Reminders of White Sox trades — future, past and present — were everywhere you looked Thursday afternoon at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Chris Sale, the team’s former ace, who was traded to the Red Sox in December 2016 to kick off a rebuild, was lowering his ERA to 2.79 while striking out 11 in seven innings in a 1-0 Sox victory in a makeup game against the Braves.
Aaron Bummer, traded to Atlanta for five players in the offseason, was sitting in the Braves’ bullpen. One of the five in the Bummer package, left-hander Jared Shuster, pitched three scoreless innings to lower his ERA to 3.18.
Shuster followed Chad Kuhl (three innings) and Justin Anderson and preceded John Brebbia and Michael Kopech on a combined three-hit shutout against a Braves team that flew into Chicago after splitting a doubleheader in St. Louis.
Trade talks and talk about trades dominate the woebegone Sox’ world as June nears its close, a month away from the July 30 trade deadline. With a 22-61 record, the Sox will be plenty active.
Trade rumors are part of their daily diet.
“You know they are there,” outfielder/first baseman Gavin Sheets said inside the Sox’ clubhouse. “We always have MLB Network on in here every day. You can’t avoid them.”
There’s no sense in getting beat down by it, not when you’re already losing games at a .735 clip.
“You embrace it,” Sheets said. “Good teams want good players. We have some guys in here who can really help some teams.”
Outfielder Tommy Pham and shortstop Paul DeJong already have said they expect to be traded to a contender, not the worst thing for a veteran player who wants to win, and right-hander Erick Fedde should expect it, too. Garrett Crochet and Luis Robert Jr., the biggest chips in general manager Chris Getz’s pocket, could be dealt, too.
Robert’s homer against Sale in the first inning accounted for the game’s only run. Robert was a first-time All-Star last year; Crochet should be a first-timer this year.
Crochet and Robert deals carry much more risk and costs than the others.
“It’s unfortunate there’s a possibility of guys getting traded, but I’ve said this before, they’re just possibilities,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “To execute a trade with the players we have, everything has to work perfect. It has to work for both sides, and sometimes it doesn’t.
“Just keep going. Just go about your business and prepare yourself to perform, help us win a baseball game and control the things you can control.”
The Sox snapped a four-game skid and won for the eighth time in their last 39 games.
Giving his starting pitchers an extra day of rest, Grifol managed a bullpen game starting with Kuhl, who was coming off a 99-pitch relief effort Sunday.
Kuhl has a 2.16 ERA in his last three appearances, Anderson extended his scoreless streak to 8„ innings, Brebbia has a 1.54 ERA in June and Kopech survived an error by DeJong with two outs in the ninth inning for his sixth save.
Sale gave up only four hits and walked one.
“I appreciated my time here; it was great,” Sale said.
“It will always be weird after pitching on the other side for so long. But you still have a job to do. Kind of looking down the same barrel I looked down a lot. But it was fun.”
