After a disheartening 2022 campaign that saw a talented White Sox team finish .500, newly hired manager Pedro Grifol had a message for fans.
“We are going to earn your trust, with our play on the field, with our work ethic, and our preparation.”
Flash forward 22 games into the season, and the White Sox would love to be at .500 as they struggle to maintain credibility as a so-called “contender.”
Forget about earning trust. There is not one thing about this team you can trust. The starting pitching has been inconsistent, the bullpen is unreliable, the offense comes and goes in spurts, the defense still has players playing out of position, and injuries have ravaged the starting lineup once again. It’s the same old White Sox.
Squandering Opportunites Against Red-Hot Rays
On Sunday, the White Sox wrapped up a three-game test against the hottest team in baseball and failed miserably. The Rays entered the series with the MLB’s best record and a perfect 10-0 record at home.
It was an excellent opportunity for the White Sox to pick up their first series victory and start to build some momentum and confidence. They had their chances but couldn’t cash in.
On Friday, Reynaldo Lopez blew a two-run lead in the ninth inning by serving up a pair of homers, and the White Sox fell on a walk-off. On Saturday, they battled back with a Gavin Sheetd pinch-hit home run to send the game into extra innings. They failed to move the runner over, let alone score in the 10th, and again fell on a walk-off hit.
Sunday was a completely different story. The White Sox didn’t even put themselves in a position for heartbreak after digging themselves into a 4-0 hole they couldn’t climb out of. To Lucas Giolito’s credit, he battled for seven innings after giving up four early runs.
He threw 102 pitches and struck out five, giving the bullpen some much-needed rest. But the two-run homer he served up to Luke Raley in the second inning turned out to be the difference for a stagnant White Sox offense.
“Hung a changeup, one of the worst changeups I’ve thrown in a long time,” Giolito said. “Tried to go up with a heater, cut it across the plate for another homer. I got stronger as the game went on. Felt like I was throwing some of my best pitches in the last couple of innings. Just got to work on getting that good rhythm early.”
The Rays retired the final 17 White Sox hitters in order to improve to 13-0 at home. The White Sox fell to 7-15 as their losing streak stretched to four. Pedro Grifol’s squad is 2-9 in its last 11 games and has yet to win a series.
Still, Grifol remains confident that his group has some fight left in them the rest of the way.
“We’ve met, talked to them individually, and they come talk to me,” Grifol said. “There’s a lot of care in there; there’s a lot of fight in there. They’ve been through this before.
“I don’t like using the term ‘it’s early,’ but you know, it is what it is. We’ve just got to keep fighting. It’s going to turn around. We’ve just got to fight.”
Running Out Of Excuses
As Grifol alluded to, it is still early, but these games count the same as the ones in September. If last year’s team taught us anything, it’s that you can’t keep waiting for the White Sox to flip a switch that’s not there.
The White Sox have not come close to matching the championship-caliber level of play that was promised by the organization, and they are running out of excuses.
Sure, the April schedule has been difficult, but it is only going to get tougher with three games in Toronto, four more against the Tampa Bay Rays, and then three against the Minnesota Twins, who sit atop the AL Central Division standings.
Yes, they are missing Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada, who provide a big boost to the offense. They are also missing Liam Hendriks as he comes closer to completing his inspirational comeback after battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and now being cancer free. Garrett Crochet and Joe Kelly are absent from the bullpen as well. But overcoming injuries is just part of life on the White Sox. It is to be expected at this point.
It doesn’t matter what excuse you want to use the numbers don’t lie. The White Sox are not a good team. This is the worst start to a season since a 6-16 start to the 2018 campaign. The 2018 season was the peak rebuild with a lineup that featured the likes of Tyler Saladino, Yolmer Sanchez, Ryan Cordell, and Nicky Delmonico. No disrespect to any of those players, but that’s not exactly a lineup built to win 90-plus games.
Remaining Optimistic
The current lineup features the highest-paid player in franchise history and all the prospects that were supposed to carry the South Siders to the promised land.
“We definitely have not played our best,” Andrew Benintendi told reporters after being swept. “We haven’t clicked as a team yet, as far as hitting and pitching at the same time.
“You know, there’s a lot of games we have kept ourselves in and had a chance to win. That’s only going to benefit us moving forward. A lot of seasons left, but we definitely need to start making a move here.”
Benintendi is one of the new faces in the clubhouse, but you could easily insert that last part of the quote in front of someone on the 2022 squad, and it would fit a common theme as players and fans alike waited for a run that never came.
The White Sox still have 140 games to go on a run and earn that respect that Pedro Grifol talked about before the season and are choosing to remain optimistic.
“Every team has a slump. We have it right now,” Eloy Jiménez said after Sunday’s loss. “It doesn’t mean we are not going to get good and continue to win. All these games are in the past, so tomorrow, we just need to come out and do what we know to do, what we have to do.”
