Chicago White Sox: Mid-Term Grades

Jul 8, 2014; Boston, MA, USA; Chicago White Sox shortstop Alexei Ramirez (10) bats during the fourth inning against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

• Offense: C
The offense could be better, but it has been worse in past seasons, so I was close to giving out another B-minus here, but I just couldn’t.

The plus of this offense has been Jose Abreu‘s emergence as a home run hitter with an MLB-high 29 home runs this season. The first baseman has built back up his batting average to .292 and in his past 10 games has a BA of .375 with 15 hits.

What I like about Abreu is he also hits more than homers, tallying 20 doubles and one triple, giving him 73 RBIs on the season. He’s walked 22 times in ’14.

Adam Dunn actually has a better on-base percentage than Abreu, but his batting average is just .224. That would be OK, but he has just 14 home runs in that average and he’s played in 78 games. Dunn is paid to hit home runs, and he just hasn’t had the numbers he should at this point of the season.

Besides Gillaspie (who is batting .326), no other regular on the White Sox is batting over .300. After Abreu’s .292 average, in third is Alexei Ramirez at .282, followed by Moises Sierra (50 games) at .271 and lead-off hitter Adam Eaton at .270 in 74 games.

I think the biggest disappointment for the White Sox offense is catcher Tyler Flowers. He had such a great April, but since then he went back down to a .218 batting average with 102 strikeouts (two more than Dunn) and just 56 total hits on the year. In his past 10 games, Flowers is batting 0.91 with three hits in 33 at-bats.

Also with Flowers, 29 of his 56 hits this season came in April, followed by 15 hits in May and nine hits in June. Thus far in July (10 games), he has just three hits.