Sticks and Stones...

Well, Andrew Vaughn must have rabbit ears or very good taste in blogs, because it looks as though he heard/read what I said about him yesterday. Vaughn went 2-for-3 with a run scored in the White Sox 7-6 win over the Twins at Guaranteed Rate Whatever last night. And fellow rookie Gavin Sheets must have been sitting next to Vaughn, because the comments seem to have rubbed off on him. Sheets went 2-for-4 with a run scored and two RBIs in his major-league debut. The Sox bullpen added some drama by doing they do best, which is fritter away a lead. Starter Lucas Giolito departed in the top of the seventh inning with a 7-2 lead that Evan Marshall shaved to 7-5. Closer Liam Hendriks thought it might be fun to walk and hit a batter in the ninth, and uncork two wild pitches while he was at it. Had the Sox blown the lead, it would have made Twins’ third baseman Josh Donaldson all the more unbearable. Donaldson hit a Giolito fastball for a two-run homer in the first inning, which was bad enough. Then Donaldson felt the need to announce “It’s not sticky anymore!” as he crossed the plate. Giolito took exception when informed of the comment after the game, calling Donaldson an expletive-deleted “pest.” Just as long as he stays a losing pest, I don’t care.

Smalltalk

Clare is taking the week off to get ready, with the baby due in about five weeks. My daughter is attending to the second bedroom the way she did the batter’s box—everything has to be just right, only now dirt won’t be involved, or allowed. But she has time enough between arranging and stacking to call and talk baseball. Yesterday, we argued, sort of, over Andrew Vaughn. Here’s what Athlon said about him: “Vaughn impressed with his power and strike zone discipline at Sox summer camp” in 2020. Now, Lindy’s: “Vaughn makes hitting and power-hitting look easy. He has a short swing path, which allows him to get to the barrel, even late in a pitch progression. Vaughn shows power plus to all fields and gets to it easily with an uppercut swing trajectory. Some scouts project him as a .300 hitter with 35-home runs potential.” Emphasis on potential. So far, Vaughn is hitting .222 in 198 at-bats with six homers and 17 RBIs; he has 19 walks to go with 61 strikeouts, which means he’s struck out in nearly 31 percent of his at-bats (or 28 percent of his plate appearances, if you’re looking for a silver lining). He has himself a .299 OBP. Coach Clare says Vaughn needs to be more aggressive on the first pitch, rather than take it all the time. I agreed that there are plenty of hittable first-pitch strikes, but Clare went one better: “He can’t be afraid to hit pitches that are out of the zone.” On that, I disagreed, saying you don’t want to give the pitcher a strike right off the bat, if you will. I went so far as to say I’d pin a sign on his chest that says, “I won’t chase sliders down and away, out of the strike zone,” to which my daughter let out a barely detectable gasp; I think she could see herself wearing such a thing and wondered how she avoided that fate. It went on like this for a few more minutes, the former player defending the rookie, the grizzled critic showing his impatience. And in a few weeks, we’ll have a new prospect to argue over.

Bad Decisions

The rain on Saturday meant the White Sox and Mariners finished the suspended game on Sunday in addition to the regularly scheduled contest, now reduced to seven innings. None of that stopped manager Tony La Russa from making bad pitching decisions in both games. The first game was tied at two going into the top of the ninth, when La Russa brought in closer Liam Hendriks. Isn’t there an unwritten rule about not using your closer in a non-save situation (unless you want him to fail)? You’d think the Sage of the Unwritten Word would know better. Hendriks gave up what proved to be the game-winning homerun. Then, in the second game the Sox were ahead 7-1 going into the sixth inning. For what it’s worth, five Sox pitchers hadn’t yielded a hit to that point. This was around the same time Michele read a text from Clare, that the Sox had called up minor-league pitcher Jimmy Lambert as the 27th player for what constituted a de facto doubleheader. “Oh, he won’t pitch, not with them having a no-hitter,” I said, some unwritten rule somewhere to back me up. Lo and behold, who does La Russa bring in to start the sixth inning but 27th man Jimmy Lambert, who immediately yielded a double on the way to giving up four runs in 1.1 innings. Not going for the truncated no-hitter forced La Russa into using Hendriks again. This time the closer delivered, and the Sox won 7-5. Isn’t it written somewhere that HOF managers should handle their pitching staffs better? Why, look no further than the previous sentence.

