Maybe, Maybe Not

Maybe the White Sox were fated to lose 7-6 last night on an opposite-field, two-out, two-run, walk-off double on a 0-2 pitch from Grant Taylor to Brayan Rocchio. Or maybe not. I wonder because three moves by Sox manager Vibes Venable put his team in a bad spot to win, starting with his choice of opener. That would be Chris Murphy, who, in his previous appearance, gave up a bases-clearing double that sent the Sox down to defeat in St. Louis on Sunday. Murphy was no better in Cleveland, giving up two homeruns to the Guardians in the first. The Sox were down 3-0 by the time Murphy exited with two outs in the bottom of the first inning. But you have to give credit where credit is due; the Sox climbed back to take a 6-4 lead in the sixth inning. Davis Martin pitched well, giving up one earned run in 5.1 innings of work, while the usual heroes came through to provide the lead. I’m talking about you in particular, Chase Meidroth and Miguel Vargas. And I could be talking about Sam Antonacci and Tristan Peters, too. But not Jake Rogers. Venable had Rogers start behind the plate for the right-lefty advantage against Guardians’ starter Foster Griffin. Rogers responded with an 0-for-2 effort, putting his White Sox BA at a microscopic .111 (4-for-36). Thankfully, Kyle Teel replaced Rogers and walked twice, the first walk coming around to score in the sixth inning. Venable also continued his unfathomable loyalty to Munetaka Murakami, who struck out four times batting cleanup. In his last four games, Murakami has struck out eleven times. He’s batting .094 over his last fifteen games and .110 over his last 30. This can’t go on. Unless not making the postseason is part of GM Chris Getz’s plan.

See Ball, Feel Ball

It was the single most important at-bat for the White Sox this season to date. Centerfielder Tristan Peters fouled off twelve pitches from Guardians’ starter Gavin Williams before managing an eighteen-pitch walk with nobody out and Andrew Benintendi on second base in the top of the sixth inning last night in a scoreless ballgame. Wait, there’s more. The next batter, Colson Montgomery, grounded a ball to first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, who threw to second for a potential 3-6-3 double play. Only Lowe hit Peters in the back of the head. The ball bounced off Peters’ helmet into centerfield, allowing Benintendi to score and Peters to move to third base, the start of a six-run inning in a 7-3 Sox win that extends their lead over the Guardians’ to 1-1/2 games. Kudos to Kyle Teel for his two-run double and Miguel Vargas for a two-run homerun. Ditto Sean Newcomb; Sean Burke; Hagen Smith; and Trevor Richards for not allowing an earned run all night. Now, for the brickbats. Munetaka Murakami struck out three times, along with Colson and Braden Montgomery. Colson Montgomery allowed a run to score in the sixth on his second error in two games while a throwing error by Vargas in the ninth made possible a homer by David Fry that shouldn’t have happened. Sloppy defense does not win games. As Tristan Peters knows, heady play does. That, and a good eye.

Why

The White Sox lost 3-1 to the Cardinals yesterday because Luis Castillo pitched on Saturday. Here’s why. Saturday, Sox manager Vibes Venable went the opener route, figuring the odds were Castillo wasn’t going to give him much. That meant 1.1 innings for opener Sean Newcomb before Castillo labored through 2.2 innings. Hagen Smith followed with two innings; then Grant Taylor with 1.2 innings; Jordan Hicks, .1 inning; and Bryan Hudson, one inning. In other words, Venable needed five good relievers in various roles to get the win, blessed be the name of Randal Grichuk. Yesterday, rookie David Sandlin did everything that GM Chris Getz thought he’d be getting from Castillo when he acquired the veteran righty at the trade deadline, and then some. Sandlin set down the first sixteen St. Louis batters he faced before giving up two one-out singles in the sixth inning. Rather than panic, Sandlin struck out Bryan Torres. That made it two on, two out for a righty-right matchup against Ivan Herrera. Sandlin did his job, inducing a hard groundball to shortstop Colson Montgomery, who booted it. (Not to worry. Venable covered for Montgomery in the postgame, baserunner Nathan Church apparently screening Montgomery just long enough to cause the miscue.) That brought up lefthanded-hitting Alec Burleson, at the time sitting on 106 RBIs. Venable chose to lift his starter. But who do you bring in? All the best lefty relievers pitched not even 24 hours earlier. Smith, with 29 strikeouts in 20 innings, would have been the best option if he hadn’t already gone two innings. And maybe he was the best option, if only to get one out. Venable opted for lefty Chris Murphy. Not quite lions vs. Christians, but Burleson still cleared the bases with a double to right. Montgomery had a chance to redeem himself with two out in the top of the ninth and the bases loaded, but he flied out to shallow centerfield. It shouldn’t have come to that. Because of Luis Castillo, it did.

Jaws

The White Sox snatched victory out of the jaws of defeat in the ninth inning last night against the Cardinals with a two-out, two-strike go-ahead homerun that turned a 5-4 deficit into an eventual 6-5 win. Thank you, Randal Grichuk. Yes, that’s the same Randal Grichuk I was complaining about the game before. Given another chance to provide veteran leadership, Grichuk came through, hitting a 1-2, 95.6 mph sinker from Cardinals’ closer Riley O’Brien down the right-field line and over the fence, just out of the reach of a leaping Victor Scott II. Mercy. Now, for an extra bit of good news, and I don’t mean both the Guardians and Astros losing—manager Vibes Venable went with a lineup that reflected reality than rather wishes. Kyel Teel batted second, the Montgomerys eighth and ninth, Colson and Braden, respectively. Both Teel and Colson walked twice, and one of the walks mattered for each of them, an RBI for Colson in the fourth and a second run for Girchuk to bat in with his homer. Now, for the bad news—Luis Castillo pitched, which is to say Castillo gave up a boatload of hits and runs. The veteran righthander labored through 2.2 innings, allowing the Cardinals to score three runs on four hits and three walks. Sean Newcomb opened, going 1.1 innings. He was lifted after a one-out single. Castillo allowed that runner to score, too. Not good to the point that Chris Getz’s big trade-deadline acquisition should grab some bench for the foreseeable future. What to do? Well, maybe Getz is finally realizing he has options at Triple-A. David Sandlin is scheduled to start today’s rubber game. That, plus Venable going with another reality-based lineup could help right things. We’ll see.

