An acute lack of swing-and-miss stuff has inhibited the disappointing Cardinals pitching staff and held back starting pitcher Miles Mikolas after an All-Star campaign last year.
The antidote proved to be the seasonlong tendencies of the White Sox’ offense, which came up empty in a 3-0 loss to the Cardinals on Saturday.
Boasting the highest swing rate and the least pitches seen per plate appearance in the American League entering the game, a banged-up Sox lineup proved to be a proper foe for Mikolas to pile up weak contact early in the count.
In seven scoreless innings against Mikolas, Sox hitters managed just four singles on 95 pitches. Back-to-back one-out singles from Eloy Jiménez and Andrew Vaughn in the ninth set up half of the four at-bats with runners in scoring position the Sox had all afternoon, but to no avail.
“Sometimes it’s on us and sometimes the other guy on the other side did a good job,” said Sox manager Pedro Grifol. “We missed a few pitches that we probably should have hit. We chased a little bit. We’ve got to get back to the drawing board and continue to work. We’ve got to make sure we stay in the strike zone.”
Other than a fourth inning Vaughn fly out to the wall with two runners on, the most excitement in a White Sox offensive inning might have come when Cardinals reliever Giovanny Gallegos was instructed by home plate umpire Lance Barrett to wipe off his forearms with a towel with two outs in the eighth. Two years ago in this same ballpark, Gallegos had his hat confiscated by now-retired umpire Joe West after it was inspected for foreign substances.
After inducing an inning-ending groundout from Tim Anderson, an irked Gallegos mimed out wiping his forearms to the Sox dugout. But both Grifol and crew chief Alfonso Marquez said the move to have Gallegos wipe rosin off his non-throwing arm was not initiated by a complaint from the Sox.
The sixth shutout loss of the White Sox season spurned a solid effort from recent waiver claim Touki Touissant, who allowed two earned runs in five innings in a spot start and struck out five. Touissant did not allow an extra base hit, nor did any pitcher on either side until Cardinals rookie Jordan Walker lifted a solo shot off Tanner Banks in the ninth. Sox pitching has now recorded nine games of 14 strikeouts or more this season—all losses.
With multiple members of the Sox rotation being trade candidates at the end of the month, Touissant figures to get more opportunities. Not that he’s in the position to make assumptions.
“I’m glad I’m just here,” Toussaint said. “I’ve been everywhere so I’m just happy I’m here.”
With much of the current members of this team, the 2020 White Sox offense led the American League in home runs. At the All-Star break in 2021, Sox hitters were second in the AL in both walks and on-base percentage, as a similar group of reactive hitters were taught to channel their aggression toward pitches they could drive and elevate.
The steady erosion of that team approach has led to a Sox offense that struggles to reliably produce baserunners, has too many home runs go for solo shots, and is vulnerable to sleepy offensive efforts like Saturday.
“We had a ton of ground balls too, which is what we’re trying not to do,” Grifol said postgame. “We’re trying to elevate the baseball.”
“I definitely think there’s always room for growth in that area,” said Vaughn, who had two hits Saturday, about avoiding ground balls. “I think it comes to more pitch selection.”
And games like Saturday, where the offense cannot take advantage of Touissant providing a chance to win in a pinch, are prohibitive to the Sox stringing together the sort of run that would be necessary to ever pull out of the hole created by a 7-21 start to the season.