Rain on Me

No reason to visit the far ends of the earth for climate extremes—just come to Chicago. Want heat? Chicago can do anything in the 90s, no sweat We don’t hit 100-plus much like in Phoenix, but we can throw in Miami humidity, free of charge. Don’t want to go all the way to International Falls for a nice chill? Well, then come to Chicago in January. Sticky snow sure to work its way inside your boots? No charge. Oh, and monsoon rains. They came yesterday morning as Michele and I were driving out to Clare’s baby shower. (Monsoon-shower, how droll.) Lucky for us we were off the expressway before it flooded. And lucky for us we didn’t end up in a ditch courtesy of torrents of rain that made seeing more than five feet in front of you impossible. The White Sox game was suspended in the bottom of the third inning. I wonder how many fans went home to find what we did, a basement full of water. But we‘re “blessed” with seepage and not sewage. Forty-five minutes of shop-vaccing, and I was done. I had Michele do weather patrol by checking social media and watching Ch 9; none of the network stations could be bothered before 5 PM. NBC is trying to build an audience for the Olympics, so you know they won’t interrupt coverage for anything short of the Second Coming, and even then… So, now I wait to see if more rain will find its way into the basement. If not, maybe all the rain that fell will have washed away the Sox hitting woes. After all, it’s an ill-wind that blows no one some good. And, in Chicago, the rain comes with plenty of wind.

Why Bother?

Around the fourth inning of last night’s White Sox-Mariners’ game at Guaranteed Rate Whatever, a message flashed on the electronic ribbon that circles the stadium between the first ad second decks: Show Us Your Energy. Why bother? The 32,000-plus fans should’ve answered back. You guys aren’t. No, Jose Abreu looked all-of-a-sudden old, instead, with a double play (one of three by Sox hitters for the game) and zero hits. Tim Anderson has suddenly grown quiet and lost his swagger, picking up an error with his increasingly peculiar throwing mechanics at shortstop. And the bullpen turned a 3-1 deficit after five into a 9-3 route. Nothing like stinking up the joint in front of a mostly full house. Another game like this, and the boo birds will start to sing. If only we could be serenaded by a constantly exploding scoreboard. Such music that would be.

Why They Play the Games

I thought the Dodgers were supposed to be the juggernaut of all baseball, what with Mookie Betts and Trevor Bauer anchoring a star-studded roster and all. However does so much talent find itself 4-1/2 games behind the Giants in the NL West? And however did the likes of Betts, Cody Bellinger and Albert Pujols get no-hit 4-0 last night by the Cubs’ Zach Davies and three relievers? Didn’t these guys read what MLB.com said about them all through the preseason? C’mon, guys, we wouldn’t want you to go down as the 60-game wonders of 2020, now would we? Well, maybe a little. No, make that a lot.

Better, I Guess

Better to beat the Pirates 4-3 than lose by that score, I guess. And better to snap a five-game losing streak than see it grow to six, for that matter. So, I’ll try to sound excited. After all, Dylan Cease beat a team that doesn’t have the word “Detroit” in its name, though Cease may want to work on his fielding; two errors on the same (bunt) play is two errors too many. And I think it’s time for White Sox coaches, announcers and beat writers to point out what most everyone else in baseball knows, how Cease throws a fastball that lacks movement and his success in a game depends on him establishing his curveball from the start. But what do I know? It looked to be a beautiful Wednesday afternoon in Pittsburgh, blue skies to match all those empty blue seats at PNC Park; 10,406 fan showed up to root for the home team. It reminded me of the Pirates-Sox game Clare and I went to a little over three years ago, in May of 2018; Daniel Palka homered and Nate Jones coughed up the lead in the ninth. (There were 12,476 fans on hand at Guaranteed Rate Whatever that day, by the way.) That Pittsburgh team would go on to win 82 games. The Pirates haven’t finished above .500 since. According to Wikipedia, the Pirates haven’t had a decade where they’ve played .500 or better since the 1970s; the best they could do was to get to within five games in the 1990s and ten games in the 2010s. That’s a lot of deferred gratification for any one franchise or its fans. Good thing Rob Manfred is at the helm of MLB. Otherwise, I’d worry about the future of baseball in Pittsburgh.

Five. Do I Hear Six?

This is how bad the White Sox have been during their five-game losing streak: Journeyman left-hander Tyler Anderson of the Pirates looked like Cy Young last night going into the seventh inning. When Anderson reverted to form courtesy of a three-run, pinch-hit homerun by Yasmani Grandal, it didn’t matter. Why? Because the Sox bullpen immediately turned a one-run lead into a 6-3 loss. If you can’t beat the Pirates, my friends… Anderson needed all of 81 pitches to get to two outs in the seventh; pitch 82, to Grandal, did him in. Sox starter Lucas Giolito, on the other hand, needed 111 pitches to get through six innings. Give up two runs to a team like the Astros, and you’ve done a good job. But do that against a team like the Pirates, my friends… Sox hitters managed a mere two hits off of Anderson through the first six innings, one of them a single by Giolito. Anderson retired the side on seven pitches in the fourth, then did it on five pitches in the fifth. When a pitcher with a career 4.68 ERA is making your hitters look that bad, my friends… After the game, Giolito said of the loss “maybe it’s a wake-up call we need.” Maybe?

