Dunce Caps

If Pedro Grifol is teaching, Dylan Cease, Luis Robert Jr. and Tim Anderson sure aren’t paying attention. A round of dunce caps, please, after a 6-5 loss in ten innings against the Tigers. Start with Cease, who’s giving added meaning to the term “backsliding.” This is the Cease of 2019-2020, not 2021-2022. He got out of a bases-loaded jam in the second only to load the bases again in the third. Nothing says “loser” like an 0-2 pitch that goes for a grand slam. Cease went all of four innings, needing 102 pitches to get there. Not that he deserved it, but Cease had his teammates bail him out with a four-run seventh inning to take a 5-4 lead. Gavin Sheets proved himself again as a decent clutch hitter with a pinch single, and Eloy Jimenez had himself a nice dink double good for two runs; Eloy also scored the go-ahead run on a short sacrifice fly to left-center from Andrew Vaughn. The man does hustle. Which brings us to Robert, he of the rollercoaster season. Not only did he strike out three times, Robert misplayed a ninth-inning single into a one-out triple. What good are five tools if you use them only some of the time? As for Anderson, forget the three hits. For the second time in a week, he bobbled a ball hit at him with the infield in. Anderson’s hands seem to be getting harder as he ages, if that’s possible. If it isn’t, he’s still showing why he’s a liability at shortstop. Speaking of liabilities, Grifol may want to order one of those dunce caps for himself. Bringing in Reynaldo Lopez to pitch the tenth inning with a batter on second would seem to be a recipe for disaster; it was. Then, Girfol felt the need to defend both Robert and Anderson. What a joke. Too bad it’s at the expense of White Sox fans.