Quitting not in cards for White Sox manager Robin Ventura

DETROIT — Robin Ventura said he is firmly committed to his job as White Sox manager, and team vice president Ken Williams reiterated his support for the man he hired three and a half seasons ago.

“I’m committed to getting this out of these guys,” Ventura said before the Sox (32-41) fell to the Detroit Tigers 5-4 Friday night. “I believe in these guys.”

And the Sox front office believes in Ventura, who was approached with the subject of resigning after Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg resigned Friday.

“I’m not even speaking of his position or what is going on over there, but where I’m at and the people I work with, if they didn’t have faith in me I’d already be gone,” Ventura said. “That’s the part you work with and you get through. But yeah, there is mean stuff that goes on. But that’s part of doing the job, really.”

Williams, who hired Ventura to manage when he was general manager in 2011, said talk about Ventura’s job “is a little overblown as far as I’m concerned.”

“He understands the gig,” Williams said. “His first year [2012] he almost won Manager of the Year. You don’t go from that to what people are talking about now because you’ve gotten worse at your job. As a matter of fact, he’s gotten exponentially better and more adept in a lot of situations.”

Ventura has remained steady and unruffled through the disappointment surrounding a team that was built to win during the offseason. He is aware of the criticism but doesn’t appear to be troubled by it.

“It’s easy when you’re winning,” Ventura said. “I think when it’s not going well you just have to have thick skin.”

Williams has been with the team on the current road trip, which began Monday in Minnesota, he said to get some answers as to what has gone wrong. The Sox fell to 2-3 on the trip after J.D. Martinez homered against Zach Duke in the inning to break a 4-all tie, the fifth solo home run of the game including Sox shots by Adam Eaton, Jose Abreu and Tyler Flowers.

The Sox had Avisail Garcia on third base with one out in the ninth against closer Joakim Soria but Carlos Sanchez popped up a safety squeeze attempt before Adam Eaton hit into a game-ending forceout.

Ventura, who is under contract beyond this season, seems destined to be here for the rest of this year. He is being evaluated as are the players but Williams seemed to put the onus on the players, calling hitting coach Todd Steverson “one of the best around.”

“We’ve got our shortcomings,” Williams said. “But it’s not with the coaching staff.

“With regards to Robin, listen, you only have so much control as a manager on your overall team play. He will be the first to admit they haven’t played well, they haven’t followed the direction as much as he would have liked. But what we have to look at in management, and it falls no further than my desk, what we have to look at is have we given him the right pieces?’’

“I signed off on all the free agent contracts and the trades and everything else. I happened to think that [general manager] Rick [Hahn] put together a hell of a club.’’

“The players have to meet the expectations.”

Williams and Hahn believed the Sox were built well not only for this season but the next two, “so we’re not going to abandon ship right now because of three months in what is a three-year plan.’’

Email: Dvanschouwen@suntimes.com

Twitter: @cst_soxvan