There is so much to change and so little time.
For the Sox to be relevant in 2024, that is.
First-year White Sox manager Pedro Grifol said a quick turnaround isn’t beyond the realm of possibilities.
“We have to really evaluate our roster and change that mindset to where we are thinking about one thing and one thing only,” Grifol said Tuesday. “Not just winning baseball games but winning a world championship. It’s not about [the AL Central is] a weak division, we have a chance. This is about developing a team that can win a world championship. That’s what this is about.”
Grifol went so far to say the Sox can attain that as soon as next season. That would be quite the drastic turnaround for a team on pace to lose 100 games.
“I think we can, yeah,” he said. “I really do.”
“We had a lot of underperformance across the board,” said right-hander Dylan Cease, who counts himself among them but allowed just one run in 5 1⁄3 innings in a 6-2 win against the Royals in Game 1 of a doubleheader split Tuesday. “So hopefully that lights a fire and we come back ready.”
Time to evaluate
A significant influx of pitching would have to come from outside the organization for the Sox to even sniff playing .500 baseball in 2024.
As they pinpoint pitching targets in free agency or trades, Grifol and general manager Chris Getz will evaluate the roster and “which direction we want to go with this club,” Grifol said.
Grifol says the talent in place is good but “we have to get better offensively, on the pitching end, defensive end, base running, I mean all aspects of the game. A lot of that falls on me.”
“We have to coach better, we have to have better plans, we have to hold each other accountable more. I mean, everything. Everybody has to get better here. There’s nothing where we can actually look to this year and say ‘OK, that was good enough.’ Nothing was good enough this year.”
It’s safe to say Grifol envisions a roster of 26 max-effort, team-oriented players.
“Makeup. Skillset, mindset, [good] teammate,” Grifol said.
“So, there’s a lot to be done here. We are going to work tirelessly to get that done here.”
Historic comeback
The Sox lost 11-10 in Game 2 after coming back from a 9-0 deficit to tie with eight runs on seven hits in the sixth. Seven straight batters reached base, including Gavin Sheets on a three-run double. Sheets scoring the tying run on Lenyn Sosa’s sacrifice fly.
It marked the fourth time in franchise history the Sox came back from a nine-run deficit, most recently June 13, 1978 against the Indians in a 10-9 Sox win.
Deivi Garcia, making his Sox debut, gave up the go-ahead run in the seventh and Michael Kopech allowed three stolen bases and another run in the ninth.
Cease sharp, Toussaint routed in split with Royals
Cease struck out eight batters, but Touki Toussaint was bombed for eight runs while recording only three outs in Game 2. Sheets, who will share right field with Trayce Thompson after Oscar Colas’ demotion to Charlotte, drove in two runs with a single in a five-run first in Game 1.
This and that
Second baseman Michael Massey, a Brother Rice graduate and Sox fan growing up, hit his fifth homer against the Sox this season in Game 2. Massey has 12 homers, including a 441-blast against Cease last Tuesday in Kansas City.
*Garcia was the 56th player used by the Sox this season.