TORONTO -- White Sox manager Pedro Grifol has seen some slow starts.

He was a quality control coach for the 2018 Royals when they started 7-21. The next year Kansas City began the season 9-20. Both teams were eliminated from contention by August.

For some teams, that sluggish start feels like a death sentence -- the season is over just as it started. But for Grifol’s 2023 White Sox, the feeling is different. Despite dropping a seventh-straight contest with an 8-0 loss to the Blue Jays on Wednesday, Grifol doesn’t sense any quit.

“I've been on teams that you go through a streak like this and you know the season’s over,” Grifol said. “This doesn’t feel like that. Doesn’t feel like that.”

Wednesday’s contest was the latest loss for a White Sox squad that sits at 7-18. Chicago hasn’t won a series yet this year, or even won back-to-back games; the club is 2-12 over its last 14 contests. It’s an undeniably sideways start for a team hoping to contend, but it’s not game over.

Eight teams this century have started the season with 10 or fewer wins in their first 25 games and gone on to make the playoffs. The 2019 Washington Nationals famously started out 19-31 and turned the ship around to win 93 contests, make the playoffs and win the World Series.

The key to that season turnaround, for Grifol, is learning from the slump. The first-year skipper didn't anticipate his opening campaign starting this way and he's had to adapt. Grifol has been hard on himself, he said, working to make adjustments amid the slide. He’s asking players to do the same, preaching more patience at the plate, aggressiveness on the mound and cleaner play all around.

“Adversity is an education,” Grifol said. “How you deal with adversity is also extremely important.”

He saw that progress from starter Michael Kopech on Wednesday. The line wasn’t spotless, as the Blue Jays cashed four runs across the starter’s five innings of work, but Kopech brought the aggressiveness Grifol wanted. 19 of Kopech’s first 24 pitches fell for strikes. The righty finished with a 64% strike rate, his second-highest of the season.

“He came out strong,” Grifol said. “He had 21 pitches and had recorded eight outs. He was doing well, he was on pace to have a big game.”

But where Kopech stepped forward on Wednesday, the offense fell back. Chicago’s bats were shut out for a second straight day, as the White Sox have managed just three runs in their last four games. Grifol sensed frustration after the Blue Jays scored early, he said, and that frustration manifested at the plate. On Wednesday, 10 of the last 11 White Sox batters went down via strikeout.

"I see frustration when we get behind,” Grifol said. “We've got to clean that up. Just because we get behind in a game doesn't mean we can't win a game. We've come back before."

Each player can find individual kernels of improvements during a slide like this. For Seby Zavala, it’s manufacturing more good innings. For Kopech, the focus is eliminating walks. But, ultimately, it will take more than learning from losses to claw back into contention. Education via adversity has to translate to wins.

“We’ve got to find a way to start winning,” Zavala said. “And we can't curl up in a ball.”