Maybe This Time

Yesterday, MLB started its crackdown on pitchers trying to apply sticky stuff to baseballs. The powers that be obviously don’t like low batting averages. Somebody in New York must’ve figured out that exit velo and launch angle don’t mean squat when applied to a cumulative .239 team BA. Pitchers feel aggrieved, and I get it, sort of. They’ve been allowed to get away with putting sticky stuff on baseballs for awhile now, and, all of a sudden, the commissioner’s office is shocked, shocked I say, that cheating is going on. So, if only to force them to throw more jackable pitches, the league is treating pitchers like suspected drug mules standing in line at customs. Pitchers say they need something that allows them to grip the ball. You don’t want us hitting batters unintentionally, they say, to which I reply, You’re right. Here’s a thought: how about moving the production of baseballs back to the U.S.? Put the factory in Pennsylvania or Ohio rather than Costa Rica (where MLB baseballs are currently produced), and you have the proximity necessary for honest-to-goodness quality control. Next, ask Cooperstown for some balls to study. Take some from, say, 1960 and ’70. Figure out their properties; pitchers weren’t grip-challenged back then. If I recall, most cheaters really stood out because they were obviously loading up the ball, except for those lucky enough to have catchers scuff or cut the ball for them. You can read all about it in Jim Bouton’s Ball Four. In fact, you could name the newly inshored baseballs after Bouton. Personally, I’m all for this get-tough approach. Too bad baseball didn’t do the same with steroids. Maybe, instead of looking the other way all those years players juiced up, owners could’ve gone in a different direction to win back fans. You know, like firing Bud Selig as commissioner for allowing the ’94 strike to happen and ostracize Jerry Reinsdorf for manipulating Selig to take his anti-player stand. Get rid of those two perpetrators, and you don’t need the Sosa-McGwire joke of a show. Oh, well, getting it right one out of two times is better than zero out of two.

Turning Our Attention Elsewhere

Like I said (and wish I couldn’t), White Sox rookie Andrew Vaughn looks lost facing right-handed pitching. Yesterday, in the ninth inning of a game that went south almost from the start, Vaughn stepped to the plate with two out and the bases loaded. A grand slam wouldn’t have given the Sox the lead, just a more palatable short-end score of 8-6, Astros. Vaughn popped out to the catcher on a 2-1 pitch from righthander Ralph Garza Jr., who lowered his ERA to 5.40 on the season. In other news, the Atlanta Hawks are making life miserable for their Eastern Conference opponents in the NBA playoffs. First, the Hawks dispatched New York in five. Yesterday, they took care of the 76ers, winning game seven against top-seeded Philly 103-96, on the road, no less. This is the third time in four years the 76ers have bowed out in the second round. What matters to me here as a Sox fan is that Philadelphia was such a rebuild of note. The fan base had no choice but to buy into a strategy that saw the team win 19; 18;10; and 28 games from 2014-2017. Tanking got Philadelphia Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons (and Jahlil Okafor, who I bet isn’t exactly the most popular ex-76er around). Only the foundation players can’t seem to get it done. How long before the fan base rebels? Comparing a team in the NBA to one in MLB may be an exercise in apples and oranges, or not. I do know that White Sox fans had to endure straight seven straight losing seasons before the team turned it around last year, only to go belly up in the first round of the playoffs. If they do the same this year, you might hear Sox fans doing a spot-on imitation of the Philadelphia boo bird. A nasty creature that. Just ask the Easter Bunny. One more thing. Hawks’ guard Trae Young is nothing short of electric. Young is averaging over 29 points and ten assists a game in the playoffs. At least the Bulls can say Young was gone by the time they drafted Wendell Carter Jr. in 2018. The Bulls being the Bulls, though, do you think they would’ve gone after Young even if he were available?

Turn Up the Volume?

Maybe I need to stop watching White Sox games with the sound off. That way, I could tell if the announcers are seeing what I see. Not that I wanted to see what I saw in last night’s 7-3 loss to the Astros: Jose Abreu looking old, Lance Lynn, too, and Yermin Mercedes looking more and more like a one-month wonder. I’m also starting to wonder about rookie outfielder Andrew Vaughn. You could say I’m really split over the 23-year old first baseman/left fielder. Vaughn is lights-out against lefties, hitting .344 with five of his six homers and ten of his seventeen (that’s all in 182 at-bats) RBIs. But against righties, Vaughn looks overmatched, batting just .182 with 37 strikeouts in 121 at-bats. That’s got to change if Vaughn wants to keep playing (in the outfield, at first or dh) if and when regular left fielder Eloy Jimenez returns. But the season is a marathon, with sloggy sections for most teams. My daughter called this morning to wish me a Happy Father’s Day, and we talked some quick baseball; she agrees on Abreu and Mercedes. Clare and Chris will both be coming over this afternoon. Maybe I’ll just keep the sound off and let the two of them do the talking.

