Maybe it was a clever way of pushing for a move to Nashville, Tennessee, proving they simply can’t win in Chicago. Maybe it was the curse of Ken Williams and Rick Hahn playing out on tape delay. Maybe they’re really just this bad.
The White Sox completed a seven-game homestand Wednesday without a single victory. Sounds remarkable because, well, it is. In their sordid history, this is something no other Sox team could ever pull off in a homestand lasting at least seven games.
“There is no magic wand here,” manager Pedro Grifol confirmed after the latest loss Wednesday. “No magic remedy.”
You gotta believe him because if the Sox had somehow stumbled across a magic wand, it would have come into play by now.
There are so many questions surrounding this pathetically bad 15-42 team, but one seems more nagging than the others: How did this team — with this manager, general manager and chairman — win 15 games?
Somewhere along the way of this epically bad start, Grifol called out his players for not having enough energy, and shortstop Paul DeJong confirmed that notion, telling the Sun-Times: “We’re all guilty of taking something for granted here and there.”
Seems laughable at this point that the Sox could take anything for granted. Seems surprising Grifol bothered to notice after spending most of the season defending his underachieving players.
So now, the Sox open a weekend series Friday in Milwaukee. They escaped Chicago, where a rain delay was one of the highlights of the last homestand.
They’re stuck with an unproven manager the previous GM handpicked. They’re stuck with a frustratingly fragile lineup that has hexed them for years. And they’re stuck with a complacent chairman, who can overlook this historically bad record secure in the knowledge that he won’t have to eat another failed manager’s contract this season.
Jerry Reinsdorf shocked the baseball world last August by dumping longtime executives Williams and Hahn. In announcing those overdue moves, Reinsdorf claimed the Sox were entering the “competitive window of this rebuild.”
Those words looked good on paper and even summoned some positive feelings. Then Reinsdorf named Chris Getz — previously in charge of player development for an organization that struggled to develop players during his tenure — as GM after claiming the Sox would conduct a thorough search for a single decision-maker. And Reinsdorf confirmed Grifol would remain as manager. The overriding decision to keep Grifol, who had inspired zero confidence that he was suited for the job? The two years and change left on his contract.
So it’s not a shock that Grifol stood up for Reinsdorf this week, insisting his boss was the greatest boss.
“I’ve known Jerry for a year and a half,” Grifol told the Sun-Times. “Nobody wants to win more than he does. I know that for a fact because I’m the one who gets phone calls, and I talk to him. I get text messages.”
We can only imagine what’s contained in those text messages. The only one that seems to fit now is “YOU’RE FIRED!”
But that’s not Reinsdorf’s style. Despite Grifol’s kind words, Jerry is OK with all of this. He’ll ride it out till at least the end of this season. The Sox are on pace to lose 119 games.
Grifol’s proponents . . . wait, he has none outside of the Sox’ front office. But let’s imagine he did have fans in his corner. They could point to the injuries of Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert Jr. Nobody is surprised these guys are hurt. They have their own parking spots on the injured list. A Sox roster must be built with the idea that these guys will be hurting.
The starting pitching hasn’t been bad. Sox starters have a 3.05 ERA in the last 22 home games, a stretch that includes that seven-game stinker that ended this week.
The culprit is a lineup that has an MLB-worst .214 batting average and .606 OPS. Grifol has done little to mix things up with his lineup, instead insisting he still believes in his guys. This would be acceptable if the Sox were in a full-scale rebuild, but that’s not what this is.
Which takes us back to that burning question: How did this team win 15 games?
