ANAHEIM, Calif. — Tim Anderson is battling through a crazy-bad slump, and manager Pedro Grifol has waited patiently for him to break out. He’s so confident it will happen at any moment that he kept Anderson in the second spot in the lineup for the White Sox’ 9-7 win in the series finale Thursday afternoon against the Angels.
Grifol dropped Anderson from his customary leadoff spot on June 17 in Seattle, bumping Andrew Benintendi from second to first, where Benintendi is batting .319/.375/.394 in 23 games.
The left-handed hitting Benintendi got a planned no-start day Thursday against left-hander Patrick Sandoval, and Grifol kept Anderson in the two-spot, choosing to bat rookie second baseman Zach Remillard first after Remillard got three hits for the second time in 10 games in the Sox’ 11-5 win Wednesday night. Remillard responded Thursday with two singles, a walk and two RBI.
“He gets on base. He does the little things that help us win games,” Grifol said, explaining his decision to bat Remillard first. “He’ll take a walk, he’ll take a hit by pitch. Bunt. Got good energy. There’s a lot that I like.”
Anderson was hitless over his last 24 at-bats and is 2-for-43 (.047) with three walks in his last 12 games, but he blooped a single to center in the first inning and bounced a single between third and shortstop in the third. He scored after both hits.
“It’s one of those things where guys go into slumps,” assistant hitting coach Chris Johnson said. “Even the greats, Tim Anderson, you know? Yes, we all know he’s a .300 hitter and right now he’s struggling and finding himself like anybody else. All hitters go through it. The good thing about Tim is when he figures it out, he’ll take off. And you’ll see Tim Anderson.”
He hasn’t taken off just yet, but even with a flyout and two strikeouts followed the hits, leaving him with a .231/.270/.269 hitting line with no homers, no triples, nine doubles and eight stolen bases in 58 games, maybe this was a start.
“Yeah, I hope so,” Anderson said. “I hope so. Just keep working and, you know, trying to get back to my normal self. I’ve been working.”
Before facing Shohei Ohtani on Tuesday, Johnson said Anderson “was out here 50 minutes, hitting, early work, hitting Ohtani’s slider on the iPitch.’’
“He’s working his tail off,” Johnson said. “He’s out here every day. Buying into the things we’re saying, so there’s no complaints there.”
The Sox are 174-132 when Anderson starts and 71-89 when he doesn’t since the beginning of the 2020 season. His 15 career leadoff homers rank second in club history behind Ray Durham (20), but Anderson hasn’t homered since July 15 in a 6-2 Sox win at Minnesota.
In the field, Anderson has made six errors and is minus-6 in defensive runs saved, per FanGraphs. Grifol has been nothing but supportive throughout the season for the 2021 and 2022 All-Star, by keeping him at or near the top of the lineup and by talking him up publicly.
“Timmy showed me today, 2-for-5 with two runs scored,” Grifol said. “In the last three or four days he’s hit the ball hard. Two hard yesterday. The fact that two fell for him today, they’re going to even out for him. He looks good at the plate, he’s taking pitches.
“It’s really important for Timmy to do what he did today.”
On Wednesday, Anderson was 0-for-5 but did not strike out and made good contact twice, but Grifol went out of his way to praise a contribution made on the bases.
“It goes unnoticed but that inning where [Andrew Vaughn] hit the double that cleared the bases, TA went headfirst on a forceout at second base that he beat,” Grifol said. “That was big-time baserunning and a big-time safe call for us. It kept the bases loaded.”
