Respite

The White Sox stunk again yesterday, turning a 4-2, eighth-inning lead against the Rays into a 9-5, bottom-of-the-ninth deficit. Truly, they have no relief pitching, as evidenced by Kendall Graveman’s third straight appearance in the series in which he gave up a homerun. Oh, and they scored seven runs in the last frame, capped by Andrew Vaughn’s three-run walk-off homer. Sox win, 12-9. All of which changes what, exactly? I mean, Aaron Bummer got the win despite giving up two runs in the top of the ninth. Bummer now sports a 9.64 ERA on the season, not to be confused with Reynaldo Lopez’s 8.76. Lopez allowed three runs in .1 inning, but he may be headed for the IL. So, there’s that. I’ll try to stay positive, if just for a day. No more talk of pitching, then. Let’s look at the hitting and start with a tip of the cap to Adam Haseley, who led off and started in place of Luis Robert Jr. Hasely went 4-for-5, with three runs scored. He singled in the tying run on a two-strike pitch, this while facing a lefty-lefty matchup against Garrett Cleavinger. Here’s an interesting question. The only time Haseley made an out was on a dropped third strike in the bottom of the eighth. By beating the throw to first with two out, Haseley allowed Elvis Andrus to score from third. Would Robert have shown the same hustle or deemed it a non-game-changing situation not meriting full-out effort? More good things: Eloy Jimenez hit the last of his four singles with one out to start things off in the ninth while Jake Burger got a run-scoring double that kept the inning going. Elvis Andrus collected three hits, Lenyn Sosa two (though I think he’ll go down when Tim Anderson and Hanser Alberto come off the IL Tuesday). Now for Vaughn. He had two hits to lift his average to a blah .255 but the homer gives him a quiet twenty RBIs, good for a share of twelfth place in the AL. Jose Abreu, the man he replaced at first base, is hitting .235 for the Astros with zero homers and 11 RBIs. Abreu is hitting .183 over his last fifteen games. Vaughn, eleven years younger than Abreu, is the better defender and now probably the better hitter. Here’s what I wonder, though. Did Abreu keep Jimenez and Robert focused? No, I wouldn’t have re-signed him to keep doing that job. But, if he was in fact an effective mentor, the Sox have yet to find someone to take his place. If Pedro Grifol and his coaching staff can’t do the job, then it’s a case of one step forward, two steps back, and that’s now how you move on from an 8-21 start.