Time Flies

The White Sox had a day off yesterday after playing sixteen straight days. I can only hope it provides the pause that refreshes as they start a weekend series in Minnesota. For me, I had time to think. God, just two years ago, the Sox were on their way to a record-breaking 121 losses. I looked at the team roster, and there were names I honestly couldn’t recall, which was probably for the best. New faces, new day. Go, Antonacci! The Sox were off, but not Chris Sale and the Braves. The 37-year old lefthander and onetime anchor of the White Sox staff threw a five-hit, complete-game 1-0 shutout against the Dodgers last night, striking out eleven without a walk. Clare told Michele to tell me this morning, and I told Michele to tell our daughter I knew. We were all Chris Sale fans in our family, my wife saying, “I wish he still pitched for the White Sox.” So do I, but stuff happens in baseball, teams collapse and have to rebuild (and rebuild again, it seems). If there’s any silver lining in re Sale, it’s that he’s more legitimate HOF credentials than Jacob deGrom. On his career, Sale is 158-97 with a 2.95 ERA and 2756 strikeouts vs. 105-74 and a 2.70 ERA and 2010 strikeouts for deGrom. I can just see a rangy, gray-bearded Sale giving his induction speech at Cooperstown. Would he wear a White Sox cap? Maybe if they allowed him to bring a pair of scissors to the podium.

Good News, Bad News

Always lead with the positive stuff, like Tristan Peters homering in five straight games, part of a fifteen-hit barrage that produced a 10-4 White Sox win over the Rangers last night. Oh, and the Sox tied their season high of seven games over the .500-mark. Now, for the bad news, and not just Munetaka Murakami’s continued woes at the plate (0-for-3 last night, resulting in a .219 BA). No, what’s really concerning is Sean Burke. He hasn’t been good his last three starts, giving up ten earned runs in 13.1 innings. It looked early on it would be Burke’s night, even after he walked two Texas batters in the top of the first inning. The 26-year old righthander picked off one baserunner while catcher Jake Rogers threw out the other trying to steal second base. The Sox even took a 2-0 lead in the second. Burke promptly gave it back in the third, on a walk and a homerun by Joc Pederson. The purported ace of the staff walked two more but managed to get out of the inning without any further damage. Then he walked the first two batters in the fourth. After eight walks in three-plus innings, it was, So long, Sean, hello, bullpen. Sean Newcomb was great, going three shutout innings, while Jonathan Cannon was Jonathan Cannon, giving up two runs in three innings. Newcomb is up to 75 innings on the season (the last 17.1 featuring not so much as an earned run) How long can he keep it up? And why is Cannon replacing an injured Huascar Brazoban instead of, yes, David Sandlin or Drew Thorpe? Cannon is 5-6 with a 5.18 ERA in Triple-A, not exactly numbers that give one confidence. As the saying goes, curious minds want to know.

Imaginary, Real

I keep hearing how pitcher Jackob deGrom is HOF-worthy, and, for the life of me, I can’t see it. At age 38, deGrom has a 105-74 record and 2.70 ERA. That includes last night, when the veteran righthander gave up six runs in the first inning to the White Sox, who went on to beat the Rangers 11-7. Nobody is mentioning Sox rookie outfielder Tristan Peters for Cooperstown, though I doubt he cares. After going from one to another to a third organization, the 26-year old seems to have found a home with the Sox. A 3-for-3 night with a homerun in four consecutive games no doubt has Sox GM Chris Getz feeling good about his talent-scouting chops. This is where baseball stands out from the NFL and NBA, neither of which feature 26-year old rookies any more often than Haley’s Comet comes around. In baseball, it happens all the time, though more often with pitchers than position players. From what I can tell, it happened with Peters because of the right combination of skills and coachability. He had a reputation as a plus-defender who could bunt, which got him a look-see in spring training, where he hit .270, good enough for a spot on the roster. Through April, he looked to be a rangy slap hitter, with just three RBIs in 66 at-bats. Then came May and June. Maybe it was Peters’ first homerun, a three-run shot against the Cubs on May 17, that announced his arrival, or just a steady approach to the plate. Either way, the native of Winkler, Manitoba, has established himself at the lower end of the batting order. And, because he can express himself, he’s done a number of postgame interviews in which he’s made comments that touch on coachability. Peters has eleven homers that have basically come in two bunches. During the first bunch, he mentioned that he’s trying to stay within himself after going the power route for a time in the minors. Indeed, last year in Triple A, he struck out 102 times while hitting fifteen homers and batting .266. As we speak, Peters is hitting .277 with eleven homers and 72 strikeouts in 354 at-bats, together with a 342 OBP. I’ll take that kind of production over make-believe HOF stats any day of the week.

