Chicago White Sox: This likely won’t happen in the playoffs

The Chicago White Sox lost the series finale to the Los Angeles Angels. It was their second loss in a row to the Angels which isn’t fun because they are not a good team. However, these types of losses won’t happen in the playoffs. They will certainly lose playoff games but they won’t be for the reasons that they lost this game. Sometimes, they are losing because they are purposely not at full strength.

For one, they are running a six-man rotation right now. In order to have more rest, Reynaldo Lopez is making starts. Carlos Rodon, Lucas Giolito, and Lance Lynn have all had extended time off so that they can get things right before the playoffs.

Lopez has done a good job filling in but he isn’t a playoff starter for this team. He didn’t have the best game on Thursday and it is a big reason why the White Sox lost. Dallas Keuchel wasn’t all that bad on Wednesday but he had a lot of walks which wasn’t good to see. You probably won’t see either of them on the mound that much in the playoffs so that is a start.

The Chicago White Sox are preparing all of their players for the 2021 playoffs.

Another thing is the resting of position players. Andrew Vaughn is currently on the IL dealing with something so he is ready for the playoffs. That is not the only thing they are dealing with as plenty of players are getting regular maintenance days heading into the playoffs.

Tim Anderson just returned from a short IL stint as well as he was resting his legs. Tony La Russa confirmed that Anderson will pretty much only be playing every other day until the playoffs roll around. It is good to have him fresh for the playoffs but there will be games where they miss his bat.

On Thursday, when the offense was pretty dry, they had their two best on-base guys sitting on the bench. Yasmani Grandal and Yoan Moncada are so important to this group and they were both unavailable. It is very hard to win when you have players like this out of the lineup. Once the playoffs roll around, they will be playing every day.

As you can see, they are comfortable with their current lead in the division. They are walking into the playoffs with relative ease so they are preparing for it. Having everyone ready is clearly a priority for Tony La Russa and Rick Hahn. They need to make sure they find the best way to get rest while avoiding rust. It is nice that they are in this position but games like this certainly won’t happen in the playoffs for those reasons.