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.

Almost

Leo almost saw his first-ever no-hitter at his second ballgame yesterday afternoon. Thank you, Andrew Benintendi, for that seventh-inning single. Braves 2 White Sox 0. Anthony Kay gave up those two runs in six-plus innings of work. Too bad there’s no manager ERA because Vibes Venable doubled a one-run lead by bringing in Huascar Brazoban with a runner on second and nobody out. Bad decision The 36-year old Brazoban must think he’s still pitching for the Mets. He proceeded to give up a deep flyball to right field that allowed Michael Harris II to tag up and move to third. This was followed by singles of 93.9 and 103.2 mph. t was goodbye, Brazoban, after he managed to strike out Ronald Acuna Jr., and hello, Hagen Smith, who worked 1.1 perfect innings, with three strikeouts. And Venable didn’t go to Smith from the start why, again? That extra run mattered because the Sox put their first two runners on in the bottom of the seventh. In a 1-0 game, you think of bunting in that situation, or at least I do. Down 2-0, not so much, although a bunt attempt would’ve been better than the three strikeouts that followed. Also, with every batter being the tying run, that puts extra pressure on the pitcher. Again, two runs down, not so much. After the game, Venable went into his typical “cover your players” mode. Oh, Atlanta’s pitching was really good and “We’ve got to get him [Brazoban] competitive in the zone,” whatever that means. [quote from story in today’s Sun-Times] No, Vibes, you need players who can produce, and you need to shake things up in a game when they’re not going your way. See seventh inning, above.

Simple as Pie

It’s simple, really. You either protect a lead, or you lose a game, which the White Sox did again last night at Wrigley Field, 4-3. In the seventh and the Sox ahead 3-2, manager Vibes Venable stuck with Huascar Brazoban after a leadoff walk on four pitches. Brazoban rewarded his manager’s faith in him by walking the next Cub batter on five pitches. In came Grant Taylor, who got two strikeouts before yielding a game-tying single to Alex Bregman. Then it rained. That meant Taylor couldn’t come out to pitch the eighth. Instead, it was Trevor Richards, who retired the side in the eighth only to give up a leadoff double in the ninth and a walk-off single to Bregman. Apparently, Venable didn’t check the weather forecast. Otherwise, he might have used his relievers differently. Then again, probably not.