GLENDALE, Ariz. -- The Chicago White Sox are not going to slow play their new speed attack, going into attack mode Wednesday in their first Cactus League game of the spring.

Four runs in the first three innings led to a 6-4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In those early three innings, Alexei Ramirez had a stolen base, Adam Eaton went first to third on a single and even Jose Abreu got into the act when he scored from first base on a double by Adam LaRoche. In Tuesday’s intrasquad game, Micah Johnson stole three bases and Conor Gillaspie legged out two triples.

It hasn’t exactly been St. Louis Cardinals circa 1985, but with Vince Coleman now on hand as the club’s new roving base-running coach, there was an aggressive flavor about the way they played.

“It’s not necessarily home runs,” manager Robin Ventura said. “Home runs are great, we do like those, but you’re seeing guys moving around the field, running around the bases, and it looks good. It feels good, too.”

There is plenty of improvement for the team to make on the bases. Not only was overall base running an issue last year, but the club was 19th in baseball in both stolen bases (85) and stolen-base percentage (70.25).

Based on how aggressive they figure to be this season, the total number of steals is certain to increase. If that steals percentage goes up, as well, all the better.

“We’ll be better than last year,” Ventura said. “How much so, I don’t know necessarily, but we feel the speed we have, the versatility we have, we will be better than we were last year.”

Coleman hasn’t been shy about preaching an aggressive style. He says it’s smarts and not necessarily speed that makes a great base runner.

“It's a mental approach,” Coleman said. “If you want to be great, it's not a destination that can be reached, it's a process, day to day. How good you want to be is a matter of how early you come to the ballpark and put in the work and minimize your negatives and maximize your positives. If you want to be one of those great athletes, you got to have a great work ethic.”

Call it a somewhat dramatic approach, but it has inspired guys like Eaton and Johnson to put in the work. Now they get the chance to test what they have learned in games.

“Moving runners over, double steals, going on balls in the dirt, scoring from second base, those are the things that you try to focus on,” Coleman said. “It’s not just hitting home runs. I played on a (Cardinals) team that only had one power hitter, and that was Jack Clark. And so the rest of us had to check our egos in at the door and know that we had to pitch well, play good defense and run the bases well. We did that consistently.”