Can Miguel Vargas save his career with White Sox?

If you've watched a White Sox game lately -- and based on Chicago Sports Network ratings, you probably haven't -- the broadcasters have been noting over and over again that third baseman Miguel Vargas has made some adjustments to his batting stance.

His hands are starting higher, and he's holding his bat in a more horizontal position. Hey, he had to try something, right? His career is hanging in the balance.

At the conclusion of play on Easter Sunday, Vargas was batting .139/.236/.203 in 22 games. He had no home runs and only five doubles. Not a good sign, especially considering that the 25-year-old batted a pathetic .104/.217/.170 in 42 games last season after he joined the Sox in a midseason trade from the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Frankly, as recently as 10 days ago, I was ready for the Sox to designate Vargas for assignment. But since Easter Sunday, he has hit in eight consecutive games. He's 13 for 29 with two home runs and a double during that span. His batting average has been raised from .139 to .222. His OPS has gone from .439 to .644. 

Those are still not good numbers overall, but you have to start somewhere, and Vargas is buying himself a little time with his improved play. On Thursday, he delivered a clutch 3-run homer with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning, taking the Sox lead from 1-0 and 4-0.

It was the biggest hit in an eventual 8-0 win over the Milwaukee Brewers, as the Sox (8-23) salvaged the final game of a three-game home series.

Given how much bad we've seen from Vargas, it's hard to believe in him. We'll see how he fares this weekend as the Sox welcome the Houston Astros to Rate Field for a three-game series.

The day I realized my White Sox fandom had changed

(Photo by Jason Bauman)

Is it unusual that I can pinpoint the exact day when my White Sox fandom changed? We're coming up on the two-year anniversary of that moment.

The date was April 30, 2023. Ironically, I was in attendance that day at a game the Sox won. 

It was a Sunday afternoon. It was the final game of a four-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays. The Sox were 7-21. (Sound familiar?) They entered the afternoon on a 10-game losing streak.

The weather was cloudy and cool, about 45 degrees, and it rained intermittently throughout the game. My girlfriend did not want to go to the game that day -- the combination of the poor play on the field and the miserable weather put her in a dour mood. She had no problem reminding me throughout the game just how poor the conditions were.

But surprisingly enough, the Sox were ahead 4-2 after seven innings. They were in good position to break their long losing streak. Alas, this was a bullpen that featured Joe Kelly, Reynaldo Lopez, Aaron Bummer and Kendall Graveman. 

Some combination of that group lit the game on fire, and by the top of the ninth, the Sox were trailing 9-5. Amid all the traffic on the bases and all the pitching changes, the pace of the game slowed to a crawl. The weather was getting worse, and my girlfriend's complaints were growing louder.

Finally, I realized that she was right: The whole thing sucked. We weren't having a good time. She didn't want to be there. I no longer wanted to be there. I said, "Let's go," and we left.

We listened to the bottom of the ninth inning in the car on a rainy drive home, and naturally, the Sox staged a seven-run rally and won, 12-9, on a walk-off home run by Andrew Vaughn.

And I didn't care. I didn't care that I had missed the comeback. I didn't care that the Sox had won. My girlfriend must have asked me 10 times on the hour-long drive home if I was mad at her for complaining about the weather. 

Each time, I answered "no," and I wasn't lying. I legitimately wasn't mad. It had been my decision to leave early, and she had not objected.

In a different time and place in my life, I might have been mad at her. Or I might have insisted that we stay until the end of the game. I've been around long enough to know that you never know what you're going to see.

But I had reached a point where I didn't care about the outcome of the game, and I no longer cared about the outcome of the Sox season. I realized that day that I disliked most of the players on the team anyway. I had no real connection to any of them. I realized that it no longer made sense to invest my money and emotions in a baseball team that was dysfunctional, didn't care about its fans and played poorly most of the time.

Strangely, not giving a damn about a dramatic, come-from-behind victory made me aware of just how indifferent I had become to the whole enterprise.

