There were plenty of interesting notes from the Chicago White Sox’s California trip.
Starter Lance Lynn took umbrage with Los Angeles Angels shortstop Andrew Velazquez bunting Thursday. Third baseman Jake Burger disclosed after homering Sunday against the Oakland Athletics that tips from his wife, Ashlyn, helped.
There just wasn’t enough sustained success.
The Sox went 3-4 in the two series. After beginning their final homestand before the All-Star break with a 4-3 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, they are 13 games under .500 (37-50) and seven games back in the American League Central.
The trade deadline is less than a month away. And the Sox have to make some choices.
“Obviously we’ve got big decisions to make by Aug. 1,” general manager Rick Hahn said before Tuesday’s game. “I’ve seen quotes from players, I’ve heard from players directly, (manager) Pedro (Grifol) and the coaches have heard from players directly, that their priority and focus is getting things right here and figuring out a way for us to win the division and then do some damage in the postseason.
“I, or any of us in baseball ops, isn’t going to do anything that takes focus away from that by saying, ‘This is our direction, this is what we’re doing, this is where we’re committed.’ And we’re going to do everything in our power to continue to support the guys that want to get this thing right.”
While noting the Sox entered Tuesday with the best record in the division since May 1, Hahn said: “But at the same time, that’s only been a couple games over .500 (during that period), which obviously hasn’t made up for the deficit we carved for ourselves in April.
“It’s good to see the commitment. It’s good to see, to an extent, the results since May 1. But we obviously have a fair amount of work to do still ahead of us. We’ve won a decent amount of series the last two months, but it hasn’t proven to be enough yet.
“I’m not going to put a marker in the sand and say, ‘We need to rattle off 10 out of 14 or we’re doing this.’ But at the same time, we can see the calendar, we can see the games back, and you want to have a reason to believe that this thing’s going to get right between now and Aug. 1.”
Last month included a stretch of seven consecutive series against teams with records above or at .500. The Sox went 10-12.
“You go into something like that and you objectively know that, given the opponents, going roughly .500 is decent when you’re playing that type of stretch,” Hahn said. “But I’d be lying if I didn’t say there’s not part of you that knows that, given what we did in April (8-21 at the end of the month), we need to do better than that.
“When you look objectively at that stretch, it was fine. It wasn’t great, wasn’t terrible, wasn’t like April. But you feel like the margin of error isn’t great and you wish we would have maximized every opportunity we had to add to that win total during that stretch, despite the opponents.
“To get back into this, we’re going to have to beat good teams. And we probably held our own during that stretch, but would have been nice to do a little bit better.”
Now the Sox find themselves in a situation where there will be plenty of trade speculation. Many factors will contribute to the upcoming decisions.
“In the end, we’re going to make a decision about what is best for the long-term health of the organization, with obviously the priority being placed on the here and now because this is the only year we can control,” Hahn said. “Ultimately, if you’re overwhelmed by a potential return, that may tilt your balance more toward the future than the present. If you don’t play at a certain level, that may tilt your focus more toward the future than the present.
“But as we sit here today, the goal tonight is to beat the Blue Jays, go on a run and continue to give the guys in there who are fighting for this season a reason to believe it’s going to work.”
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