The God’s Honest Truth, per Pinocchio

I’m tired of all this talk coming from White Sox GM Chris Getz and his favorite New-Mickey of a manager about how important it is for the team to finish strong. Here’s why. Tuesday night, Andrew Benintendi and Kyle Teel hit homeruns. Neither of them started yesterday in a 3-1 loss (their sixth in a row, but who’s counting? Certainly not Getz and New-Mickey.), even though the Orioles starting Tyler Wells would’ve meant a lefty-right advantage for both Benintendi and Keel. Wait, there’s more. The starting outfield yesterday consisted of Will Robertson (batting .143 at the start of the game, .135 at the end); Michael A. Taylor (.206/.204); and Dominic Fletcher (.231/.188). The trio went 0-for-8 on the day. I was there, section 145, row seven. I saw a bunch of young players sleepwalking over the course of nine innings; I also saw Oriole baserunners steal seven bases. Getz and New-Mickey can spin things all they want. That won’t change the fact this team is three losses short of 100 and next year could be a fourth straight season of 100+ losses

Getting Real

The White Sox had a chance to pull out a game last night against the Orioles. Up until the eighth inning, it was another pathetic effort, with Shane Smith setting the tone in a bad way, giving up six runs on nine hits in 4.1 innings of work. But five runs in the bottom of the eighth pulled the Sox to within a run at 8-7. The bottom of the ninth offered the “core” a chance to show what it could do. With one out, Chase Meidroth collected his second single of the game, bringing up Kyle Teel. The rookie catcher hit his eighth homerun of the season in the first and worked the count to 3-1. Then he struck out on a pitch in his eyes. Up next was Colson Montgomery, who’d struck out twice already. Make that three times, number three on a fastball Montgomery swung through. The 23-year old has now struck out 75 times in 216 at-bats. He’s hitting .095 (2-for-21) over his last seven games, .196 over his last fifteen (10-for-51). Where’s hitting coach Marcus Thames? Teel I’m not too worried about; he admitted after the game to trying to do too much. Everything so far, a .281 BA with 33 RBIs in 224 at-bats suggests he will in fact learn from his failures. That said, I hope Thames or some other coach is there to point out he left a walk on the table with the game on the line. As for Montgomery, I worry all the time. I see the Angels just sent down onetime phenom Scott Kingery. That could be Montgomery in the not-too-distant future if he doesn’t fix his swing. But not to worry. It’s all rainbows and unicorns, or as Sox manager New-Mickey Venable put it in his postgame comments, “Another great example of these guys continuing to battle. Got off to a great start there offensively [the two-run homer by Teel]. Shane did, too. Just as the game went on and they continued to score runs [!!#@!!], our guys continued to battle and it was nice to see us make it interesting.” [quote from today’s Tribune online] They still lost their fifth straight, Skipper.

More...Pathetic

Last night with the score tied at one in the top of the sixth inning with two out and a runner on first base, White Sox manager New-Mickey Venable made a move straight out of the Old-Mickey playbook—he brought in reliever Tyler Alexander. Consider that Alexander sported a 5-14 record with a 5.01 ERA and that he had been scored on in his previous six appearances. No matter. In he went and out went a three-run homerun by Colton Cowser, preceded by a Samuel Basallo single. Basallo went into that at-bat hitting .177, Cowser .197. Both are lefthanded batters. White is a lefthanded pitcher. Orioles 4 Sox 1. I looked for a postgame comment from Venable but couldn’t find one. Maybe words failed him, too.

Pathetic

Guardians’ catcher Bo Naylor entered yesterday’s game against the White Sox batting .183 with 32 RBIs in 326 at-bats. You know what that means, right? In the bottom of the fourth inning with the Sox up 1-0, Naylor hit a two-out, two-run double off starter Yoendrys Gomez. Wait, there’s more. With one out in the seventh and the game tied at two, Naylor homered against reliever Brandon Eisert, who made sure the lefty-lefty matchup didn’t work to his advantage. Final score, Cleveland 3 Chicago 2. The Sox were the most accommodating of visitors, dropping all six games this year at Progressive Field. After the game, Sox manager New-Mickey Venable offered that, “The guys continued to fight and grind. It felt like really all series we had good at-bats where we were making good decisions. Just didn’t really have anything to show for it.” [quote from today’s Tribune story] Words to rebut fail me.

