Everyone loves a team meeting story. Especially when it coincides with a winning streak.

Before Wednesday’s game, fresh off two riveting come-from-behind wins over the first-place Houston Astros, Liam Hendriks revealed in an ESPN 1000 interview that the veterans had a little team meeting over the weekend to hash things out before this series.

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Needless to say, this was a hot topic of conversation in the clubhouse with Hendriks. Reporters love a team meeting story most of all.

“Just making sure we’re all on the right page, making sure we’re all kind of united and making sure that, if there was anything we needed to air,” Hendriks said. “It was a safe space. But the message of the entire thing was positivity. Make sure you’re a united front on positivity and make sure we breed kind of that because these 8-10 guys that are in here right now, let it seep into every single person. So if I’m positive, two people next to me will become … it seeps in. It seems to have worked out all right over the last little bit. Hopefully, we can keep it going.”

That meeting was before Friday’s series opener with the Tigers, and lo and behold, the Sox won five straight before dropping a taut 3-2 game to Houston on Wednesday to fall two games back of Cleveland in the AL Central. Not only have the Sox been winning, but they’re showing “da fire and da passion,” as we say around these parts. We love that stuff as much as team meetings.

So about that meeting. Hendriks said there were about 10 players there, while admitting “my math’s not great.” We spent a little too much time in the pressbox speculating on the other participants (Southpaw? Chuck Garfien? Dallas Keuchel via Zoom?), but we know for sure that José Abreu was vocal in the meeting.

And his message confirmed that what many reporters and fans have noticed about this team during the dog days of, uh, spring and summer, isn’t wrong.

“One thing that was stated by Abreu was how our confidence turned into cockiness,” Hendriks said, noting that there was a “complacency level” with the team.

“We just expected to come in and roll over like we did last year,” he said. “That hasn’t been the case. That was not necessarily due to other teams blowing us out of the water or anything like that. It’s been to our own detriment of us thinking we can go out there and roll over teams and be expected to win.”

José Abreu (center) was one of the White Sox team leaders who spoke up at a recent meeting. (Matt Marton / USA Today)

Manager Tony La Russa was at the meeting as well. In fact, it was his idea. No word on whether a loud fan suggested it first.

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“There were a couple of tweaks to how we prepare that were helpful,” La Russa said of his impressions. “But there wasn’t anything that we haven’t stressed and the team hasn’t represented. Agree or disagree, it’s really not important, but we didn’t get to the point where we stayed alive without having something special in that clubhouse. We had ups and downs, we had tough losses, and we’d come out the next day and play. So that part, which is important, the head, heart and guts of this club, has always been there. And now it’s a reason for us to get excited.”

While it was La Russa who called the meeting, it was Johnny Cueto who publicly called out the team for a lack of fire as they were losing three of four to the Kansas City Royals a week ago.

La Russa, who wasn’t thrilled Cueto brought his opinion to the media, said the pitcher’s words weren’t what spurred the meeting.

“I had talked to a couple of the guys several days before,” La Russa said. “The first chance we had, we were going to do it. And I talked to Johnny about it.”

Sure, sure. What’s next, La Russa thought about inserting Adam Engel as a pinch-runner before a fan suggested it? In any case, the Sox have been playing with a little more vim and a lot more vigor lately. Does winning beget good vibes or vice versa? To me, it’s always a symbiotic thing.

But to be clear, the Sox players heard Cueto loud and clear.

“Johnny’s a legend,” Dylan Cease told me. “I think anytime we can make Johnny happy, it’s a good thing.”

“I mean, several people have said similar items, but it holds a lot more weight when it comes from a guy that’s been not only in the big leagues for 14 years but also has a ring, has some success,” Hendriks said.

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Joe Girardi has rebounded well since being fired as the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. Just ask his daughter Lena, a budding AAU basketball player.

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“She thinks it’s fantastic,” Girardi said in a phone conversation. “She thinks I’m a really good passer.”

As the Phillies morphed into a playoff-caliber team without him, Girardi passed his days as his daughter’s designated rebounder. Not a bad second career.

Lena is a rising sophomore at Westminster Academy in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., with a number of Division I basketball offers, but she signed up to play 15U AAU basketball for a team out of Philadelphia. So when Girardi was fired on June 3 after a 22-29 start, he couldn’t just leave the area to return to Florida.

“I wasn’t able to move on for a while,” he said, “but that’s the way it goes.”

