If Pedro Grifol sticks around long enough, he’ll learn to share the White Sox’ disdain for the Cubs.
From ownership on down, it’s no secret the South Siders don’t care for the Cubbies. Fans are in on the loathing, too, much more than the players, who enjoy the crowds but otherwise view the Cubs as just another opponent.
“It’s one city, two teams. That says it all,” Grifol said before the struggling Sox defeated the contending Cubs 5-3 Tuesday night at Wrigley Field.
“You’re competing, not only for wins and losses. Can it be any stronger a rivalry than one city, two teams?
“I haven’t experienced it here [at Wrigley] yet, I experienced it at home. It’s definitely intense, it feels different. We’ll see what it feels like here. I’m expecting the same thing.”
It’s at its best when both teams are contending, but you can blame the Sox for not holding up their end of the deal in 2023. No one had really noticed that the Sox had won their last five games at Wrigley Field heading into Tuesday’s crosstown tussle on the North Side.
In any other year, this might afford the wherewithal to stick the chests out a bit and enter the friendly confines at Clark and Addison with a little swagger.
But not this season.
The Cubs are winning and the Sox are not. Again.
“It’s been difficult for sure,” Sox center fielder Luis Robert said before the game through translator Billy Russo. “The results aren’t the ones we were expecting. And it’s even more difficult because when you have a good game [individually], you aren’t able to celebrate. You can’t because you have to respect the team, you have to respect your teammates and we’re a team.”
Robert, who had not started the previous three games due to a sprain in the pinky finger of his right hand, was able to celebrate a big moment in Tuesday’s game when he hit his 32nd homer in the seventh inning against Julian Merryweather.
As the no-doubter was carrying 422 feet, Robert spun around toward the Sox dugout and flipped his bat aside, enjoying this moment while the Sox were ahead.
A young fan wearing a Cubs jersey in the first rows behind the on-deck circle showed Robert a finger and not his pinky. Robert took his index finger to his lips as if to silence him.
It had to be a brief but satisfying moment for a grumpy, fed up Sox nation seeing the Cubs in hot pursuit of their sixth postseason appearance in nine years, seven seasons removed from a World Series title celebrated one month before the Sox embarked on a rebuild that produced only two one-and-done postseason showings.
While the Sox (47-72 record after a three-game sweep against the Brewers at home over the weekend) staged a sell-off at the trade deadline two weeks ago, the Cubs were buying. And then questions about clubhouse culture and leadership made national headlines, leaving Grifol in his first season trying to salvage something from the rubble.
In a season like this, finding anything worth keeping, like a spoiler-style win against the Cubs, would be worth keeping.
Elvis Andrus’ two-run single against Kyle Hendricks in the second inning was the second-biggest hit of the night for the Sox, giving them a 3-2 lead. Andrew Benintendi’s double in the ninth scored Andrus, who had singled against Adbert Alzolay and stole second, for the Sox’ fifth run.
Touki Toussaint pitched four-plus innings, surviving five walks and allowing three runs, two of them on homers by Ian Happ in the first and Seiya Suzuki in the fourth.
Closer Gregory Santos entered in the eighth and recorded a five-out save to close it out.