Marathon, Slog Section

Not only is baseball a 162-game marathon, but it’s also a slog for any team that’s not going to win 100-plus games a season. Right now, the White Sox are slogging. Carlos Rodon, bless him, refuses to slog. Last night in Houston, Rodon gave up one measly run in seven innings on three hits and three walks. Did he win? Not with Sox hitters slogging at the plate. The Astros win on a walk-off double, 2-1. Like I said, most teams will hit the slog at one point or another in a season. Then, there are injuries to consider; with the Sox, take your pick. There comes a point when putting together a lineup without Eloy Jimenez, Luis Robert and Nick Madrigal becomes an exercise in futility. That would be right about now, I’d say. To get out of the slog, somebody has to lead the way. A mix of Jose Abreu, Rim Anderson and Yoan Moncada would likely do the trick, definitely so if all three started hitting at the same time. As for Yasmani Grandal, he of the .153 BA and 54 walks, the less said the better, at least until he breaks the Mendoza Line. Forty-eight points and counting, Yaz.

In the Adult World

Last night, White Sox starter Dylan Cease had to face a team without “Detroit” in its name, so things didn’t go well. Cease got clobbered for seven runs, six earned, in just 3.1 innings of work in a 10-2 loss to the Astros in Houston. Cease’s record on the season now stands at 2-3 against non-Detroit teams, with a 5.12 ERA vs 3-0 against the Tigers, with a 0.95 ERA. Time to grow up, Dylan. Then again, I can see where it might be hard for the 25-year old righthander to act like an adult in the same town where the Halas family wants to take their toy and go play with it in the suburbs. Which is to say the Bears announced yesterday that they put in a bid for the 326-acre Arlington Park racetrack property in northwest suburban Arlington Heights. Team president and CEO Ted Phillips released a statement claiming it is “our obligation to explore every possible option to ensure we’re doing what’s best for our organization and its future.” Obligation to whom, exactly? The maladroit McCaskey family? The bid is heavy on bravado, short on details. Nothing so far on how much the Munsters bid and no indication how a stadium would get built. You think the McCaskeys intend to spend a dime of their own money on the project and then pay annual property taxes on it? Oh, and they have a lease with the Chicago Park District for Soldier Field that runs through 2033. Is the city supposed to roll over for them? No doubt that’s what the team would like, which is childish of them to believe, but, oh, so predictable.

Carpalot

Other fans of other teams would be jumping for joy if their heroes were tied for the best record in baseball on June17th, but White Sox fans are a breed apart. You can spot them by the number and volume of complaints. Chicken Little’s got nothing on us. Here goes. Yesterday, the Sox took the rubber game against Tampa Bay, 8-7 in ten innings, but they blew a 7-2 lead. Starter Lucas Giolito pitched well (enough, three runs in six innings), but the bullpen coughed up yet another lead. Danny Mendick got a double, but he also made an error in the eighth inning that led to the tying runs scoring. Yasmani Grandal drove in the winning run, which is upsetting in and of itself. The Sox won, but Adam Engel sat (hamstring precaution). They won, but Yoan Moncada sat (sinus infection). Andrew Vaughn collected three hits, but he’s only hitting .231. Zack Collins recorded two hits to raise his average to .222, and that, my dear friends, could be a sign of end times approaching. Now, it’s on the road for six games. Watch us hold our own in a four-game set against the Astros, only to drop the two games in Pittsburgh. I am the man with a muck-rake…

More Mendick and Engel, less Graham

The White Sox got themselves a nice bounce-back win last night, beating the Rays 3-0 with starter Dallas Keuchel tossing seven shutout innings. Danny Mendick had a hit an RBI and Adam did, too, his coming on a monster homerun, his third in just twenty at-bats, to left field. The rubber match takes place this afternoon at Guaranteed Rate Whatever. Because this is Chicago, the Sox had to share space with the Bears, still three months away from their home opener. For perspective, flip the teams. What kind of coverage do the Sox get in January? Absent a trade or fan convention, none. Ditto the Cubs. Now, consider the Bears. I’m supposed to care who attended and didn’t attend mandatory minicamp; who’s the starting quarterback; and the death-defying antics of tight-end Jimmy Graham. That’s the one that really steams me. By his own admission, Graham was doing “about 90 miles per hour” down a Florida highway early one morning in March, when his truck went airborne, rolled over four times and skidded along the ground on its roof before coming to a stop. The way local and national media have it, Super-Graham emerged unscathed. Wow. Only none of the three stories I read—two local, one national—thought to ask this question: Did Graham get ticketed? The legal speed limit in Florida is 70 mph, so Graham was going close to, or over, 20 mph more. Next question—if the police decided not to ticket him, why not? I won’t hold my breath for answers.

