CHICAGO -- Tommy Pham has been with the White Sox since April 26, so he can’t answer any questions about what has changed for this group since its 3-22 start to the season.

Their 2-0 whitewash of the Nationals Wednesday afternoon at Guaranteed Rate Field raised the White Sox record to 14-30 overall and 11-8 in those 19 since Pham joined the roster. But even with that success, the veteran outfielder certainly isn’t ready to celebrate any sort of turnaround.

“Pitching has been pretty good. Offensively there are a lot of things we have to do to get better,” Pham said when asked what he’s liked about the team over the last 19. “We've got a tough schedule coming up, so it’s going to take a lot of good baseball played by us to beat some of these teams.”

The White Sox finished their first winning homestand of the 2024 season at 5-2 by taking three of four from the American League Central-leading Guardians, and then shutting out the Nationals in the last two. It marked their first back-to-back shutouts since July 9-10, 2015.

Garrett Crochet (4-4) won a third straight start even without his best stuff, as Crochet threw five scoreless innings, striking out six and walking three against three hits allowed, while throwing 56 of his 89 pitches for strikes. Over his last four starts, Crochet has allowed three earned runs over 22 innings with 30 strikeouts.

His high pitch count through three innings prevented the southpaw from working deep. He still gave the White Sox a chance to win.

“When you can grind it out and put up zeroes, it’s a win,” Crochet said. “I’m a really big competitor. So, I feel like even without my best stuff, I would still take me 10 out of 10 times.

“To go out and put up zeroes when I don’t have my best stuff, it’s awesome. Giving up one today might have been a win the way the misfires were. But you know I wasn’t going to settle for that.

Jared Shuster hurled two scoreless innings in relief, setting up Jordan Leasure and Michael Kopech, who walked two but struck out two in picking up his fifth save. Pham’s run-scoring double in the third and Korey Lee’s two-out RBI single in the sixth was enough for the White Sox eighth win in its last 13 home games.

Lee finished 3-for-3, raising his average to .309 and his OPS to .835. The individual numbers don’t seem to matter to the young catcher, who battled through a miserable 5-for-65 showing at the end of the ‘23 campaign to reach this lofty point.

“That was last year. Now it’s 2024,” said Lee, who has a .414/.433/.655 slash line over his last eight games. “It’s great. Just trying to do good things and pass the baton in our lineup. Once we get rolling, it’s a really good lineup to keep on hitting.”

“When he stays within his approach to stay short and quick, let your strength take care of the power, but be a hitter, I think he's dangerous,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “He's becoming a guy that can do it on both sides of the ball. There's development still to happen here with him and we'll take it day by day, but he's coming along really nicely."

The same can be said for the White Sox, although a professional such as Pham isn’t settling for reaching a notch above mediocrity with the Yankees, Blue Jays, Orioles, Brewers and Cubs ahead on the schedule. As an example, Pham expounded on the changes needed to improve the team offensively.

“Too many easy outs,” Pham said. “Usually when you’re swinging at the first pitch, you want to get off your A swing. Too many first pitch rollovers. It happened to me yesterday, but when you swing at first pitch, man, you're looking to do damage, you're looking to hit balls 95-plus [mph].

“No jam shots, rollovers, stuff like that. You want to be a tough out. That's something we’re trying to improve on as a team.”

It’s easier for the White Sox to make those improvements with four series wins in their last six.