The standings don’t look great for the White Sox, but they could be worse. Manager Pedro Grifol claims not to pay much attention to other American League Central teams unless they’re playing the Sox.
‘‘I don’t really look at the division that much,’’ Grifol said before the Sox beat the Astros 3-1 on Saturday to snap a three-game losing streak. ‘‘This is the team I’m concerned with. We’ve got to fix our own stuff, our own troubles. We have to improve in a lot of areas. And other teams can’t win the division for us; we have to go take it. We have to improve and win the division ourselves.
‘‘So I wouldn’t know where we are at right now. I wouldn’t know how many games we are at.’’
Despite their 14-27 record, the Sox are only 8½ games behind the first-place Twins. No, that’s obviously not what the Sox intended, but their situation could be much more dire.
On Saturday, Luis Robert Jr. hit his 10th home run in the fourth inning and drove in Yoan Moncada with the go-ahead run with a single in the eighth. Later in the eighth, Seby Zavala added to the lead with an RBI single of his own.
Right-hander Dylan Cease threw six scoreless innings after allowing a combined 17 earned runs in his previous three outings.
‘‘This was really great,’’ Cease said. ‘‘Finally some of the work going into it paid off.’’
The Astros tied the score in the seventh against relievers Reynaldo Lopez and Joe Kelly. Mauricio Dubon had a two-out infield single that bounced high and was fielded by Kelly, who had nowhere to throw when Andrew Vaughn left first base uncovered to make a play on the ball, too.
But the Sox recovered from that incident and avoided dropping 15 games below .500.
‘‘If we play like that consistently, we’re going to be pretty deadly,’’ Cease said.
Ups and downs
The Sox got good news Friday with the return of Moncada (soreness in lower back) and could see third baseman/designated hitter Jake Burger (strained left oblique) come back as early as Sunday after a brief rehab stint at Triple-A Charlotte.
‘‘I’m just happy to feel back to myself,” Burger said.
But this being the Sox, they couldn’t avoid bad news. Before the game, the Sox put second baseman Elvis Andrus (strained left oblique) on the 10-day injured list after he hurt himself during his final at-bat Friday. Andrus, who was replaced on the roster by utility player Romy Gonzalez, is hitting .201 in 39 games but represents another Sox regular to miss time this season.
‘‘Just give an opportunity to somebody else to come in and do the job,’’ Grifol said.
The Sox also had to do that behind the plate with Yasmani Grandal, who was supposed to catch Saturday but was scratched because of his hamstring. Grifol said the Sox were being safe and would reassess whether Grandal would be able to play Sunday.
