Despite making two headline-grabbing trades for Orlando Cabrera and Nick Swisher, the biggest move White Sox General Manager Kenny Williams made in the offseason happened with little fanfare.

On December 3, 2007, Williams traded single-A first baseman Chris Carter to the Arizona Diamondbacks for a 25-year-old former first-round draft pick who was just coming off October surgery to repair his rotator cuff and labrum in his non-throwing shoulder.

That player was Carlos Quentin.

Quentin's status for Opening Day was very much up in the air all the way up until about midway through spring training, when Quentin started to hit the ball well. With Jerry Owens, who was penciled in as the starting left fielder for the White Sox, groin acting up, Quentin was named to the 25-man major league roster, but started the season on the bench.

For the first two games of the year, the White Sox trotted Nick Swisher out to left field and Alexei Ramirez to center. In the third game, Quentin got the start, and what happened in the following two months won't soon be forgotten.

Quentin hit his first of 19 first-half home runs in the next game at Detroit, a number that nobody in their right mind would have anticipated. He singlehandedly won the White Sox games, with the most memorable being a May 25 game against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

It was a Sunday night ESPN game, and the nation's eyes were opened to Quentin. Quentin hit two home runs and accounted for all the White Sox' RBI that night off Angels' starter John Lackey, including a walk-off solo shot to give the White Sox a 3-2 victory.

Quentin came up with big hit after big hit in those first two months of the season, proving that his shoulder was healthy. This was the Quentin the Diamondbacks knew they were drafting out of Stanford in 2003. This was the All-Star worthy Quentin.

However, a sore hand slowed Quentin in June, and he only hit three home runs the entire month. His batting average dipped to below .270 before leveling out in the .280s.

As Quentin carried the White Sox through April and May, he wasn't in June.

And he didn't have to, thanks to offensive resurgences by more than a few players.

Orlando Cabrera started hitting the ball hard as the team's leadoff hitter. Jermaine Dye started playing like he did in 2006, when he hit 44 home runs and picked up 117 RBI. Nick Swisher's early-season slump was no more, as he started driving the ball for power and raising his batting average. Joe Crede got hot for a two-week period that saw him rocket past Alex Rodriguez in terms of third base production in the American League. Alexei Ramirez began to play like he had in Cuba. And even Paul Konerko and Jim Thome started to slowly see their batting averages rise.

Even the bench players on the White Sox were coming through, from Brian Anderson to Toby Hall to Dewayne Wise.

The White Sox scored 164 runs in the month of June, in which they went 17-10. They raised their team batting average from the depths of the AL to the middle of the pack. They hit home runs with great proficiency, and most of all, the early-season struggles this team dealt with seemed to be a thing of the past.

Yes, this offense has been inconsistent, as seen by the series at Detroit, against Colorado, and at the Cubs, in which they lost eight out of nine games and struggled to score.

The offense is nowhere near perfect. They're streaky.

When they're bad, they're bad. When they're good, you're going to struggle to get them out.

The only really consistent player on this team has been AJ Pierzynski, who has been hitting at or around .300 for most of 2008. All the other hitters on this team have gone on massive streaks and then cooled off a bit.

But there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that, so long as the offense still gives the team a chance to win games.

Pre-season grade: B

First-half grade: B