Some Questions

Some questions are in order following the White Sox losing 11-2 to the visiting Rangers last night. We’ll start with pitching. Do Luis Castillo and Jose Urquidy have anything left in the tank as starters? Castillo has a 5.89 ERA in four starts since he came over from the Mariners while Urquidy, who lasted a mere three innings last night, clocks in at 5.62. Meanwhile, David Sandlin and Drew Thorpe languish in Triple-A. Now, let’s switch over to hitting. Sam Antonacci is batting .136 over his last seven games, .204 over his last fifteen and .227 over his last 30. I’m hopeful the 23-year old rookie can snap out of it a la Tristan Peters, who homered in his third straight game. Peters, who couldn’t hit a lick after the All-Star Game, is hitting .317 with four homeruns over his last fifteen games. If only Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery demonstrated the same ability to bounce back. Murakami is batting .107 over his last seven games, .148 over his last fifteen. Montgomery, for what it’s worth, is consistent, hitting .192 over his last seven and .190 over fifteen, and that’s an improvement over .171 over his last 30 games. Will they ever produce on a consistent basis? Or for that matter, will Vibes Venable manage like a manager should? Recapping the box score in postgame comments hardly qualifies. Making decisions and motivating players does.

By Any Means Necessary

I was back at the Rate yesterday for the second time in four days. Talk about agony and ecstasy rolled into one afternoon. Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery went a combined 0-for-7; Sox hitters managed two singles through seven innings before scratching out a run in the eighth for a 1-0 lead; and Grant Taylor allowed the tying run in the ninth. Maybe I should mention here Tristan Peters walked it off with a one-out homerun that bounced off the top of the wall in deep right-centerfield. Sox 2 Mets 1 for the series clincher. Some guy across from me needed to let the world know the Mets’ Francisco Lindor was the center of his universe. Other than that, the crowd was pretty pleasant, especially the fan sitting next to Michele who noticed I was keeping score. “If they had Bobby Jenks for late in the game, they’d be in the World Series,” he leaned over to tell me. We both agreed there was a lot of talent on the roster, with more on the way. Hey, Commissioner, how about short centerfield as a new position? That way, we could bring up some of those middle infielders the Sox have been collecting. The starting rotation remains a problem, though the opener-bulk thing worked like a charm yesterday. Sean Newcomb opened with two scoreless innings followed by Erick Fedde with four shutout innings of his own and another two from Hagen Smith. But what are the odds of Newcomb, Fedde and/or Taylor pitching tonight against the Rangers? But that’s a worry for another game. As for this one, a perfect afternoon in late August with a perfect outcome.

No Pitch, All Swish

Well, this was bound to happen. Luis Robert Jr. hit two homers and drove in three runs against his old team last night as Mets doubled up on the White Sox, 10-5. No pitching, and two hitters providing eight strikeouts between them. Luis Castillo gave up four runs on eight (!) hits and a walk in just 2.2 innings of work. None of the three pitchers who followed, including scored-upon-again Huascar Brazoban, provided anything close to relief. Starting pitching, or the lack thereof, is a problem that needs to be addressed yesterday, if not sooner. Ditto the feast-or-famine nature of the Sox offense. Two homeruns, from Braden Montgomery and Tristan Peters, were nice, the 1-for-10 performance with runners in scoring position and the thirteen strikeouts, not so much. Which brings us to the four-strikeouts’ twins, Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery. The one has a .225 BA, the other .215. Last night, Murakami looked more zombie at the plate than hitter while Montgomery continued his distressing habit of taking hittable pitches for a called strike three; he did it twice, once with the bases loaded. Short-term, this has to be fixed to the point both hitters can put up a .230 BA at least. Long-term, the front office has to decide whether either or both of these players is worth building around. I honestly can’t answer one way or another.

Heavy Artillery

The White Sox were dead, dead, dead for five innings last night against the Mets, never more so than in the top of the fourth when centerfielder Brenton Doyle lost a lazy flyball off the bat of Luis Robert Jr. (!) that turned into a double leading to two runs on the ensuing single by Brett Baty. After Bo Bichette homered in the fifth, the 4-0 score felt more like 14-0. Then, Boom!, times three in the sixth. Munetaka Murakami walked with one out, followed by a homerun by Miguel Vargas followed by a homerun by Randal Grichuk followed by a homerun by Colson Montgomery to tie the score. Wait, there’s more, one more to be precise. I have a theory that when a team scores three or more runs from the sixth inning on to tie the score but not go ahead, odds are it will lose. Not last night. With two out and a runner on third, catcher-of-the-night Jake Rogers lifted a flyball that just cleared the fence in left-centerfield. Sox 6 Mets 4. So, Robert Jr. played but did not hurt his old team, and Bichette homered for the sixth time against the Sox (to go with a career .361 BA), for once not deciding the score. Strange times, indeed.