Saturday’s 3-0 loss to the Royals at Kauffman Stadium marked the latest embarrassment for a White Sox offense still searching for answers. The White Sox have already been shut out in three of their first eight games this season. During that stretch, they have been limited to just 13 runs. Not only has the team struggled to score, they have done a poor job of putting themselves in a good position to be successful.
Opposing pitchers had a combined 3.64 ERA against the White Sox last season, the second-lowest average of any team in the MLB behind only the Athletics. The team tried to address some of these issues by hiring Marcus Thames as their new hitting coach. It marked their third hitting coach in as many seasons. However, the lineup arguably got worse over the offseason. Losing Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert Jr. early in the 2024 campaign dealt a huge blow to a lineup that was already devoid of consistent run producers. Having a good approach at the plate and getting ahead in the count is more important than ever. The White Sox failed to do either on Saturday - which was a perfect snapshot of their shortcomings this season.
In 30 plate appearances, White Sox hitters got ahead in the count (at any point of the at-bat) just 10 times. The first White Sox hitter to get ahead in the count was Lenyn Sosa when Royals starter Micheal Wacha threw him a ball to open the top of the third inning to put him up 1-0. Sosa would go on to hit a single, which turned out to be the first of just three hits for the Southsiders.
Royals pitchers only needed a combined 105 pitches to record 27 outs most of which they did not have to work very hard for. The average White Sox at-bat lasted just 3.5 pitches, with only nine at-bats lasting five pitches or more. Andrew Benintendi was the first White Sox player to draw five pitches in an at-bat when he stuck out to lead off the top of the fifth inning. The White Sox longest at-bat of the day came courtesy of Andrew Vaughn when he struck out on eight pitches to lead off the eighth inning.
Yoan Moncada and Dominic Fletcher each drew a walk on Saturday, which is something the White Sox offense has been lacking. However, Moncada’s walk in the fourth inning was followed by a pair of strikeouts while Flectcher’s was followed by a 4-6-3 double play to end the eighth inning. This leads us to the next issue the White Sox have faced- getting runners into scoring position.
On Opening Day the White Sox did not have one player reach second base all afternoon. On Saturday only two players made it into scoring position thanks to a pair of doubles from Martin Maldonado and Paul DeJong. However, even when the White Sox do have runners in scoring position they have struggled to capitalize. In 50 plate appearances with RISP the White Sox are batting .095 with five RBIs.
Many of these issues start with the top of the order. Andrew Benintendi is being paid to work good at-bats and get on base at the top of the lineup. On Saturday he went 0-4 with a strikeout. He saw four pitches in his first at-bat and five in his final three which was more than the average White Sox hitter saw, but still an incredibly low bar to clear. While part of his job is to help the rest of the lineup see more pitches he still needs to get on base. On the year he is slashing .094/.121/.094 which is not exactly the type of numbers Pedro Grifol expects from his 75 million dollar leadoff man.
Grifol is also relying on Andrew Vaughn to be a major run producer in the middle of the lineup. Vaughn is batting .185/.267/.452 and has struggled to put the ball in the air. On Saturday he went 0-4 with two strikeouts and two ground outs which raised his groundball percentage to 52.2%. Before Robert Jr. went down with an injury Vaughn was in a position to drive in runs from the cleanup spot. Now he has the same duty as the No. 3 hitter but will be getting more at-bats. Given the way he has started the 2024 campaign that does not bode well for the offense.
6 + 4 + 3 = #HEYHEYHEYHEY pic.twitter.com/rHB12Ysojw
— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) April 6, 2024
Sandwiched in between the two is Yoan Moncada. Moncada hasn’t been nearly as bad as Benintendi or Vaughn to start the season but has struggled nonetheless. Grifol has Moncada batting second because of his bat control and the knack he showed for getting on base in the 2019 and 2021 seasons. While he did draw a walk on Saturday, he struck out his other three at-bats. One of those strikeouts came with a runner on third base to end the inning. He still owns a .331 OBP on the year but it has only translated into three runs because the rest of the offenses has failed to keep the line moving.
When your top two hitters in the lineup are struggling to get on base and your number three hitter hasn’t shown much of a knack for driving in runs then scoring is going to be hard to come by. As you go down the rest of the lineup you'll find four players hitting below .200 this season.
Heading into the season many people expected that runs were going to be hard to come by. It's one of the reasons Grifol wanted the White Sox to be so aggressive on the basepaths and try to play small ball to manufacture runs. However, it is hard to play small ball when you don't have base runners. When you do have base runners you can't afford to squander them with bad baserunning decisions like we saw on Friday night when Gavin Sheets tried to score on a pop fly to shallow right field.
According to White Sox beat writer James Fegan, the 13 runs scored through eight games is the fewest a White Sox team has scored to this point in the season since 1968. With Robert Jr. potentially out for months, the approach at the plate is going to have to improve if the White Sox want to avoid offensive ineptitude of historical proportions.
