White Sox aim to 'keep grinding' down stretch

MINNEAPOLIS -- White Sox right-hander Lucas Giolito took the mound on Thursday afternoon at Target Field, as he has done 28 other times this season.

But there was something different for his team in this start, a finality for an underwhelming 2022 campaign from the consensus preseason favorites in the American League Central. Hours after the White Sox lost their eighth straight and before their 4-3 victory over the Twins in the series finale, the South Siders had been eliminated from postseason contention with Seattle’s win over Texas late Wednesday night.

It was just 2 1/2 weeks ago when the White Sox were 1 1/2 games out of first in the division, trying to make a late-season push after manager Tony La Russa was sidelined by medical issues. Now, they will need a strong finish just to exit at .500 and hang on to second place.

“Obviously it’s disappointing. It’s frustrating, especially after getting a taste of it last year knowing what we are missing out on,” right fielder Gavin Sheets said. “But it’s the way it went, unfortunately. Frustrating year and all we can do now is play as hard as we can these next [six] games and come back and make a change for next year.”

So, what went wrong for the White Sox? To the players’ credit, their focus has stayed on the games remaining, even if the results have not equaled such focus.

There were injuries, starting with left-handed reliever Garrett Crochet (Tommy John surgery), right-handed starter Lance Lynn (right knee surgery) and Yoán Moncada (oblique) coming out of Spring Training. Then again, many teams dealt with impact players being sidelined for significant amounts of time.

Cleveland went out and won the division with an 18-3 run down the stretch, including a three-game road sweep of Chicago on Sept. 20-22. The White Sox worked through underperformance from key players such as Moncada, Giolito and catcher Yasmani Grandal, as well as a team that didn’t hit a great deal of home runs and a group not great at catching the baseball.

As a few pundits have pointed out, this 2022 squad was a bit like the one from ‘04. It was loaded with talent, but didn’t fit together as an ultimate winner.

“Something that we missed this year was consistency,” acting manager Miguel Cairo said. “Being consistent during the whole year as a team, as a unit, like in the field, at-bats, defense, pitching, being consistent. This is something that I saw that we need to get better.”

“Man, it’s a lot,” Giolito said on why the club fell short. “It’s hard to sum it up in one thing. Start with the injuries. Just not performing, at least for myself. I feel like we’d be in a better spot if I’d perform at least up to my normal career norms. But it is what it is. Life goes on.”

For the first time since Sept. 18 in Detroit, the White Sox were playing music and joking after a victory. José Abreu’s 38th double, coming in the eighth, drove home Mark Payton with the winning run.

The players have made the point of playing for pride numerous times since the Cleveland sweep, and it was reiterated postgame. While any postseason hopes ended on Wednesday, the playoffs were unofficially out of reach about one week earlier.

“Honestly, that series against Cleveland was the final nail in the coffin,” said Giolito, who allowed two runs in five innings while striking out six against the Twins. “At this point, just change the goal. Playing as hard as we can in the final stretch, pushing through and going into the offseason. Make the adjustments we have to make.

“We don’t want to finish below .500. We just keep grinding and try to end on a high note.”

Adjustments will be made for next season, beginning with a decision on whether La Russa will return for the final year of his contract. There’s a good chance this exact group won’t be run back in 2023, but one bad season doesn’t mean they can’t return immediately to prominence.

Look what happened in 2005.

“Obviously the focus is on these games right now because they still matter, they still count,” Sheets said. “But we know what we are capable of and we know we didn’t execute. And we didn’t do what we should have done this year.

“We believe that we can be right back in it next year. We have some extra motivation now and we all expect to be contending, and change what we did this year.”