about changing their batting order with both clubs off to poor starts offensively.

Going into Thursday's action, Cubs and Sox hitters are hitting under .150 with runners in scoring position.

Adam Dunn, who is batting .100, has been the focal point for the Sox's early struggles. His problems seems more symptomatic of a collective breakdown.

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CHICAGO -- Here's a quick look at the Chicago White Sox's 3-2 victory over the Cleveland Indians on Wednesday:

How it happened: The Sox grabbed a lead in the first inning off Cleveland starter Zach McAllister when Alejandro De Aza walked, stole second and scored on a Jeff Keppinger base hit. Alex Rios hit a two-run home run in the fifth inning, his sixth of the season, to give the Sox a 3-0 lead. White Sox starter Jose Quintana ran his streak of scoreless innings to 18 2/3. He shut out the Indians on two hits through five innings. But Quintana failed to retire a hitter in the sixth inning, leaving the contest after Northbrook product Jason Kipnis singled home Drew Stubbs. Michael Brantley scored the second run of the inning on Mark Reynolds' sacrifice fly. The bullpen threw four shutout innings to preserve the win for Quintana.

What it means: Quintana won his second game of the season. The White Sox had lost four straight and 10 of 13 entering play Wednesday. They are last in the American League with runners in scoring position (17-for-104, .163 batting average going into the game). Manager Robin Ventura said he would consider dropping hitters in the order or try others if the slump continues. Rios broke an 0-for-13 streak with his fifth-inning home run.

Outside the box: Eighteen of the Sox's first 20 games have been decided by three runs or fewer. They are 5-6 in one-run games.

Next: The Sox open a four-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays at 7:10 p.m. CT Thursday when Chris Sale (1-2, 4.50 ERA) opposes Jeremy Hellickson (1-1, 3.55).

CHICAGO -- Chicago White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper said starter John Danks would benefit from pitching more like Mark Buehrle as he continues his rehabilitation from shoulder surgery.

"He has to be economical, he has to pitch and change speeds," Cooper said. "Pitching is using command and changing speeds. John has a good changeup but we are going to have to tighten things up. Right now he is still climbing so it is about pitching, hitting locations, changing speeds. We have had guys that could do that at 95 mph. We had Buehrle that did it at 83 mph."

Danks is in Chicago for meetings and evaluation. The White Sox told him he needs to pitch at least once more in Arizona before he is sent out on a minor-league rehab.

Danks has had some moderate increases in velocity in recent outings. The White Sox want him throwing at 90 mph on a more consistent basis before sending him on a rehab assignment.

"John is going to have to pitch a little more like a Buehrle," Cooper said. "That would be the best example here because they all know Buehrle. You know Buehrle at one time was throwing at 88-89 (mph). The last three or four years with us he was at 82-83 but still but still found the way to do it. That is what I think (Danks) needs to do."

Cooper had Danks throw a side session on his return to Chicago and said he won't have to see Danks again before he is sent to a minor league affiliate for rehab.

"It doesn't matter what (speed) you throw, you still have to pitch," Cooper said. "When John was in his heyday throwing 95-96 (mph), he still wasn't good enough to say 'Here is my fastball, I am going to blow it by you.' He was pitching but I think he needs a little bit more pitch-ability in case his stuff doesn't come back to the way it was."

Bruce Levine enters the baseball chat room at 12 CT to talk Cubs and White Sox.

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CHICAGO -- The Chicago White Sox strengths going into the season were said to be their pitching staff from 1-12 and a defense that made the fewest errors in baseball in 2012.

The pitching part of that equation had mostly held true until the bullpen misfired over the weekend during back-to-back losses to Minnesota, and redemption did not come on Monday evening.

Setup man Matt Thornton was unable to preserve a one-run lead for starter Dylan Axelrod, who left after six solid innings of work having allowed one run. The veteran lefty Thornton gave up two runs in the eighth, making a costly throwing error on a pickoff throw that sailed into the outfield to set up the tying and go-ahead runs. Cleveland shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera drove in both runs with a base hit after the damaging error.

“If you have been winning games that doesn’t hurt as much,” Thornton said. “When you have a string of losses going and you make a mistake that costs you a game it is frustrating.”

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CHICAGO -- Mired in a horrendous slump of his own, Adam Dunn did not hold back when asked about his team’s poor record.

“We can’t play any worse than we are now,” Dunn said before the Chicago White Sox's Monday matchup against the Cleveland Indians. “Obviously we are getting good pitching. Other than that -- terrible.”

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Chicago White Sox starter Gavin Floyd remains winless after Sunday’s 5-3 loss to the Minnesota Twins, despite pitching well enough to win.

Floyd was removed after the Sox scored the go-ahead run in the bottom of the sixth inning, but reliever Matt Lindstrom surrendered the tying run to Minnesota in the seventh, leaving Floyd with a no-decision.

The start was Floyd’s best of the young season, as he allowed one run on four hits.

“The one thing he did well today was command his fastball from the beginning of the game,” catcher Tyler Flowers said about his battery mate. “We were able to get ahead of a lot of guys and go to the off-speed stuff against their left-handed hitters.”

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CHICAGO -- Chicago White Sox starting pitcher John Danks returned to the team from extended spring training and will be evaluated over the next week.

Danks, who had shoulder surgery in August 2012, has been pitching against minor league players at the White Sox spring training complex in Glendale, Ariz. since the team broke camp on March 28. In his latest outing on Saturday, Danks pitched six innings with his fastball consistently maintaining velocity levels of 88 mph.

“I am better than I was the last time I was here (two weeks ago),” Danks said on Sunday. “I am seeing improvements each time out. I am ready to get out of Arizona.”

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