Why, Why, White Sox
Adam Dunn, Adam LaRoche, and now Todd Frazier, am I missing something? Why is it that whenever we go and get a big bat that is supposed to come in and make our lineup legit, once they put on that White Sox uniform, they all of a sudden look helpless at the plate? I can not, for the life of me, figure it out. I understand that when you go to get a guy that is more of a home run hitter, you aren’t exactly going to get someone who carries a high OBP, or even a high batting average, but come on.
Our offense in general is putrid, and it is becoming almost like a plague. Adam Eaton has really been the lone juggernaut, trying to carry this team almost by himself. Melky Cabrera and Brett Lawrie have also been heating up, which really brought me to my next question, why in the world did Robin Ventura sit Cabrera against Tampa when Cabrera was a career 5 for 10 versus Rays starter Matt Moore? To quote Forrest Gump, “I am not a smart man, but if your offense is struggling, why would you sit someone who tends to have a good day against a certain pitcher, or is just in general having a string of good days?” Or something like that, maybe I threw some of my own terms in to the equation, but you get the point.
So what is our issue? For starters, the White Sox have been absolutely horrible at getting on base, which is something we were also horrible at doing last season. Am I sensing a trend? Let us not pretend like Frazier is our sole problem with this
team, because he certainly is not. Our problem is that no one on this team, out side of Eaton and Cabrera, knows how to get on base effectively. Frazier has certainly not helped the issue, as every time he goes up to bat he is trying to hit the ball into outer space. It would be nice if he would calm down and just try to poke the ball in there.
Then of course you have Avisail Garcia, he likes to give the stadium a nice breeze as he swings at every pitch that comes his way, and turns around and walks back to the dug out. And when he does make contact, it’s usually straight up in the air and caught. When does this end? Every season we hear about Garcia’s “potential”, and then he comes out, and makes the same mistakes over and over again. I hate to break it to you, folks, but that “P” word is a killer in this league. There are a lot of guys in this league with that God forsaken “potential” that never realize it, and I have a feeling that Garcia may be one of those guys. Of course it would be so our luck to let him walk, and see him go somewhere like the Twins and be a 30 home run, 100+ RBI type of player. But at some point, enough is enough.
Okay so I have had my time to blow some steam off, so maybe we can talk about some of the good things. First of all, the pitching, the bullpen especially, has been excellent. I do not think you can ask for much more out of your pitching staff right now. And the defense, the defense has been spot on. Lawrie has made some nice plays at second base, and Eaton looks like a natural in the corners. Eaton just taking the right routes, and making things look easy out there.
Austin Jackson has been welcoming in center field, which I was kind of expecting. Frazier’s defense is top notch out there at third, as he has showed off numerous times. So we do have two of three things working for us, and I think that is what is so irritating. We look good in the field, and the pitching is there, we just need the bats to pick it up. After an 8-2 start, and now sitting at 8-5, it is starting to look like our season is hanging on the hopes that Frazier, Jose Abreu, Jackson, Lawrie, and Jimmy Rollins will get it together and start hitting the ball.