He said he enjoyed traveling around with his daughter’s team and he also visited his son Dante, who played for the Burlington Sock Puppets in the Appalachian League, which is now a college prospect league in North Carolina. Dante plays for Florida International and hit .302 in 24 games in the summer league.

“It’s not the way you want it to end,” he said of his Phillies tenure. “But when something doesn’t go right, you make the best of it. You take advantage of situations.”

With his daughter back in high school, he’s got some time to fill, so why not return to the broadcast booth?

On Wednesday, it was announced that Girardi, the Peoria native who grew up wanting to play for the Cubs, will join Boog Sciambi and Jim Deshaies this weekend on Marquee Sports Network for a home series against the Brewers and then do a series in Miami (where Girardi lives with his family) next month.

Joe Girardi has a lot of experience broadcasting, including a stint at the MLB Network. (Courtesy of MLB Network)

How did this come about?

Girardi said it happened quickly. Cubs president of business operations Crane Kenney called him after the trade deadline and Girardi touched base with Mike Santini, the senior vice-president of programming and production at Marquee. They wanted him to do one series at Wrigley Field and he suggested the Sept. 19-21 games in Miami, given that he lives there and all.

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In between playing and managing gigs, Girardi has worked as a broadcaster/analyst for the YES Network, Fox Sports and MLB Network, where he’s gotten rave reviews. Could he move full-time to the booth? Or does he want to return to managing?

“I do want to manage again,” he said. “We’ll see if I get an opportunity if it comes about. If not, I mean, I was fortunate I got to manage what, 14 years? I feel really blessed with that. If I broadcast for the rest of my life, that’s what happens. I like broadcasting too.”

The Phillies were Girardi’s third team in his managing career, most of which was spent with the Yankees, where he skippered his former team to their most recent World Series title in 2009.

Girardi was fired by the Phillies after 51 games this season. (Rob Tringali / MLB Photos via Getty Images)

It hasn’t exactly been lost in Philadelphia, and around baseball, that the Phillies have thrived since he was replaced by his friend, bench coach Rob Thomson. The Phillies are 43-23 since Girardi was fired and are in the second wild-card spot in the NL, despite losing Bryce Harper to an injury. Did Girardi, who said he’s been keeping up with baseball during his free time, think they had this kind of run in them?

“I did,” he said. “I knew we were a good team. I knew that the starting pitching was going to be good. The bullpen would eventually figure its way out. We had some guys that struggled a little bit early on. We had some hitters, it took a while to get going, but we had a short spring training.

“I knew there was a lot of talent in there and we went through a pretty tough schedule in the beginning. You know, we played some of the top-notch teams a lot in the beginning and I knew it was just a matter of time until the team took off. I really felt that the team had a really good chance to make some noise. But you know, it’s part of the business and you just gotta move on.”

Girardi is known as an exacting manager and the effectiveness of his grinding ways has been debated in baseball circles. But he’s also won 1,120 games. So did he do any self-assessment after his 273-game Philadelphia tenure ended?

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“I think you always do that,” he said. “Try to grow as a person whenever you have an opportunity. I think you learn the most when you go through tough situations. And you try to learn from it and grow from it.”

As a Cubs fan growing up in Peoria, he watched and listened in the pre-Harry Caray days, taking in the rhetorical splendor of Jack Brickhouse, Milo Hamilton and Lou Boudreau. He remembers days driving around with his father Jerry, a traveling salesman among other jobs, and listening to the Cubs on the radio. Jerry Girardi died in 2012, and his son knows his dad would’ve loved that he’s calling Cubs games this year.

“That’s why this is so neat for me,” Girardi said, “because it brings back so many fond memories of my experiences with my dad.”

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A note I heard on the broadcast the other night caught my ear: Dylan Cease leads all starters in walks.

People don’t bring that stat up when they tout him for the AL Cy Young, but it’s true. After three walks in his ballyhooed Cy Young vs. Cy Old start against Justin Verlander on Tuesday night, Cease now has 58 in 133 2/3 innings for the season. That’s seven more than Seattle’s Robbie Ray (and five more than Cease’s teammate Michael Kopech, who doesn’t have enough innings to qualify). His walks per nine innings is 3.91, which is slightly higher than last year’s 3.69, but both are lower than his first two seasons. Cease is also first in walk rate at 10.5 percent among the 59 qualified starting pitchers.