Sure, I continued to attend games for the rest of the 2023 season, although I did so halfheartedly. After all, I had bought a 20-game ticket plan. You couldn't resell the tickets on the secondary market. The team was so bad that tickets weren't worth the digital bandwidth they were printed on. It was a sunk cost, and the only way to recoup any value was to go to the games.

But I dropped my ticket plan after the conclusion of the 2023 season, and I haven't returned to Rate Field since, not even once. I had been a season ticket holder for 19 seasons, and it was not a decision I took lightly. It's a sad state of affairs, and I just happened to be reflecting on it today for whatever reason.

Hopefully, one day, there will be a reason to invest money and emotions into the Sox again. However, that day is not today.

White Sox opener strategy works ... sort of

Give White Sox manager Will Venable credit for trying something new. 

The Athletics have a left-handed-dominant top of the batting order, and the Sox have nothing but right-handers in their starting rotation. 

It's a matchup made in hell, so Venable used a left-handed reliever to pitch the first inning of all three games in Sacramento this weekend, and then he went to his regularly scheduled right-handed starter in the second inning.

Even though the Sox lost two of three games, it mostly worked. Tyler Gilbert pitched a scoreless first inning Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Brandon Eisert allowed one run in the first inning Sunday. 

The right-handers who followed them pitched well. On Sunday, Davis Martin tossed six shutout innings. Jonathan Cannon got his first win of the season Saturday when he allowed three runs over 7.2 innings. Sean Burke on Friday allowed three earned runs over 5.1 innings, which wasn't great, but it was an improvement over his previous outings.

Here's a look back at the weekend that was:

Friday, April 25

Athletics 6, White Sox 5: The Sox took a 3-1 lead into the bottom of the sixth, but Burke got in trouble. With two on and two outs, Jacob Wilson singled to center, and Luis Robert Jr. booted the ball, allowing both runners to score and tie the game at 3.

The A's tacked on two in the seventh and one in the eighth to take a 6-3 into the ninth. The Sox rallied against closer Mason Miller. Lenyn Sosa singled and scored on a two-run homer by Brooks Baldwin. Miguel Vargas lined out to center, and Edgar Quero just missed tying the game on a fly ball to right that was caught at the wall.

Four good ABs in a row, and then Robert Jr. struck out on three pitches, the last of which was nowhere near a strike. It was a tough game for Robert Jr. overall: 1 for 4 with three strikeouts and the crucial error that flipped the game in the Athletics' favor.

Saturday, April 26 

White Sox 10, Athletics 3: Robert Jr. redeemed himself with a solo home run in the top of the first that started a four-run rally. Quero walked, and then there were three straight RBI doubles by Sosa, Michael A. Taylor and Baldwin.

The Sox added two more in the second inning and jumped out to an early 6-0. Cannon (1-3) made it work from there with his best outing of the season. He struck out five and walked two, while allowing six hits over his 7.2 innings.

Taylor finished 3 for 5 with three doubles. Quero and Vargas also had two-hit games.

Sunday, April 27

Athletics 3, White Sox 2 (10 inn.): The Sox had 14 men reach base in this game -- nine hits, four walks and a hit batsman. You would think that would be a recipe for more than two runs, but you'd be wrong.

Joshua Palacios hit a solo home run to start the game, but the Sox didn't score again until the top of the 10th when Robert Jr. plated the ghost runner with an RBI single to put the South Siders ahead 2-1.

Quero then singled, advancing Robert Jr. to third with only one out. It looked like the Sox might break the game open. Alas, Andrew Vaughn grounded into a double play to drop his average down to .157 and kill the inning.

That proved really costly because the Sox needed another run. Jordan Leasure (0-2) gave up a homer to Luis Urias in the bottom of the 10th with the ghost runner aboard, and that provided the winning margin for the Athletics.

The Sox stranded 10 runners, went 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position and hit into two double plays. Woof.

The 10-game road trip is over. The Sox went 3-7 and are now 7-21 for the season. They start a three-game series against the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday night at Rate Field.

Rain-shortened wins count just the same

Raise your hand if you expected Brandon Eisert to record the first White Sox save of the season.

Rain-shortened games can be strange like that, but with the way the Sox have been struggling, they'll be happy with Thursday's 3-0, seven-inning victory over the Minnesota Twins.

At long last, that ridiculous 14-game losing streak at Minneapolis is over, and at long last, Shane Smith (1-1) has his well-earned first career victory. 

The rookie right-hander has a 2.30 ERA through his first five starts, and he's pitched well enough to win any or all of them. Alas, run support and bullpen support have been hard to come by with this team.

But Smith is finally on the board in his career after tossing five shutout innings. He struck out seven, walked only one and scattered four hits.

Jordan Leasure allowed the first two Minnesota batters to reach in the sixth, but he worked his way out of the jam. The aforementioned Eisert gave up one hit but nothing more in the seventh before the umpires called for the tarp.

The Sox got solo home runs from Lenyn Sosa, his second of the season, and Miguel Vargas, his first. The other RBI came on a bases-loaded walk by Joshua Palacios.

The Sox are 2-5 on the road trip and 6-19 on the season. Next up, three games in Sacramento against the Athletics.

White Sox continue to play dead in Minnesota

The White Sox have lost 14 consecutive games at Minnesota, with their last win there coming April 10, 2023.

The latest loss came Wednesday night, a 6-3 defeat against the Twins at Target Field.

Let's not kid ourselves: This has nothing to do with the Twins, who are a bad team themselves. This is just pure incompetence on the part of the Sox.

Even with wins the past two games, Minnesota is just 9-15 on the season. The Twins are 4-1 against the Sox, which means they are 5-14 against everyone else. They will be the fourth-place club in the American League Central Division, and the only thing preventing them from finishing last is the miserable Sox being in the same division. 

This is a continuation of a trend from 2024. The Twins finished in fourth place with a record of 82-80. They were 12-1 against the Sox, which means they were 70-79 against everyone else.

Through the first two games of this series, we've seen struggling Minnesota players suddenly right the ship.

Bailey Ober had a 6.16 ERA entering his Tuesday start. Then he threw six innings of one-run ball and picked up a victory.

Relief pitcher Griffin Jax had a 11.25 ERA before the Sox showed up. He's appeared in both games of this series, retiring all six batters he has faced, four of them by strikeout. 

Then there's Trevor Larnach, who carried a .194/.298/.250 slash line, with just one home run, into Tuesday's game. That .250 slugging percentage is on the way up now because Larnach has homered in each of the first two games of this series, including a solo shot off Jordan Leasure (0-1) in the sixth inning Wednesday that put the Twins ahead to stay.

I could carry on, but you get the idea. The Sox are 5-19, and there is no bottom here. Those people who told you it "can't possibly be worse than last year," don't believe them.

Nothing has changed here.

Luis Robert Jr., Andrew Vaughn continue to fail White Sox

The top of the fifth inning of Tuesday night's game against the Minnesota Twins summed up White Sox baseball for me this season.

The Sox were trailing 2-1, but they had a promising start to the inning. Singles by Nick Maton and Andrew Benintendi put runners on first and third with nobody out against struggling Minnesota starter Bailey Ober, who entered this game with a 6.16 ERA.

The table was set for the No. 3 and No. 4 batters in the Sox lineup, Luis Robert Jr. and Andrew Vaughn.

Well, you can guess what happened, and none of it was good. Robert had a chance to do damage on two middle-middle changeups from Ober, but he fouled both of them off. Having gotten away with a couple of mistakes, Ober then came up with a quality pitch, acing Robert with a fastball on the corner for a called strike three.

Vaughn jumped ahead in the count 2-0, but you wouldn't know he was at an advantage based upon the pitch he swung at -- a breaking ball down and on the outside corner. It was a pitch that was designed to get Vaughn to roll over, and he obliged, bouncing into a 6-4-3 double play. 

