Déjà vu All Over Again

After losing 7-0 last night in Toronto, the White Sox are saddled with a well-deserved 7-17 record. Is that worse than the 0-10 start they got off to in 1968? You be the judge. But things are so bad right now that Ken Williams felt compelled to crawl out from under his rock and issue this warning in today’s Sun-Times: If the losing continues, “then changes have to be made , it’s as simple as that.” Williams also said, “Accountability around here is not a problem.” Excuse me, but, Yes, it’s probably the biggest problem facing the organization, next to Jerry Reinsdorf’s delusional sense of self. Accountability? David Wells; Carl Everett; Roberto Alomar; Javier Vazquez; John Danks; Gavin Floyd; Orlando Cabrera; Nick Swisher; Mark Teahen; and—wait for it—Adam Dunn are all names that suggest Williams as GM was never held accountable. But he won a World Series. Well, so have the Miami Marlins, twice. Consider that Dave Dombrowski, who started off learning front-office ways under Sox GM Roland Hemond, has taken four teams—Marlins, Tigers, Red Sox and Phillies—to five World Series, winning twice. Dombrowski was fired less than a year after his Red Sox won the Series in 2018. Ask him about accountability. If I’m Rick Hahn, I’d thank my lucky stars for being held to a lower standard than Dombrowski. Mike Clevinger, his idea of a fourth or fifth starter,, hasn’t gotten out of the fifth inning in his last two starts and has made it through six innings just once in five starts, which goes a long way in explaining his 4.81 ERA. So does giving up a three-run home run to Danny Jansen, who came into the game batting a mere .150. And Pedro Grifol, the sock-knocking manager Hahn, Williams and Reinsdorf fell in love with, keeps making head-scratching moves, like putting Luis Robert Jr. at the top of the order. Robert responded to this show of faith by going 0-for-4 with another two strikeouts. Robert’s now batting .216 on the season. But, hey, it could be worse. I mean, it is worse. Lenyn Sosa and Romy Gonzalez are in the lineup today, Sosa batting .132 and Gonzalez .103, with eleven strikeouts in twenty-nine at-bats. Eloy Jimenez is raking at a .183 clip, in case you were wondering. Accountable? That’s not the word I’m looking for.