Ride and Glide

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live close to Lake Michigan. That way, I could get up in the morning, take a bike ride and never have to worry about traffic on the way home, the way I do with the outbound Stevenson Expressway, which starts to back up well before 2 PM. Today, I got a sense of what it would be like. Talk about sweet. Michele is back working two days a week in the West Loop. Instead of her taking the train as usual, I volunteered to drive, which got me down to the lakefront by 9 AM and home by 1:30. If you’ve never been to Chicago and are in the least bit fit, do the lakefront trail. The breeze is delightful (most times), the skyline, either at a distance or up close, stunning (all the time). And, if you’re more than a little fit, keep going all the way south through what used to be US Steel’s South Works. The mill complex has been torn down and is slowly going back to nature, which would explain those three eagles I’m pretty sure I saw flying overhead. Of course, they could’ve been Tony La Russa buzzards, but I wasn’t giving off any death odor I’m aware of. And they didn’t follow me up to Rainbow Beach. Yet again today, I noticed I’m either getting way slower, or a different type of person is using Divvy bikes; I got passed twice on the trail by young ’uns. I always thought the best bike was the one that offered maximum performance/distance at minimal effort. The people in question were pedaling away like crazy to pass me. More power to them, I guess. Sunny skies, temperature in the low 70s, low humidity and a northeast breeze that became a friend on the way back. I spent close to four hours riding and keeping a lookout for idiots coming from the opposite direction wandering into my lane while looking at their phones. That happened twice. If nothing else, it kept me from dwelling too much on last night’s 5-2 White Sox loss to the Rays. I doubt the Sox will go deep into the playoffs if they can’t beat good teams. They now stand at 11-17 against opponents with a winning record. A Divvy bike has a better chance of winning the Tour de France than we will the World Series if that keeps up. Mark my words, and hit the lakefront trail.

Yikes and Wonder

Could Carlos Rodon have recorded his second no-hitter of the season Sunday afternoon? Well, he would’ve been hitless through 6-2/3 innings if plate umpire Pat Hoberg had rung up Eric Haase on a 2-2 pitch that was squarely in the bottom of the strike zone; Haase then doubled to left on a full count. Hoberg later admitted to Rodon he blew the call, something MLB.pravda forgot to mention in its story. On the day, Rodon went seven innings, giving up that one hit, which turned into a run, along with two walks against nine strikeouts; he now has a 1.89 ERA on the season. Oh, and the Sox won 4-1, sweeping the Tigers in Detroit. Take that, ghost of Victor Martinez. My only question is if Rodon is using anything to “enhance” his pitches. My gut reaction is No; the same holds for the other starters. I bring this up because MLB is starting to crack down on pitches sneaking sticky stuff onto their fingers in order to get better spin on the ball. The Yankees’ Gerrit Cole pretty much admitted his guilt during a recent press conference. So, we’ll see. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy this return to the 1960s, when Sox pitching dominated (and the team deadened balls by freezing them). Oh, I’ll keep an eye out for any suspicious stains on uniforms and caps, too.

I Gotta Have More Cowbell...and Danny Mendick

Another game with Danny Mendick at second base, another win for the White Sox, this time 15-2 over the Tigers. Mendick went 1-for-2 with three walks and three runs scored while starter Dylan Cease improved to 100-0 in his career against Detroit. Alright, 8-0, then, though I suspect it feels more like 1000-0 for Tigers’ fans. And you know things are really going your way when your Triple-A callup goes 2-for-five with a double and a homerun to go with 5 RBIs in his debut. Take a bow, Brian Goodwin. And, please, don’t stop hitting. This is the calm before the storm with three games against the Rays at home starting tomorrow followed by four against those cheatin’ Astros in Houston. It would behoove the South Siders to employ their brooms at Comerica Park.

Survivor(s)

Adam Engel hit another homerun last night while Danny Mendick chipped in with two hits and a game-ending play that kept the Tigers from pushing across the tying run in the bottom of the tenth for a 5-4 White Sox win in Detroit. So, it’s nice to be right about those two guys, at least for a game. Engel has been around since 2017, Mendick 2019. Going into the season, neither would have been considered anywhere near cornerstones of the Sox rebuild. That they both find themselves playing key roles due to injury says a lot about perseverance and a particular skill set. Also luck. You have to be in the right place at the right time. I especially like Engel and Mendick for being throwbacks. Adam is very “No sir, Yes sir” in his public persona, as well as being someone who has gone from a cypher at the plate to a real power threat; as for his glove, just check out the highlight reel. Mendick? He looks to be a real hard ass, spikes high sliding into second base. Fine by me. I only wish Matt Davidson and/or Daniel Palka were around to enjoy the run, but, like I said, luck, skill set and opportunity all factor into a player’s career. And, with Palka, maybe a little bullheadedness. Davidson is with Triple-A Oklahoma City (Dodgers) while Palka toils away at Triple-A Rochester (Nationals). You never know.

