The Chicago White Sox have for the last decade been just good enough to look like more of a contender than they really are, one built around right-handed power hitters and little else. So when General Manager Ken Williams announced and then executed a plan to remake his team around pitching, speed, and defense this winter, I was hardly the only one chortling into my sleeve.

There were two problems with this latest in a long list of zany White Sox schemes. The first was that the Sox play their home games in a park as friendly to the power game as any in the majors – from 2002 to 2004, Sox Park increased home runs by 31% as compared with an average park, a figure comparable to Coors Field. While it’s possible for teams to go overboard in tailoring their personnel to their home park, speed and pitching generally don’t play in extreme home-run parks.

The second problem was execution. The Sox wisely let go of injured free agent Magglio Ordonez, but foolishly traded slugger Carlos Lee for a reliever and Scott Podsednik, an outfielder whose 70 steals in 2004 hardly made up for a .313 on-base average. Among other moves, they added Orlando Hernandez to their already-large collection of fly ball pitchers, and looked to improve their pitching by adding A.J. Pierzynski. The former Giants catcher is famed for allegedly playing video games rather than go over hitters in team meetings, inspiring his former teammate Brett Tomko to label him a “cancer.”

Added up, this team looked likely to face various locker-room issues (the foibles of manager Ozzie Guillen and outfielder Carl Everett are well-known), while giving up a lot of runs and struggling to put men on base, especially with Frank Thomas out until May with an injury.

As predicted, the Sox haven’t been doing a very good job of getting on base; after yesterday’s win over the Kansas City Royals, the team on-base average is a miserable .300, the worst in the league. But this hasn’t really mattered. The Sox have won seven straight games, and their 15-4 record is by far the best in the majors. And they’ve done it with, er, pitching and defense.

To be clear, there is more than a bit of luck involved in the hot start. The Sox are now 9-1 in one-run games, and while much of that can be attributed to a quality bullpen, timely hitting, and so forth, much of it is just luck – a ball falling in here and not falling in there, an umpire’s blown call, an opponent’s home run pushed foul by the winds of Lake Michigan.

But luck only happens to teams that are prepared for it, and the Sox are more than prepared. The single biggest factor in their start has been their defense, which has been exceptional, converting 73% of balls in play into outs, by far the best in the league. (The Yankees are the worst, at 63% – and not coincidentally have allowed nearly twice as many runs as the Sox this season.)

That figure will probably come down, but this is an exceptional defensive team, particularly in the outfield, where Podsednik, center fielder Aaron Rowand, and right fielder Jermaine Dye form one of the better trios of fly chasers around. In particular, I’ve been impressed by how shallow they play – it allows them to rob the other team of flares and bloopers, and Rowand and Podesdnik have the speed to catch up to balls hit over their heads. In addition, Guillen claims that shortstop Juan Uribe is among the best he’s ever seen, and while that’s mostly hot air, Uribe does anchor a solid middle-infield defense.

Of course, even the best defense isn’t going to turn a sandlot team into the 1997 Atlanta Braves, and the Sox do have some arms. Ace Mark Buehrle, 26, is among the most underappreciated pitchers in baseball. He’s thrown just 14 fewer innings than Mark Mulder in his career, despite having spent a full season less as a starter, and his career ERA of 3.72 is less than Mulder’s 3.90 – all the more impressive considering Buerhle has been pitching in such a hitter-friendly park during his career.

Freddy Garcia is another durable starter – he’s thrown 200+ innings in five of his six seasons – who can take advantage of a good defense. Since being traded to the White Sox last summer, his groundball-to-flyball rate has gone from 1.0 to 1.4, showing he’s rediscovered his sinker and might be a better fit for a home-run park than he’s been given credit for. And Jon Garland, a 25-year-old who’s thrown 600 innings over the last three years, looks like he may finally have figured out that just throwing his heavy sinker, rather than messing about with inferior pitches, is a good idea-in his three starts, he’s giving up two groundballs for every flyball.

The back end of the rotation isn’t bad, either. While former Yankee Jose Contreras is still a mental mess, throwing wild pitches and balking at every chance, he’s done a better job in Chicago than he did in the Bronx. And as usual, the main questions surrounding Hernandez have to do with how much he’ll pitch, rather than how well.

These five are backed by a fine bullpen that sports three closer-quality pitchers – Shingo Takatsu, Damaso Marte, and Dustin Hermanson, all of whom have recorded saves – and is managed deftly by Guillen, who plays matchups far less than most managers and is more inclined simply to get his best pitchers more innings, generally using his relievers for at least an inning at a time. They’ll also soon have a healthy Thomas to help get them some runs, and if the Sox have proved anything over the last few years, it’s that they’re willing to make some in-season trades. I’d be stunned if a big bat didn’t arrive on the south side this summer, and similarly stunned if a struggling or injured starter isn’t quickly replaced.

This certainly isn’t a great team; despite their off-season makeover, they still rely heavily on right-handed power hitters such as Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye, and there’s plenty of time for their bad on-base average to catch up with them. There’s also plenty of time for Garland and Contreras to revert to their usual mediocrity, and Guillen remains a lunatic. (“He’s a piece of [bleep],” Guillen was quoted as saying of the departed Ordonez last week. “He’s another Venezuelan [bleep]. [Bleep] him. He better shut the [bleep] up.”)

Still, in a division where there are no dominant teams, the Sox are rapidly reaching the point where just playing .500 ball for the rest of the season will put them in the playoffs. If they actually start hitting, who knows? Maybe the least glamorous curse in baseball, the one involving players throwing World Series games and generations of legendarily stingy owners griping about how Chicago is a small market, will come to an end.