White Sox still searching for missing long ball

CHICAGO -- The White Sox are suffering from a power deficiency, one that's becoming especially noticeable at home.

During Minnesota’s 8-2 victory Tuesday night at Guaranteed Rate Field, the Twins went deep five times. The White Sox did not clear the fences once.

The White Sox rank 25th in baseball with 32 home runs at the Rate and sit 27th overall with 62 homers in total. It’s an issue contributing to the White Sox offensive woes.

“It’s obvious the home run ball has played a huge part in our success,” said White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal prior to his team’s fifth straight loss to the Twins this season and seventh straight overall. “I also think it plays a huge part in any team’s success.”

“They had pitches to hit, and they didn't miss them,” White Sox manager Tony La Russa said. “That’s to their credit.”

Max Kepler started the scoring Tuesday with a home run off Michael Kopech (2-6) on the first pitch he saw with two outs in the third. Jose Miranda hit a two-run homer in the fourth, followed by Jorge Polanco and Alex Kirilloff going back to back during a three-run fifth.

All four homers came off Kopech, who allowed six runs on eight hits in 4 2/3 innings while striking out five and walking four. Kopech is 0-4 with a 6.86 ERA over his last four starts and allowed a season-high in runs and hits Tuesday. After not giving up a home run in 10 of his first 11 starts, the right-hander has yielded seven over his last four.

La Russa spoke postgame of a couple fixable things for Kopech to work on with pitching coach Ethan Katz, but wouldn’t go into detail.

“It was more so about getting back to the drawing board, figuring some things out,” Kopech said. “Obviously I didn’t make some well-executed pitches today. I left a lot over the middle of the plate and got taken advantage of a lot.

“Just have to do a better job of executing. Sharpening some stuff up. We’re going to figure it out. It’s not like there’s any defined answer. I know what that was. It wasn’t good. We’re going to work.”

Kirilloff homered again in the seventh off Vince Velasquez, as the Twins’ four through seven hitters combined for 1,992 feet of home runs.

Injuries have been part of the problem for the White Sox. Grandal, Yoán Moncada and Eloy Jiménez have missed significant time, with Jiménez expected back in action Wednesday and Grandal leaving for Double-A Birmingham to begin an injury rehab assignment on the same day. All three have long ball capabilities.

But in Grandal’s mind, fighting through without the home runs might be a benefit in the long run.

“The good thing is we figured out different ways to manufacture runs. It’s made us a better team,” Grandal said. “So once the home runs come back, it’s going to be a well-rounded offense where we’re not only winning games with the long ball, but we’re winning without the long ball.

“We’ve also seen really good pitching. Those caliber guys, you have to win with different things. You just can’t hope for that big swing.”

José Abreu, who leads the team with 10 homers, extended his hitting streak to 10 with a single in the eighth following a 35-minute rain delay. Josh Harrison knocked out two hits to get to 1,000 for his career, and pitched a scoreless ninth for the highlight of an otherwise dreary evening.

Wednesday afternoon’s series finale becomes a big game for the White Sox (38-41), who enter at 6 1/2 games behind the Twins (47-37) in the American League Central. The offense needs to produce a bit more to take some of the pressure off the pitching, although La Russa doesn’t think it’s all about the home run.

“We just want to be good hitters,” La Russa said. “When we hit the ball well -- and we centered a few of them today. [Andrew] Vaughn hit two line drives. When we center the ball more consistently, we'll get production we need, whether it's home runs or runs scored or whatever."

“This is what our job requires us to do, show up and not worry about the standings or what’s going to happen over the next couple of months,” said Harrison, whose team is 0-2 to start a stretch of 19 straight division games. “We have to take it one day at a time. We do that, we’ll be where want to be.”