Too Smart by Half

Casey Stengel thought catchers were important because, without one, you’d have a lot of passed balls. What did he know? The White Sox think you don’t need a catcher (see: Grandal, Yasmani) because you don’t need pitchers. They’re getting ready to ship off Lucas Giolito for the same reason they let Mark Buehrle walk—they don’t want to pay the money. Too bad no one in the organization knows how to develop pitching. Unless the combined 69-107 record of the AA and AAA teams is from an onslaught of bad-hop and seeing-eye hits. Last night was patch on a patch, Touki Toussaint vs. Justin Verlander. Toussaint gave up five runs in six innings as the Sox lost for the second straight time in New York, by a 5-1 margin. Today it’s Michael Kopech. You can feel the coaching staff holding its collective breath. Will Michael be OK? In the White Sox grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter.