The White Sox hit four home runs. Dylan Cease struck out ten batters in the first five innings and the White Sox built themselves a 4-0 lead. But all that still wasn't enough to hold off the Dodgers on Thursday night.
The White Sox coughed up the lead thanks to a Chris Taylor grand slam with two outs in the sixth inning, then ran themselves out of a scoring opportunity in the seventh inning and eventually lost the game on a walk-off in the 11th inning.
"Well-fought game. It was a tough ballgame," Pedro Grifol told reporters after the loss. "A tough one to lose, too. A four-run lead. It's a tough one to lose. Four homers."
Grifol can't be blamed for the bullpen not doing its job, but fingers are slowly turning toward him as the losses mount.
Small mistakes continue to plague a team that already has little margin for error. Those gaffes reared their ugly head once again on Thursday. An infield popup dropped between Yasmani Grandal and Jake Burger as each assumed the other would catch it.
Tim Anderson continues to bat in the leadoff spot, despite owning a .251 batting average and lackluster .586 OPS. In his last seven games, he is hitting just .129 and only reached base safely five times in 32 plate appearances.
Despite his struggles, Grifol refuses to move him down in the lineup.
When asked about temporarily moving him moving Anderson out of the leadoff spot, he responded: "Not at all. Hasn't even crossed my mind."
For somebody that preached accountability all spring training, he is not holding players very accountable. Anderson is not only not producing he isn’t hitting the ball hard. His barrel percentage is in the bottom 12 percentile of the MLB and is a good indication that he isn’t seeing the ball well at the moment.
Grifol also emphasized base running this spring. He wanted the White Sox to be more aggressive while cleaning up their mistakes on the basepaths.
That was not the case last night. Veteran infielder Elvis Andrus got picked off at third base after Luis Robert took off to steal second. Dodgers catcher Will Smith faked a throw to second, then fired the ball to third and caught Andrus napping too far down the line.
"We were stealing the bag because I knew they weren't going to throw," Grifol explained. "With him at third base, they throw the ball to second base. He just got caught in an arm fake. It wasn't a planned double steal or anything like that.
"Our philosophy on that stole the bag. Get another guy in scoring position because they're not going to throw the ball to second base."
Earlier in the week, Bob Nightengale appeared on 670 The Score's Mully & Haugh Show and ripped into the White Six first-year manager.
"All spring, they were saying, 'Look at what the new manager is doing- Pedro Grifol.' He's done nothing. It's the same thing." Nightengale said. "I was joking that they should give Tony La Russa another plaque in Cooperstown for actually winning with this team. Nobody else has been able to do it. I think they've got no choice but to break that thing up. Obviously, it's not working. The third manager is unable to do much with it."
The criticism is a bit harsh, considering the front office did little to improve the roster, La Russa only went 81-81 last year, and Grifol has yet to complete his first season as a manager. But it is also significant because oftentimes, Nightengale speaks for the organization.