Keep On Truckin'

Another game, another injury for the White Sox, who put second baseman Nick Madrigal on the 60-day IL yesterday with a right-hamstring tear. Madrigal suffered the injury trying to beat out an infield hit in Wednesday’s 6-2 loss to the Blue Jays. He now joins outfielders Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert on the 60-day IL. My daughter, with an undergraduate degree in kinesiology, suspects something is wrong with team-workout regimens. My “they’re too big and muscle-bound thesis” wouldn’t seem to apply here, given that Madrigal stands all of 5’8”. Whatever the case, that old injury bug has definitely found a home on the South Side. God bless Dallas Keuchel for leading by example. The veteran lefthander gave up two runs in six innings, and it should’ve been one had third baseman Yoan Moncada thought to start a double play on a groundball hit to him in the sixth inning. Yoan, know how many outs there are, OK? Luckily, that mental error didn’t stop the Sox from winning the rubber game of the series, 5-2. And blessings also go out to Adam Engel, who got his first hit—which also happened to be his first homerun—of the season in the seventh inning; it turned a 3-2 lead into a 4-2 game. Not bad for Engel’s first week back, taking away a homer with his glove, hitting one with his bat. Now, we’ll see what Danny Mendick and Leury Garcia have to offer at second base in place of Madrigal. I say the glass will be more than half-full. Fingers crossed.

You Should Talk

Clare called yesterday morning to complain about White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal. “I didn’t like him before. Now, he’s dead to me.” And what did Grandal do to earn your scorn, my child? “He tweeted about the new Cubs’ [Nike MLB City Connect Series’] uniforms.” Grandal wondered, “What d3 school do you [guys] play for[?]” a question sure to set off any NCAA Division-3 athlete, not that Grandal would care. But, really, Yasmani, people in glass houses and all. The Sox took a 2-1 lead over the visiting Blue Jays into the eighth inning last night, Aaron Bummer relieving for starter Lance Lynne, who’d held Toronto to a run on four hits. With one out, pinch-hitter Riley Adams struck out swinging, or he would’ve been out had Grandal been able to hold onto the ball, which was ruled a wild pitch. Then, two singles and a game-tying walk, then Tim Anderson trying to be Ozzie Smith on the pivot for what could’ve been an inning-ending double play but turned into a two-run throwing error. Final score, Jays 6 Sox 2. Grandal went 0-for-2, putting his BA at .155; the two walks give him an OBP of .398. That translates into 28 runs scored and 21 RBIs. For you James McCann fans out there, the ex-Sox catcher his hitting .235 with 14 runs scored and 22 RBIS with a .295 OBP. McCann also has five passed balls and three errors to five passed balls and five errors for Grandal, who has thrown out five baserunners to McCann’s eight. In addition, the Sox have five more wild pitches than the Mets. Sox manager Tony La Russa keeps doing his Rick Renteria imitation, this time by saying Bummer had “buzzard’s luck” in the eighth, what with the wild pitch and an infield single. No, he didn’t. Buzzards don’t walk in the tying run on five pitches. And managers who keep offering excuses for their players risk losing both the clubhouse and the fan base by season’s end. Lord knows La Russa has already lost me.

On the One Hand...

On the one hand, you have to love last night’s come-from-behind 6-1 White Sox win over the Blue Jays. I mean, they were down 1-0 with one out in the seventh and Andrew Vaughn facing starter Robbie Ray, who’d already struck out 13 Sox hitters. I didn’t expect Vaughn to tie the game with a homerun to right center, though I was hoping his sacrifice fly for the go-ahead run in the eighth would’ve gone a couple of feet further for a grand slam. But no sense complaining, given the results. Also, hats off to Sox starter Carlos Rodon, who gave up but one run in five innings. Rodon also yielded six hits, three of them doubles, along with two walks. Rodon managed one 1-2-3 inning and yet somehow managed to escape with minimal damage. This Toronto team can rake, as the kids like to say. On the other hand, everything that’s wrong with baseball was on full view at Guaranteed Whatever. The two teams combined for 27 strikeouts in a game that took 3:34 to play. Compare that to last night’s two NBA playoff games. Hawks-76ers clocked in at 2:27, Clippers-Jazz at 2:31. You think those games weren’t loaded down with commercials? The Bulls’ last regular-season game, against the Bucks, was done in a mere 2:12. So, a regular-season baseball game lasts an hour longer than either of two NBA playoff games on the same night. What do you think people are going to want to watch on TV, strikeouts or scoring? The Jazz came back from thirteen down at halftime to win 112-109. I know what I’d be tempted to watch.

