From the Locker Room: A Kansas City Special

Spirits are high when you sweep, even when you're just sweeping the Quadruple-A Kansas City Royals. So even Dylan Cease smiled a little bit postgame.

The hurler was happy with his effort, a 56 game score that ranks third so far this season for the Sox. A big key to that was his execution, of course — but for a guy who is so studious of the mental side of the game, Cease shared another observation that could have keyed a strong effort on Sunday:

"It does mean a lot when you see the older guys not get too down after a bad outing and still be confident," he says, citing his study of Lucas Giolito. "It definitely rubs off on me."

Ricky Renteria was well-pleased with his team, especially seeing that yesterday's runs were scored with slugging, today's more station-to-station (13 singles, six walks). He also shared a bit of the philosophy that carries him through last week's losing and this weekend's winning:

"You can appreciate that it’s very difficult to win on a daily basis," Renteria says. "None of us can get too high or too low. Does me no good to bury myself in negativity—and I don’t pat on the back too much when things are going well."

Yasmani Grandal has been adjusting to AL Central pitchers on the fly, without much Spring Training experience or game tape to go by. Extra sweet was his continued adherence to his strike zone, which resulted in an RBI walk in the fifth to give the White Sox a 2-1 lead.

"In the past series there have been a few calls against me," Grandal says. "They were due to go the other way. I’m not going to start swinging out the zone because I’ve gotten some bad calls. He’s either going to give in to me with a strike, or I’ll take my walk."

And above, there's delightful video of Nick Madrigal getting to enjoy the first four hits of his career today. And he almost had a fifth!

"I thought that [fifth] one was through," Madrigal grins. "I'm curious to see a replay. I was shocked he made that play. At the end, I kind of laughed about it."

All the videos From the Locker Room are courtesy of the fab people at the Chicago White Sox.