It Bears Repeating

In the first inning of last night’s 7-4 loss to the Indians in Cleveland, White Sox dh Edwin Encarnacion batted with the bases loaded and two out. Encarnacion grounded out to short. The word “meekly” comes to mind. Encarnacion’s 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and four runners left stranded leaves him batting .159. Somewhere in Korea, Daniel Palka shakes his head. At least Yasmani Grandal doubled and scored a run. Grandal is hitting 76 points higher than Encarnacion, which sounds great until you do the math and come up with a .235 BA. Oh, Nomar Mazara also got a hit; his batting average now stands at .217. In other words, the Sox are going with Adam Engel’s bat from two years ago, but not his glove. Somewhere… If this is the formula for winning baseball in the postseason, then up is definitely down.