The White Sox didn’t look like a team with a mastery of the little things Friday night.
A 9-7 loss had its positives, such as shortstop Colson Montgomery’s game-tying home run and a late rally resulting from a patient approach at the plate. The Sox walked eight times in the game.
But outs on the bases and a critical throwing error made it hard for fans to forget that this is still a rebuilding organization, one trying to exorcise the mistakes that defined recent losing seasons.
“There’s been some good stuff; there’s been stuff where we haven’t progressed as much as we’d like,” manager Will Venable said Saturday. “But for us, our group and the spirit of continuing to fight for those things and continuing to work on those things has been great, knowing that we have to continue to work and continue to get better. But the process has been good.”
The Sox, in the thick of general manager Chris Getz’s slow-moving overhaul, are on pace for another 100-loss season.
It’s obvious the problems weren’t going to be solved overnight, not even with the installation of Venable, the second consecutive managerial hire tasked with eliminating those persistent on-field mistakes.
Late in August, the Sox are still showing how much work there is to do.
Catcher Kyle Teel and third baseman Miguel Vargas ran into outs at the plate Friday. Teel ended the first inning, and Vargas was gunned down trying to tag and score on a popout down the third-base line in the eighth inning. The latter proved far more costly, halting the rally that had sawed three runs off a four-run deficit against Twins relievers struggling to find the strike zone.
“It was on me,” Vargas said after the game. “I thought I had a good shot, and then I didn’t. . . . It’s on me 100%. It wasn’t the play for me to go and score, especially when we have [Luis Robert Jr. batting next]. I take all the responsibility, and I have to be better.”
“If we were able to take that back, we would, obviously,” Venable said Friday. “There was potentially some miscommunication after talking to [third-base coach Justin Jirschele] about it. He took responsibility for that. For me, got to clean that up. It’s a big spot.”
Shouldering the blame is plenty admirable. But as the Sox aim to do the right kind of work behind the scenes, progress only has appeared in short bursts, with victories in even shorter supply.
Though the Sox have continued to greatly outpace their first-half offensive production since the All-Star break — they have a .778 team OPS in the second half compared to a .639 mark in the first — their hot stretch in the middle of July seems like a distant memory. They’re 4-14 since that 10-4 post-break surge.
Montgomery, Teel and fellow rookies Edgar Quero and Chase Meidroth have been huge reasons for positivity during this latest rebuilding season, and Getz can point to a solid core of position players that was harder to see before the season began.
The pitching, lately, has been the greater issue, with young arms Jonathan Cannon and Sean Burke demoted from the big-league team and highly ranked left-handed prospects Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith in the middle of disappointing seasons.
But the rookie position players aren’t immune from doing rookie things, such as Meidroth’s errant throw on a double-play attempt Friday that led directly to two unearned runs, obviously important in a two-run loss.
Even though Meidroth has looked good, Vargas has improved and Montgomery has made statement answers to long-standing questions about his glove, these Sox are still not a good defensive team statistically. They started Saturday 25th in the majors with minus-22 defensive runs saved and 22nd with minus-13 outs above average.
It all points to the Sox’ continued slog toward their goal of contention, the main task Venable has been assigned to accomplish, even if it’s expected to take time.