Peter Gammons and the rest of baseball prognosticators just did a collective double-take at the events transpiring on the South Side of Chicago.

Before fans could blink, the White Sox reeled off wins in 16 of their first 20 games and currently sit five games ahead of their nearest competition in the American League Central.

Who would have thought?

Certainly not experts who believed the Twins and young upstarts like the Tigers and Indians would play keep away with the division championship.

But those question marks preventing first-place predictions, like how would a team built on power playing in a big-league park with little-league dimensions adjust to a “small-ball” style, have been emphatically denounced by outstanding early season performances in other areas of the game.

The White Sox starting pitching, led by Mark Buehrle (3-1), has posted a league-best 2.64 earned run average.

But the biggest surprise, aside from Orlando Hernandez making it through four starts without getting hurt, has been Jon Garland.

Garland, a first-round draft pick by the Cubs, has never lived up to his potential, but this season has given us a glimpse of what he is capable of, winning all four of his starts.

On the base paths, off-season acquisitions Scott Podsednik, Tadahito Iguchi and Pablo Ozuna along with mainstays Aaron Rowand and Willie Harris have pressured opponents into mistakes and have the Sox on pace for 145 stolen bases.

And fielding, a source of games lost in the past, has been a dead issue as the Sox have made the plays when they’ve had to.

The power numbers may be down, but timely situational hitting is back in vogue on the South Side.

Even Joe Crede, who like Garland has only shown flashes of brilliance in past years, found his stroke and currently leads the team in hitting.

What could go wrong … oh God. Who let Ozzie open his mouth?

Manager Ozzie Guillen, in successive weeks, called out injured slugger Frank Thomas and laid into former outfielder Magglio Ordonez in a expletive-rich outburst not seen since Bobby Knight’s glory days.

Outsiders may not look fondly upon Guillen’s bluntness, but his tirades thus far are a good sign because he’s not berating anyone who’s actually playing the game.

His squad has given him nothing to complain about with the exception of a one-inning stint versus Cleveland, where Shingo Takatsu thought he was the batting practice pitcher for Home Run Derby.

Despite his crassness and his inability to grasp any semblance of proper English grammar, Guillen knows what he’s doing.

He was a part of the 1993 AL West Champions and the 1994 team that, if it weren’t for the strike, would have challenged for the World Series.

What did those teams rely on?

Pitching, speed, defense, comraderie and intensity.

Sure they had guys like Frank Thomas and Robin Ventura who could knock the ball out of the yard, but it was the aforementioned components that kept them ahead of the competition.

In 1993, the Pale Hose were seventh in runs scored, but first in runs allowed.

The following year, much of the same, as they were fourth in runs scored and first in runs allowed.

Scoring the most wasn’t winning them the games.

The teams got along, had a swagger about them (as evidenced by nicknames like “Officer” Ron Karkovice, One Dog, Rock, Black Jack, Big Hurt), and went out and beat up on anyone not playing in Canada.

That’s the path on which this team is headed.

There’s a lot of season left to go, but it’s clear general manager Kenny Williams and Guillen knew what they were talking about when they said this team needed a change.

Not only a change in style, but a change back to a time when baseball on the South Side meant something.

Fourth place, Peter? You still sticking by that?

Because right now, the White Sox matter again.