TORONTO — It’s times like these that will show what you’re made of.
At 7-16, riding a five-game losing streak with losses in 10 of the last 12 games following a 5-2 loss to the Blue Jays Monday at Rogers Centre, the White Sox are looking around for that chip that sat on their collective shoulder during spring training. The one players talked about after a disappointing 2022. The same one general manager Rick Hahn liked to discuss.
It was something to rally around.
But now the Sox are just trying to avoid getting chipped to pieces game by game before the first of May. For what it’s worth, the players are holding fast to the culture first-year manager Pedro Grifol set out to create during spring training. There is plenty of blame all around on the pitching, hitting and defense fronts, but no one is pointing fingers, not yet anyway.
“Stay together,” veteran shortstop Elvis Andrus said Monday. “Adversity, that’s when you get closer. That’s what defines what type of team you are going to be this year. Everybody seems relaxed, which I love. Nobody is panicking yet.
“You have to have a short memory, man.”
Tomorrow, the Sox will have to forget another poor start from Lance Lynn, who gave up four runs after two outs in the fourth after being staked to a 2-0 lead, as well as a three-hit effort from the lineup. They had no hits after the fifth inning.
After getting swept by the 20-3 Tampa Bay Rays over the weekend, the Sox got trounced by the 14-9 Jays. They are 0-4 on a rugged AL East road trip.
“We’re playing teams that are really hot and we’re still competing,” Andrus said. “I feel like we’re close. This part of the season, one positive week and we’re back in the race. Learn what’s not working, make adjustments and stay positive.”
The Sox are lucky to be in the AL Central, where the top team, the Twins, were 12-10 entering Monday. The defending champion Guardians are 11-12.
Grifol, facing a tough challenge in his first month as a manager, maintains his team will play better. How? Let him count the way, but pitchers need to attack the strike zone more and hitters need to stop chasing bad pitches. Grifol harped on the latter before Monday’s game against the Jays.
“We can’t chase at the rate that we’re chasing,” Grifol said. “It needs to grow. We need to make adjustments on those.”
Leadoff man Luis Robert Jr., who has four hits in his last 44 at-bats, struck out three times Monday, once on a 3-2 slider well out of the strike zone against Chris Bassitt, who would leave in the seventh inning with back tightness.
“When you chase, you’re not getting pitches that you can do damage with,” Grifol said.
Andrew Vaughn did damage with a Bassitt pitch in the third, driving a double to the left-center field wall to give Lynn a 2-0 lead. It scored Luis Robert Jr., who took a walk, and Andrew Benintendi, who singled. But Lance Lynn, after getting the first two outs of the fourth — the second on Robert’s leaping catch at the center field wall robbing Matt Chapman — gave up four runs in the fourth, three of them on Cavan Biggio’s home run.
Lynn (7.52 ERA) hasn’t won in five starts and didn’t on a night the Sox needed him to position themselves for their first series win of the season.
“If you watch TV and listen [on radio] to what’s said, your head will get a little dizzy but it’s a long season and you know how quickly things can turn around,” Andrus said. “You’re not going to win 10 in one. Take it one pitch at a time. Make one play on defense at time, make one pitch at a time and one at-bat at a time. That’s what the good teams I’ve been on do.”