White Sox an early-season disappointment
The Chicago White Sox suffered through a disappointing 73-89 campaign last season, but there was more reason for optimism coming into this season on the South Side. Upgrades were made to both the pitching staff (Jeff Samardzija, David Robertson) and the lineup (Melky Cabrera, Adam LaRoche), and promising youngster Avisail Garcia was returning from an injury. While not many thought of the White Sox as a legitimate contender to win the World Series, if things broke right, a playoff spot wasn’t completely out of the question.
But right now, things aren’t looking good for manager Robin Ventura and Chicago.
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Since the two postponed games in Baltimore last week due to the riots, the White Sox have lost five straight games to plummet to the bottom of the AL Central with a record of 8-14. And it’s not just the fact that they lost those five games. It’s how they lost those games. Three of the losses were simply not competitive, including a 13-3 loss at the hands of the Minnesota Twins on Sunday. That hideous loss capped off a four-game sweep up in Minnesota.
When you look at some of the numbers, they aren’t pretty. The White Sox currently have the least amount of runs in the majors with 70. They’re last in home runs and total bases. Naturally, they’re near the bottom in the league in average, slugging and OPS. It’s just a mess. Garcia has been a bright spot and both Cabrera and slugger Jose Abreu have gotten off to solid starts. But there’s not much else going on there offensively. LaRoche, Alexei Ramirez and Adam Eaton have all been awful.
As for the pitching staff, that has been really bad for Chicago as well. The White Sox are 26th in the majors in ERA and 29th in batting average allowed. They also aren’t missing many bats, ranking 27th in strikeouts.
The starters have been especially rough. Samardzija has the best ERA out of the starters … at 4.78. Jose Quintana is at 5.28. Chris Sale is at 5.32 as he works his way back from an injury. John Danks is at a laughable 6.20. If there has been a bright spot, Robertson has been unhittable, as he hasn’t allowed a single run and has 18 strikeouts in nine innings.
Chicago’s struggles has Ventura on the hot seat. If things don’t improve soon, he might be on the way out. You’d have to think there will be some improvement, especially with some of those starters pitchers (and ESPECIALLY Sale), but the White Sox just aren’t a good baseball team right now. Luckily for them, there’s still plenty of time to go.