Do They Know? Do They Care?

MLB.com takes a “throw it on the wall and see if it sticks” approach to things. They’ve been in love with Shohei Ohtani from day one and will provide the glue necessary to keep him sticking. The next Babe Ruth will be taking the mound again on Friday. For the season, Ohtani sports a 2-1 record with a 2.76 ERA while batting .255 with 16 homeruns and 42 RBIs. Somewhere, both Willie Smith and the Bambino are spinning. If I were Angels’ manager Joe Maddon (and perish the thought), I’d keep Ohtani off the mound and in the batter’s box. That’s a subject not likely to be broached on MLB.com. Or owning up to overpromoting prospects, for that matter. The Mariners have just sent rookie outfielder Jarred Kelenic back to the minors. The 21-year old was mired in a 0-for-39 slump; on the season, Kelenic was batting .096 with 26 strikeouts in 83 at-bats. The sixth player taken in the 2018 draft, the lefthanded-hitting Kelenic will be working on his confidence at Triple-A Tacoma as much as anything. I did a search for Kelenic on the MLB.com website and got 138 hits, among them a video clip from MLB Tonight where Harold Reynolds compares him to Mike Trout and Sean Casey to George Brett. Talk is both cheap and dangerous; it only adds to the pressure Kelenic must be feeling right now. Too bad baseball doesn’t care. It's got a product to sell, which means throwing stuff against the wall. If Jarred Kelenic doesn’t stick, why should MLB.com care? There’s always another guy to take his place.

Wee-wee-wee!

Rooting for the White Sox is a little like being the Geico pig on a zipline, "pure adrenalin," or me on a roller coaster at Riverview (hey, I was very young and tall for my age). Either way, it’s hard to keep your balance by game’s end. Lucas Giolito couldn’t keep the ball in the park against the Tigers on Saturday, Dylan Cease shuts them down for seven innings on Sunday, leading to a 3-0 White Sox win that gave the South Siders three out of four against our friends from Detroit. Cease has made seven career starts against the Tigers, good for a 7-0 record and 1.91 ERA; he’s 6-13 against everyone else. Dylan, mirror as soon as Lucas steps away. Yesterday also marked Adam Engel’s regular-season debut, and Superman with a glove hardly missed a beat, preserving Cease’s shutout with a homerun-stealing catch over the wall against Niko Goodrum in the fifth inning. Adam, I beg of you, please stay healthy.

Lucas, Mirror

Lucas Giolito has spent the season so far deciding if he wants to be a number-one or umber-five starter. Off yesterday’s performance, Giolito looks to be leaning to the back end of the rotation. The purported ace of the staff gave up three homeruns in a 4-3 loss to the Tigers. Giolito had such a good time grooving a pitch to 28-year old rookie Eric Haase in the second inning that he did it again in the fourth. Giolito also gave up a longball to Miguel Cabrera, who swings every bit of the 38-year old he is. In his postgame remarks, Giolito said all the right things, how he made mistakes—three, to be exact—and has to do better. To which all I can say is, Time to put up or shut up, Lucas.

Happy, Sad and Mad

The White Sox had themselves a walk-off, 9-8 win over the Tigers last night, so I should be glad. The Sox bullpen coughed up six runs, and that makes me sad, angry even. Yasmani Grandal, aka Captain Crank, hit two solo-shots, and that leaves me bleh. Grandal, who revealed that his right knee has been giving him all sorts of problems since spring training, has his BA up to .154 and now has as many homers (nine) as he does errors and passed balls. Like I said, bleh. Manager Tony La Russa is channeling his inner Rick Renteria by the way he insists on using Evan Marshall, stats be damned. After giving up three runs—more like five, if you count the two inherited runners who scored on the first of his two gopher balls—in an inning of work, Marshall now sports a 6.23 ERA. That means Marshall is channeling his inner Jimmy Cordero, and then some. Cordero’s ERA last year was a slightly less outrageous 6.08. The Tribune, now officially circling the drain under new hedge-fund ownership, didn’t have a story in its hardcopy edition, and that makes me mad. The Sun-Times did, but that doesn’t make me any too happy. Why? The story was buried on page 18 in the S-T’s special weekend sports’ section. Pro football stories and pics took up the first five pages, including close to two devoted to the second coming of the USFL. Only in Chicago, and that makes me sadder yet.