Not Ready for Prime Time

Last night in the bottom of the second inning against the Guardains, White Sox starter Davis Martin gave up a two-run homerun to C.J. Kayfus, who came into the game batting an even .200. Wait, there’s more. In the bottom of the eighth with the Sox down 2-1, Sox reliever Fraser Ellard grooved a pitch to pinch-hitter Jhonkensy Noel. And Noel’s batting average at the time? A less-than-robust .146. That, my friends, is how you lose a game 3-1 and the kind of game you lose on the road to accumulating 92 losses on the season, and counting.

Energy, Talent

This morning, I watched my grandson run around a soccer field. He scored three goals plus an assist (unintended, I think, unless four-year olds really want to pass the ball), showing more energy than the White Sox did last night in Cleveland. Guardians 4 Sox 0. They managed two singles against Tanner Bibee, who came into the game with a 4.69 ERA and came out of it with his first career shutout and second complete game. The Sox won’t beat this kind of pitcher until their lineup stops featuring four starters batting under .240. I include Colson Montgomery (.228) and Miguel Vargas (.233) in that category. Maybe next year they’ll capture some Leo’s energy.

Good News

Four White Sox rookies stepped up yesterday to help take the three-game series against the Rays with a 5-1 win heavy on the contribution of starter Shane Smith. What a story Smith is, the Rule 5 player who made the All-Star team and then looked ready to flame out only to come back strong. Smith had an ERA of 4.26 going into the break. After 5.1 shutout innings yesterday, he’s lowered it to 3.78. The 25-year old righthander has been pretty much lights-out since the start of August. This returns him to “keeper” status in my books. Chase Meidroth? Maybe, maybe not, but he has been on a tear lately, going 13-for-24 over his last seven games. To be truly effective, Meidroth has to get on base and score, as he did yesterday, going 2-for-2 with two walks and a run scored. He’s now hitting .269 on the year with a .348 on-base percentage. The problem here concerns durability and defense. The 24-year old has gotten dinged up a lot over the season, which may or may not affect his play in the field. He’s good on groundballs and double plays, has good range at both second and short but looks to be below-average on anything flared over his head. Did I mention the Sox have a ton of intriguing middle infielders in their system? So many in fact it may affect Colson Montgomery’s future. I’d say our young shortstop is a keeper, but I’m not sure where, exactly. He could stay at short, and that’d be fine. Or he could slide over or try center field in the not-too-distant future; we’ll see. What I can say with certainty is Montgomery delivered yesterday when it counted, with a two-run single in the first inning. He now has a ridiculous 49 RBIs in just 202 at-bats. The .228 BA is nothing to write home about and the 65 strikeouts are a cause for concern, but, still. The 23-year lefthanded hitter old has shown a knack for coming through in the clutch. And his hit yesterday came off a lefty, Ian Seymour, who entered the game with a 2.89 ERA. There is, I think, cause for hope. Ditto with Kyle Teel, whose two-run pinch-hit single in the seventh inning gives him a fairly ridiculous 31 RBIs in 207 at-bats. Oh, and the batting average is an impressive .290. As ever with this rebuild, the question becomes where does Teel play? Somehow, the Sox have ended up with two talented starting catchers, the other being switch-hitting Edgar Quero, and they haven’t shown a willingness to play either Teel or Quero anywhere but catcher and DH. That is less a solution than putting off an inevitable decision. But that’s for another season. Right now, the Sox have some good young players who make the upcoming offseason both tolerable and a little irritating. Why so long until Opening Day, 2026?