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Chicago White Sox: Defense Might Keep Them from 2010 MLB Playoffs

With the White Sox committing three errors, two of which by shortstop Alexei Ramirez, in their come from behind victory against the Indians, not even Manny Ramirez, who is not known for his defense could help the Sox in that department.

This year has been the first since 2006 that the White Sox will most likely finish in the top half of the majors in defense. This could be attributed to different things, such as Gordon Beckham's move to second base from third, the addition of Alex Rios and even the addition of Juan Pierre in left field (not normally known for his defense).

The problem with this is that the Sox have often given away games earlier in the season to costly errors and committed very few errors during their tremendous turn around which landed them in first place for a while. But costly defensive mistakes have cost their starters and relievers innings.

Their biggest competition in the division, the Minnesota Twins have cause them a lot of grief, as the Sox have committed nine of their 77 team errors against the division rival. To make things even worse for the Sox, in the last five years the team with the better record held a better fielding percentage and fewer errors (exception was 2008 with the playoff game, both teams had an equal amount of errors).

If history will repeat itself again this year, the Sox have quite a mountain to climb as the Twins have the best fielding percentage (.989) and fewest errors of any American League team (56) and tied for the best fielding percentage among all teams in the major leagues.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

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