“I mean, it’s a known thing that walks aren’t good,” he said. “I guess it’s just one of those things where I’m just trying to focus on executing pitches. And hopefully, it’s one of those things that kind of takes care of itself as I get better and get more experience. But yeah, I’m definitely never satisfied with walking guys.”

He doesn’t have much of a reason to worry this season. While his run of 14 starts with one or fewer earned runs ended Tuesday (he gave up three runs), Cease has a 2.09 ERA and is third in baseball with 178 strikeouts. His electric slider has a way of easing the pain of a free pass.

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“It’s frustrating in the moment, but it’s not something that derails me,” he told me in the clubhouse Wednesday. “I think there’s a lot of different factors. Sometimes there’s the four-pitch uncompetitive walk, sometimes you got good stuff and they foul it off and foul it off and it’s a battle and they end up walking. So I don’t feel like wildness is an issue that can keep me from winning.”

Dylan Cease has been the Sox’s best pitcher, but will walks come back to bite him if they make the playoffs again? (Matt Marton / USA Today)

Cease had one really bad game in this regard, walking seven in 4 2/3 innings in a 3-2 win over the Rays on June 4. The only other time he walked more than three in a game was when he issued four in seven innings in a 5-4 win over the Cubs on May 29.

I was curious to see how many of his 58 walks wound up scoring. The answer, including one on Tuesday, was 12, though only eight of those runs were earned. But 12 runs on 58 walks is 21 percent, so the walks have come back to bite him. But his left on-base percentage is 82 percent overall. And the Sox are 18-6 in his starts (he’s 12-5), so this is just quibbling. Until the playoffs, that is.

Last year, Cease started the only Sox victory over the Astros in the ALDS, but he lasted just 1 2/3 innings. All three of his walks came in the Astros’ three-run second inning and the first two led off the inning. Both of those runners scored on a Kyle Tucker double. The Sox won 12-6, so it didn’t matter, but in a closer playoff game, it might have.

Cease is a better pitcher than last year, and if the Sox make it back to the postseason, he’s going to be the No. 1 starter. In those kinds of games, a walk or two could be the difference.

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I got to The Rate a little early and walked over to 35th Street Red Hots, a classic-looking Chicago burger-and-hot dog stand. I can’t remember the last time I ate here, but it had been more than a decade for sure.

It’s an easy walk from Guaranteed Rate Field to 35th Street Red Hots. (Jon Greenberg / The Athletic)

I got the Red Hot Ranch burger with special sauce and fries — though I was tempted by the half-pound of fried shrimp — and brought it back to an empty pressbox. It was $5.87 (plus tax) well spent.

They don’t have a lot of options at 35th Street Red Hots, but they do simplicity well. (Jon Greenberg / The Athletic)

If you’re ever too early for a Sox game (for work or fun), and you’ve never walked here for a quick bite, I highly recommend it.

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I caught up with Brooks Boyer on the field Wednesday and he shared some interesting tidbits. For one, did you know that Tuesday’s postgame show on NBC Sports Chicago had a better overnight TV rating than the actual Sox game? Not only that, it did better, in terms of impressions, than every other TV program (including the local news) in Chicago on Tuesday.

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“Ozzie (Guillen) is a regional Charles Barkley,” Boyer said.

If you think the Sox’s attendance of 23,476 was light for Cease vs. Verlander, that included a walk-up crowd of about 5,200 who bought tickets between midnight and game time, Boyer said.

The Sox only drew 18,205 on Monday. Wednesday’s game drew 24,761, most of which were purchased months ago. Regardless of the numbers, the crowds have been lively all week, making for a fun ballpark atmosphere.

Speaking of attendance, the Sox drew 33,015 on Friday, partially because the DJ Kaskade played a postgame show. Boyer said they sold about 1,000 infield tickets for the concert, which took place on the field. He was most surprised by how many fans stayed in their seats for the show, estimating it was about 10,000. I was at the game Friday, but full disclosure, I left before the show, so I can’t confirm any eye-test guesstimates. But expect the Sox to continue booking postgame concerts in the future.

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Quote of the week: I asked Girardi if he heard from NBC Sports Chicago and ESPN 1000 host David Kaplan on Wednesday. Kaplan, as his fans know, has been a consistent booster of Girardi as a managerial candidate for the Cubs in the past. (They share the same agent Steve Mandell.) I would assume if La Russa leaves after this season, Kap will be beating the drum for Girardi to manage on the South Side.

“He has not called me today,” Girardi said. “But I’m sure it’s a matter of time.”

(Top photo: Matt Marton / USA Today)