Everyone knows that the Chicago White Sox are struggling this season so far. They came in as a team believing that they can make a run at the World Series with this group. So far, they have failed to even meet the expectations of a bubble playoff team.
If the season ended today, they would be well out of a playoff spot. That is not good on July 1st at all. There is plenty enough of a sample size now. If they don’t turn it around quickly, they are going to be on the outside looking in when the postseason rolls around.
Everyone in the organization deserves blame. The person who deserves the most blame is Tony La Russa which in turn makes Jerry Reinsdorf look bad as he has forced TLR on this White Sox team. Is Rick Hahn or any of the players perfect? No, but that doesn’t excuse that the manager makes them all look worse.
When the Chicago White Sox lost to the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday, there was a lot to take away from the game. Shohei Ohtani dominated them but the rest of the pitching staff is very beatable. For some reason, however, the manager doesn’t put their best foot forward.
Tony La Russa seems to be playing a long-term joke on Chicago White Sox fans.
Leury Garcia was in the lineup on Wednesday while Andrew Vaughn was on the bench. Vaughn, despite being a somewhat bad outfielder, is a significantly more valuable player than Garcia. Vaughn’s worst day is better than him 90 percent of the time.
In the game, Garcia went 0-3 to the surprise of nobody. He came up to bat in key situations more than once and failed to produce every single time. Playing as often as he does is horrid for the Chicago White Sox with the stats that he has.
You almost have to try to be as bad as Garcia has been this season. He has a -0.5 WAR player which is amongst the worst in the sport. He has a slash line of .193/.220/.260 for an OPS of .480. He has struck out 41 times so far this season.
This has to be a troll pic.twitter.com/TSdGxkE7BK
— Southside Showdown (@SoxShowdown) June 30, 2022
This is the guy Tony La Russa needs in the lineup as often as he can get him there. Then after one of his worst showings, he goes to the media and tells them that he likes what he is seeing with his at-bats. It honestly feels like he is playing a joke on everyone.
Both Jake Burger and Andrew Vaughn were available to come hit off the bench but Tony would prefer Leury Garcia. His bad evaluation of talent in the year 2022 is one of the biggest reasons that this team is going nowhere. This proved it even more.
Rick Hahn needs to step in and get Leury off this team so that Tony La Russa stops using him this much. We all know that La Russa needs to go as well but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon enough. Until that does happen, the best players need to be on the roster no matter what.