Inning over. No runs.

Why swing at that pitch when you are ahead in the count? Who knows?

A potential big inning was derailed, and the Sox went on to lose 4-2.

Robert is now hitting .151 with a .527 OPS. Vaughn is batting .145 with a .461 OPS. These are the guys the Sox are counting on to be the big run producers in the middle of the lineup.

No wonder they are 5-18. It's time to move on from both players. Hopefully, that will happen sometime in 2025.

White Sox drop 3 out of 4 in Boston

It isn't even May, but the White Sox have already suffered through an eight-game losing streak and a six-game losing streak this season.

But at least they won't go 0-81 on the road this season, right? The Sox are now 1-9 away from home after dropping three out of four to the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. 

Here's a look back at the wraparound series from Easter weekend:

Friday, April 18

Red Sox 10, White Sox 3: What was your favorite memory of the Martin Perez era? It probably wasn't this game, as Perez gave up four runs in the first three innings before departing after 52 pitches with a left forearm injury.

Perez (1-1) has since been placed on the 60-day injured list, so we won't be seeing him in a Sox uniform again soon, if ever.

Boston's Trevor Story went 3 for 4 with two 3-run homers in this game, including one in the first inning off Perez and another off Tyler Gilbert in the seventh inning.

The Sox were limited to six hits, with Andrew Benintendi's third home run of the season being one of the few offensive highlights. Edgar Quero doubled during ninth inning garbage time for his first major league hit. 

Saturday, April 19

Red Sox 4, White Sox 3 (10 innings): The Sox were in rough shape after six innings in this one, trailing 3-0 against Boston ace Garrett Crochet, who fanned seven and allowed only four hits.

But the Red Sox went to the bullpen in the seventh inning, and Chicago capitalized with a three-run rally to tie the game. Chase Meidroth singled to make it 3-1, and Luis Robert Jr.'s second homer of the season -- a two-run shot -- evened the score.

But as I always say when the Sox tie a game late on the road, "Ehh, they'll just get walked off anyway." They did, indeed, get walked off. Triston Casas singled off Mike Vasil (0-1) with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th to win the game for Boston. 

It was a three-hit game for Meidroth and a two-hit game for Quero, but those are the last hits we'll be seeing from Meidroth for at least a couple of weeks. He's now on the 10-day injured list with right thumb inflammation.

Sunday, April 20

White Sox 8, Red Sox 4: The Sox were 0-79 in 2024 when trailing after six innings. But this game ensures they will not put together a similar dubious record in that department this season. Chicago scored three in the seventh, two in the eighth and one in the ninth to erase a 4-2 deficit and snap a six-game losing streak.

Quero delivered the biggest hit, a two-run single that capped the three-run inning in the seventh and put the Sox ahead to stay. Former Sox pitcher Liam Hendriks took the mound in relief for Boston in the eighth, but Andrew Vaughn hit his third home run of the season -- a two-run blast -- to extend the Chicago lead. Matt Thaiss also had a two-run homer for the Sox, and he added an RBI in the ninth on a bases-loaded HBP.

That made a winner out of lefty Brandon Eisert (1-0) who got five outs in the middle of the game in relief of starter Sean Burke.

Monday, April 21

Red Sox 4, White Sox 2: The one day of winning was fun while it lasted, as Chicago's bats went silent again in the series finale.

Boston starter Walker Buehler struck out nine over seven innings of one-run ball. The Sox were limited to five hits and went 0 for 10 with runners in scoring position.

Benintendi's fourth homer of the season in the eighth inning -- off Boston lefty Aroldis Chapman -- was one of the few good at-bats of the game for Chicago. Benintendi had two of the team's five hits.

Sox starter Jonathan Cannon (0-3) struggled early, giving four runs in the first three innings. To his credit, at least he pitched six innings, saving the bullpen for the next series. 

The Sox are now 5-17 and will head to Minnesota for a three-game series that starts Tuesday night.