Saturday, April 8, 2023

Adjust This

Another game, another blowout, another round of gibber. Sorry, but this gets old, fast. Yesterday in Pittsburgh, the White Sox staked Lucas Giolito to a 5-2 lead in the third inning. Giolito gave back one run in the bottom of the frame and then let the roof collapse in the fourth, allowing four more runs to score. The Sox tied the game at seven thanks to Luis Robert Jr.’s second two-run homer of the day (and the Pirates’ misguided faith in the ability of forty-three year old Rich Hill to get people out), only for Grifol to call on Jake Diekman. How do you say “four runs in one-third of an inning”? Oh, I just did. The game was not as close as the 13-9 final score might suggest. In their postgame comments, Giolito and Grifol both said how it’s early and things can change by making adjustments. Alright, then answer me this—why didn’t Giolito make those adjustments in-game? Why wait for your next start to make things right? Alas, the answer is Giolito really doesn’t know what adjustments to make. He was big, now he’s lean. He’s done all sorts of offseason training and tweaked his mechanics. Still, at the end of the day, he’s got a 9.00 ERA. Yeah, it’s early. Maybe he’ll crack 10.00 in his next start. At least GM Rich Hahn bowed to reality and DFA’d reliever Jose Ruiz. That’s a start. Now, what about Diekman? A lefty out of the pen who doesn’t get lefties out is Jose Ruiz by another name. Calling Garrett Crochet. How bad is Sox pitching? Well, the Royals pretty much stink right now, and played in the Giants’ home opener yesterday. You know, the Giants, the mashers, the second coming of Mays, McCovey and Cepeda. Well, Brad Keller and three relievers limited the mashers to one run on five hits. Maybe we could make a deal with KC for some of its relievers. Just don’t trade Jake Burger. He has two doubles and a homer in six at-bats spelling Eloy Jimenez at DH. And Oscar Colas hit his first homer yesterday. And Tim Anderson collected four hits. And Robert had those two homers. But nobody outside of Dylan Cease can get people out.

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