One or the Other

In his weekly diary column last week in The Athletic, Joe Posnanski suggested shrinking the MLB regular season to 100 games. That would definitely change things, “But would the game be better? It’s an interesting thought experiment,” one that led Posnanski to believe, “Everybody might stay healthier.” Or not, because in yesterday’s NYT, James Wagner wrote on the explosion of injuries in baseball so far this season. According to Wagner, injuries from spring training through May have increased 31 percent for MLB players from 2019 to 2021. Wagner talked to a lot of people who think it’s a combination of going from 60 games in 2020 back to 162 this year along with factors unique to baseball. This is how Gary McCoy, a former minor league strength coach put it, that “baseball is the most asymmetrical sport on the planet; if you’re a left-handed hitting and left-handed throwing outfielder, you turn right for nothing.” (With the reverse holding for right-handers.) On top of that is what Wagner calls the “explosive actions” that define baseball—“firing a pitch, unleashing a swing, bursting out of the batter’s box.” Put it all together, and you have a recipe for injury. But is the same thing happening in the minors? So far, I haven’t heard anything. Jake Burger would seem to be the perfect test case. Taken by the White Sox in the first round of the 2017 draft, Burger twice ruptured his left Achilles in 2018; that was followed by a heel injury in 2019. Burger didn’t start playing again until last summer. And now? He’s starting at third base for Triple-A Charlotte, batting .276 with six homeruns and seventeen RBIs. So, how does Burger fit into the injury outbreak? My guess is we’re going to have to wait until midway through next season to get a sense of what’s happening. If injuries go down, then it’s connected to that 60-game season. If the injury rate persists, blame it on some combination of how baseball treats conditioning and the guiding philosophy that now holds sway over the game. Bigger and stronger and asymmetrical may lead—inevitably, no matter what precautions are taken—to the IL.

No, They're Not

The headline in today’s NYT reads, “Their Season is Over, but the Knicks Are Back.” Nope, they’re not. They tanked in the first round of the playoffs, and they’re going to tank again next season. You can bank on it. New York had homecourt advantage against Atlanta and still managed to lose in five. Head Coach Tom Thibodeau’s vaunted and ferocious defense resulted in losses of 2; 11; 17; and 14 points. For the series, Hawks’ point guard Trae Young averaged 29.2 points and 9.8 assists vs. just three turnovers (Zach LaVine, please note). Thibodeau had no answer for Young. He never does. New York being New York, the headline, along with the deluded thinking, is to be expected. The NYT bio for their Knicks’ beat writer notes he’s also a New-York based comedian. That would mean the joke’s on him.

Waiting for...Smoky Burgess?

No need for White Sox fans to waste time on waiting for Godot, not when Dylan Cease is around. Is this guy ever going to figure it out? God forbid he hold a lead against a good team. Cease and Sox lose to Cleveland, 6-5. Anyway, out of the blue, my daughter called yesterday and said, “We need somebody who can pinch-hit.” Talk about floored. I didn’t think any American League fan under the age of fifty even knew what a pinch-hitter was, and here’s Clare wanting to put one on our bench. Her choice is Yermin Mercedes. “I just don’t trust him as a fulltime player,” said the scout on the other end of the phone, and she may be right; Mercedes’ BA has tumbled about 100 points during the month of May and one game in June. The problem is, he can put his bat on just about any pitch thrown, but he doesn’t foul them off. He’s hitting them fair for outs. Maybe coming off the bench more would help the “Yerminator” regain his focus. I did a quick check, and did you know Matt Stairs hit the most career pinch-hit homeruns, twenty-three in all? (Calling Daniel Palka.) A secret weapon, that. I was happy when Smoky Burgess poked a single into right for Al Lopez and Eddie Stanky. But twenty-three homers? That works for me. There’s talk about limiting the number of pitchers teams can carry, starting next year. If so, something old has a chance of becoming new again. I hope so.

Pressure

When Clare was in high school, I advised her on how to deal with reporters, having been one myself. Have something to say and say it well, I advised. And she did, although it’s just as likely that she was a natural who didn’t need a bit of instruction. Maybe tennis star Naomi Osaka could use a bit of my daughter right now. The 23-year old pulled out of the French Open yesterday, citing depression and social anxiety, the latter of which only intensifies when dealing with the media. The problem for Osaka and all professional athletes is that media fuels sports. This is about more than a few classes on public speaking or tips on making eye contact. Some athletes like my daughter are at ease in front of a camera and microphone; others feel the dread Osaka alluded to in her statement. The only substantive suggestion I have is for reporters to treat their subjects with respect. Not everyone in the heat of the moment wants to comment on how and why they lost, or share how they “feel.” Personally, I feel with my hands. Doesn’t everyone? The individual sports also need to reconsider their commitment to immediate access. Reporters may want to question athletes minutes after a game because people say things in the heat of the moment. I’ve always thought performance speaks for itself. Analysis doesn’t require someone saying, “I screwed up.” Let athletes catch their breath, take a shower, compose themselves; then have the interview. Immediacy and spontaneity shouldn’t come at the cost of emotional health.