Merrily We Go Along

I have this theory that young players, or anyone fighting for starting spot on a bad-to-mediocre team, is prone to injury in the attempt to will their team to victory. It happened to Tim Anderson back in 2019 and Danny Mendick in 2022. You can probably add rookie pitcher Drew Thorpe to the list too. Thorpe was put on the 15-day IL with a flexor strain in his right forearm; it dates to his last two starts, both of which have pretty much stunk: 5.2 innings pitched, fourteen earned runs allowed, two losses. Thorpe says he tried to pitch through the discomfort, which could signal he had it for a while. Wait, it gets worse. The Sox have a number of interesting pitchers in Double- and Triple-A, none of whom were called up. No, they brought up Charlotte reliever Prelander Berroa instead. Of course, the TV broadcast was all excited, with a graphic about how Berroa hadn’t given up a run in six of his last seven appearances. What the graphic didn’t show was his ERA, which was a tad on the high side at 6.69. Oh, those White Sox. Anyway, Berroa came into the eighth inning last night in Minnesota, after Steven Wilson had given up four two-out runs to the Twins; Berroa made it six all night. Final score, Twins 10-Sad Sox 2. That’s eighteen in a row, in case you’re counting. The Sox record stands at 27-85 vs. 30-82 for the ’62 Mets, in case you care. As for manager Mickey Mouse, he says, “I’m going to control the things I can control.” And that means “get to the ballpark, work as hard as I can, prepare as hard as I can, make sure our staff is ready to go, make sure we get a good day’s work in and get motivated to win a baseball game.” [today’s Sun-Times] In other words, he thinks of his job in terms of a participation award. It's time to switch things up. Maybe Mouse should consider not getting to the ballpark. The team couldn’t do any worse.