The standings don’t look great for the White Sox but they could be worse. Manager Pedro Grifol claims not to pay much attention to other AL Central teams unless they’re playing the Sox.
“I don’t really look at the division that much,” Grifol said before the Sox beat the Astros 3-1 on Saturday night to snap a three-game losing streak. “This is the team I’m concerned with. We’ve got to fix our own stuff, our own troubles. We have to improve in a lot of areas. And other teams can’t win the division for us. We have to go take it. We have to improve and win the division ourselves.
“So, I wouldn’t know where we are at right now. I wouldn’t know how many games we are at.”
Despite entering Saturday 13-27 and off to the fourth-worst 40-game start in franchise history, the Sox began the day just 8 1/2 games behind first-place Minnesota. No, that’s obviously not what the Sox intended, but their situation could be much more dire.
Things got marginally better Saturday.
Luis Robert Jr.’s fourth-inning homer was his 10th of the season, and he drove in the go-ahead run in the eighth with a single to bring in Yoan Moncada. Later in the eighth, Seby Zavala added to the lead with an RBI single of his own, bringing in Robert.
Dylan Cease threw six scoreless innings.
Houston rallied in the seventh against Reynaldo Lopez and Joe Kelly, tying the game on Mauricio Dubon’s two-out infield single that bounced high and was caught by Kelly, who had nowhere to throw when Andrew Vaughn left first base uncovered to also make a play on the ball.
Ups and downs
The Sox got good news Friday with the return of Moncada (lower back soreness) and could see Jake Burger (strained left oblique) come back as early as Sunday after a brief rehab stint with Triple-A Charlotte.
“It’s probably been four days where I fully felt like I could do everything,” Burger said. “Obviously progressed quicker than I felt like it was going to. I’m just happy to feel back to myself.”
But this being the Sox, they couldn’t avoid bad news.
Before Saturday’s game, the Sox placed Elvis Andrus (strained left oblique) on the 10-day injured list after he hurt himself during his final at-bat Friday night. Replaced on the roster by Romy Gonzalez, Andrus is hitting .201 in 39 games but represents another Sox regular to miss time this year.
“You know what? That’s part of it,” Grifol said of the mixed news. “I think the whole league is going through something like that. We just gotta adjust and move on and continue to work. Just give an opportunity to somebody else to come in and do the job.”
The Sox also had to do that behind the plate with Yasmani Grandal, who was originally Saturday’s catcher but scratched due to his hamstring. Grifol said the Sox were being safe and would reassess whether Grandal would be able to play Sunday. The Sox manager also sounded optimistic Grandal would avoid the IL.