The latest sign that Chicago White Sox manager Pedro Grifol is losing the clubhouse
By Todd Welter
Chicago White Sox manager Pedro Grifol was unhappy with how the team lost on Sunday to the Baltimore Orioles.
Who could blame him?
The Sox were nearly no-hit in a 4-1 defeat. Danny Mendick scored the only run and had the only hit on when he pinch-hit in the eighth. Otherwise the Sox wasted a great outing by starting pitcher Garrett Crochet.
In fact, the Sox wasted a great outing by pitcher Erick Fedde on Saturday as the Sox blew a 3-0 lead. Getting swept and not generating much offense on Sunday might have been the breaking point for a manager who normally just says to flush it after a defeat.
Grifol was terse and unhappy during his postgame comments.
Grifol: "I don’t have much. Crochet pitched his ass off. We got no-hit through 8 (actually 7). We had a pinch-hitter break it up. The rest of the guys… Not the rest of the guys. Most of the guys were fucking flat today. Unacceptable. That’s all I got."
— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) May 26, 2024
The players seemed to disagree with his assessment.
Lee on Grifol: "I’ll let him comment on his statement. He’s going to feel that way and obviously we have a different feeling. He is entitled to his own opinion . I think that’s a valid reason. It’s nothing to hide about that ..."
— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) May 26, 2024
Korey Lee was the only hitter who managed to give the ball a ride off of Orioles' starter Kyle Bradish and even then, it was a flyout.
Lee was not the only player to disagree with Grifol's comments.
Mendick: "We played a tough stretch of games here. We played some good teams with good arms. I think at the end of the day we’ve all got to remember this is a big-league jersey. We’re pretty fortunate that we get to wear it every single day."
— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) May 26, 2024
Crochet: "We just played a stretch against some really good teams. I don't think it's necessarily fair to harp on the losses and beat ourselves up too much. We've just got to put together a full nine innings of good baseball."
— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) May 26, 2024
While it is not crazy for Grifol to expect his last-place team to still compete with the likes of the Orioles and the New York Yankees, Pedro might want to realize the Sox are in the middle of a 13-game stretch against three AL East teams. Then again, Grifol has never been known for his timing. This is the guy who called Andrew Benintendi "a consistent pillar" of the lineup despite his OPS being at the bottom of the league.
Grifol's comments also ignores that the White Sox faced a very tough pitcher on Sunday.
Gavin Sheets on how he perceived Pedro Grifol’s meaning of flat Sunday: “I’m not sure. I thought we ran into a pretty good pitcher with pretty good stuff.”
— Daryl Van Schouwen (@CST_soxvan) May 27, 2024
Even a baseball legend thought Pedro overlooked just how good Bradish is as a pitcher.
Pedro Grifol takes no prisoners after loss to Bradish, O’s. Chi Sox 1-9 in last 10 games vs AL East.. Pedro should check his minor league batting numbers before thinking it’s easy to hit against Kyle Bradish’s, and company…
— Jim Palmer (@Jim22Palmer) May 27, 2024
Grifol is not backing off his comments even after having a day to think about them and his players disagreeing with him.
Pedro Grifol ‘doubles down’ on ‘flat’ comments. pic.twitter.com/fTpDe74NZo
— Daryl Van Schouwen (@CST_soxvan) May 27, 2024
This is the latest sign that Grifol is losing the clubhouse.
It could also be they are finally buying into his flush defeat and moving on to the next game philosophy.
Playing the upset after a game card might be too late for Grifol. He should have shown this disappointment say in May of 2023 when he was still early in his managerial tenure. That was when he was still a blank slate.
Now he is a manager who gives infinite patience to struggling his veterans, makes terrible comments in his defense of them, and rips on rookies.
Plus, he is in conflict with his players. You would prefer for the team to get upset about getting swept, but all they are doing is keeping perspective much like the manager has tried to do through the eight months of game play he has done running the club.
It took 216 games for Pedro to rip into the club (the Sox are 76-140). Not exactly the right time to say the lineup made no adjustments, especially during the majority of those 216 games, the offense has had terrible at-bats.
That perspective and doubling down along with players not seeing eye-to-eye with him are just more reasons why Grifol's tenure should come to an end as soon as possible.
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