Circling the Drain

The White Sox lost their fourth straight last night (and nine out of their last twelve), 7-3 to the Cardinals. Same old same old. Starting with Sox manager Vibes Venable going with Jake Rogers at catcher. Rogers had two walks, which led to nothing, while dropping a throw at the plate that would’ve nailed a runner in what was then a tie game in the second inning. But you have to love his veteran’s presence behind the plate, I guess. Anthony Kay did his usual, too, which in this case means a fourth straight start without getting through the fifth. The veteran righthander, who is starting to look like the journeyman he was before going to Japan, struggled through four innings, giving up three runs on five hits, a walk and a hit-by-pitch (which scored). In the fifth, Venable did the same old by demonstrating his misplaced faith in Trevor Richards, who proceeded to turn a one-run game into a 6-2 St. Louis lead. Game over. After the game, Venable displayed some anger, sort of, if blaming yourself ahead of your players counts. Venable put it this way: “Just an ugly one all the way around. Starting with me. None of the moves I made tonight worked. [see above] Offensively, we were fine. [No, they weren’t. See below].” In what has to count as blistering criticism, Venable noted “ Kay was behind in the count really the whole day, kind of piled up on him there.” [all quotes from today’s Trib story online] Venable also made some allusions to bad baserunning, as in Brenton Doyle getting picked off of first base, and defense, as in Rogers dropping the ball. How the offense qualified as “fine” is beyond me. What’s “fine” about going a collective 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position or stranding twelve runners? Consider these two examples of how bad things are. In the top of the sixth, with a chance to answer the Cardinals, Randal Grichuk batted with one out, the bases loaded; he struck out on three pitches. The first one he took, right down the center of the plate; the two way down out of the strike zone he swung at. That is not a veteran leading by example. Which brings us to another three strikeouts by Colson Montgomery, who now has 205 on the season. The record is 223, in case you’re wondering. Starting with June, Mongomery hasn’t had a month where he’s batted higher than .221. And, in ten games this month, he’s hitting an anemic .132. Hope springs eternal, boxers do get off the canvas to win. But here? I’m just not feeling it.

While Rome Burns

At least when the White Sox were losing 100-plus games a season, they were consistent. Now, it’s a matter of two steps forward, one back. Or is it 1-1/2? And on what days? I take no particular joy in saying the Sox manager bears much of the responsibility for the state of things. Why, for example, does he play catcher Jake Rogers? In last night’s 2-0 loss to the Pirates, Rogers went 0-for-3 trying to throw out runners on steal attempts. The last one really mattered because it set up an insurance run in the eighth inning. Did I mention Rogers went 0-for-2 at the plate or that he’s now hitting .118—4-for-34—since being picked up from the Red Sox? While I’m at it, let me also point out that Sox batters have basically stopped hitting. Last night, they managed all of two hits, the first coming with two out in the seventh, and two walks while whiffing eleven times. Me, I can’t believe they got swept at home by Pittsburgh. With the manager, it’s full steam ahead on the Titanic. Naturally, after the game he had all sorts of praise for the other side in his postgame remarks: “It was a tough day obviously. You’ve got to give some credit to these arms that they have over there, which are really good. We saw some really good fastballs this series.” [all quotes from today’s online Trib story] Oh, God, there’s more. The manager also told reporters he thinks “our clubhouse and our vibe inside there is in a really good spot.” News flash, Skipper: It’s the wins that count, not the vibe. If you don‘t know that by now, the vibe will disappear soon enough.

Pitch Count

One of my jobs as team statistician for Clare’s varsity high-school softball team was to keep a pitch count for our pitchers. If I could do that as a volunteer, why couldn’t the White Sox do the same in last night’s 4-2 loss to the Pirates? Either Sox manager Vibes Venable or bench coach Walker McKinven or pitching coach Zach Bove alone or in some combination couldn’t figure out to do that. (Hint: Just keep tab of every pitch thrown.) If they had, the Pirates might never have scored three runs in the seventh inning. Reliever Sean Newcomb had already struggled a bit in the sixth, needing a double play to keep his pitch count at seventeen. A six-pitch walk to open the seventh put it at 23. Then came a single on the first pitch followed by a single on the third pitch. By my count, that’s a 2-0 score, nobody out and Newcomb at 27 pitches. Now throw in a seven-pitch fielder’s choice to put runners on the corners, one out and Newcomb at 34 pitches. Did Venable elect to go to the pen? Nope. Konnor Griffin capped off a six-pitch at-bat with a two-run single. For those of you out there keeping count, that’s 40 pitches for Newcomb, who needed another eight to record the final two outs in the inning. So, don’t expect to see Newcomb anytime soon. And don’t expect Venable to explain why he kept his reliever in despite a growing pitch count. Oh, and don’t expect the Sox to win many games that way.