White Sox trade Welington Castillo; Josh Osich also moving on

Welington Castillo

Even when the White Sox trade a hated and despised player, they do it in a strange way that invites criticism.

Take for this example this week's deal with Texas. The Sox sent catcher Welington Castillo and $250,000 in international bonus pool money to the Rangers in exchange for minor leaguer Jonah McReynolds.

What's interesting here is that neither the Sox nor the Rangers had any intent of having Castillo on their 2020 roster. There's an $8 million option on his contract, and who is going to pick that up for an injury-prone catcher coming off a season in which he batted .209?

Nobody.

The option includes a $500,000 buyout. The Sox apparently didn't want to pay that, even though they've got a bottom-third payroll, so they passed that financial obligation along to the Rangers. Why would Texas do that? The Rangers want that international bonus money, plain and simple.

There's precedence for this. You may recall that the Sox traded Nate Jones to Texas at the July trading deadline. Jones will never throw a pitch for the Rangers, who will pay his $1.25 million contract buyout this offseason. In that deal, Texas acquired $1 million in international bonus pool money.

Simplifying all this, essentially the Sox gave Texas $1.25 million in international bonus pool money in order to avoid paying $1.75 million in buyouts to two dead-weight veterans, Jones and Castillo.

Why would the Sox be eager to unload valuable international bonus pool money during a rebuilding cycle, and during a time when their minor league depth has been depleted by injuries? I have no idea. No idea at all.

I'm left to chalk this up to the usual Sox cheapness. Somehow I doubt that $1.75 million is going to make a difference one way or another in signing free agents this offseason.

Osich claimed on waivers by Red Sox

In other Sox news, left-handed reliever Josh Osich was outrighted to Triple-A Charlotte and later claimed on waivers by the Boston Red Sox.

Osich went 4-0 with a 4.66 ERA in 57 games for the Sox this season, and somehow, he led the bullpen with 67.2 innings pitched. He had the fewest walks (15) of any Sox reliever, but he also allowed the most home runs (15).

Right-handed batters torched Osich with a .297/.344/.559 split this season. He was effective against lefties, however, limiting them to a .171/.200/.351 split.

It would seem as though Osich would have some utility as a left-handed specialist, but remember, there's a new rule coming in next season that requires relievers to face a minimum of three batters.

Pitchers such as Osich will run the risk of being overexposed to right-handed batters in this new era, and let's face it, he's not good enough to be considered irreplaceable.

White Sox salvage 1 out of 3 against Los Angeles Angels

Tim Anderson is leading the AL in hitting.

The White Sox kicked away a winnable series at Guaranteed Rate Field over the weekend, losing two out of three games to the Los Angeles Angels.

It's disappointing because the Angels (67-77) had lost 11 out of 13 games coming into the series, and Mike Trout left in the middle of Friday's game and didn't play the rest of the weekend. This was a favorable situation for the Sox (63-80), and they failed to take advantage.

But, the win Sunday was the Sox's 63rd of the season, which means they will not duplicate last year's 100-loss campaign. So, at least there's that.

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

Friday, Sept. 6
Angels 5, White Sox 4: The Sox had been 49-1 this season when leading after seven innings. Make it 50-2, as relievers Aaron Bummer and Alex Colome combined to let this one get away.

Lucas Giolito was seeking his 15th victory of the season, and he did not disappoint, turning in another strong outing. He went seven innings, allowing two runs on only three hits. He struck out six and walked one. Tim Anderson backed Giolito with a two-run homer, and the Sox led, 4-2, going into the eighth inning.

But that's when Bummer walked pinch-hitter Taylor Ward, and two batters later, gave up a two-run homer to Brian Goodwin, who had taken over in center field after Trout left the game with a foot injury. The blast tied the game at 4.

Colome entered to try to preserve the tie in the ninth, but Justin Upton homered on the first pitch of the inning to put the Angels ahead to stay. The Sox could get nothing done against Los Angeles closer Hansel Robles (5-0), who retired all six batters he faced over the final two innings.

Daniel Palka struck out looking to end the game. He is now 1 for 54 this season.

Saturday, Sept. 7
Angels 8, White Sox 7: What will it take for the Sox to stop using Dylan Covey as a starting pitcher? Covey (1-8) was shelled for seven earned runs on seven hits over just 2.2 innings. His ERA is 7.69. It's baffling that this "experiment" has not ended yet. For goodness sake, put Hector Santiago out there. He usually can at least get to the fifth inning before having a meltdown on the mound.

The Sox trailed 7-2 when Covey left in the third inning, and they tried to come back. But, the hole was too deep. Jose Abreu's 30th home run of the season, a 3-run shot in the seventh inning, brought the Sox to within a run. However, they were unable to mount a threat in either of the last two innings, with Robles nailing down his 20th save.

Anderson went 2 for 5 with a double, an RBI and two runs scored. The Sox shortstop got the day off Sunday, so he exits this series with a .334 batting average. He leads the American League in hitting. New York's DJ LeMahieu was second at .328 entering Sunday's play.

Sunday, Sept. 8
White Sox 5, Angels 1: It wasn't a great day for Sox rookie Dylan Cease, but it could have been worse. Cease needed 36 pitches to get through the first inning, and 30 more to get through the second. However, the Angels managed only one run in those two innings and left the bases loaded both times.

The pitch count caught up with Cease, as he lasted only 3.1 innings. He allowed the one run on four hits with five walks and four strikeouts. Fortunately, the Sox bullpen bounced back from Friday's debacle. Josh Osich (2-0), Bummer and Colome combined for 5.2 innings of one-hit relief.

Osich allowed one hit over 2.2 scoreless innings. Bummer allowed only a walk in two innings, and Colome worked a 1-2-3 ninth.

Abreu hit his 31st home run of the season in the third inning to give the Sox the lead for good. The slugger now has a career-high 112 RBIs.

Danny Mendick also connected for his first career home run. The 25-year-old September call-up started at shortstop with Anderson getting the day off, and he has not looked out of place thus far. Mendick is 5 for 14 in five games, three of them starts.

The Sox will get an off day Monday before hosting the Kansas City Royals for a three-game series Tuesday through Thursday.

Just too much bad pitching on the White Sox

Odrisamer Despaigne

One more thought before I take a break from this for a couple of days -- I'm actually going to the White Sox game on Thursday when they play the New York Yankees, so I won't have time to blog.

It wasn't Odrisamer Despaigne's fault that the Sox got beat, 12-1, by the Washington Nationals on Monday night. The 32-year-old journeyman was making his first start for the South Siders, and he did a credible job.

He went six innings, allowing three earned runs on seven hits. He struck out two and walked two. It was a quality start, and that's good enough to win sometimes.

The front end of the bullpen -- Jose Ruiz, Josh Osich, Thyago Vieira and Juan Minaya -- gave up nine runs over the last three innings and caused the Sox to get humiliated.

That being said, it's frustrating that Despaigne is on this team in Year 3 of the rebuild. This is the sort of pitcher who makes starts for you in the first year of a rebuild -- see Derek Holland and Mike Pelfrey in 2017. These are all pitchers of similar quality.

And the relief pitchers listed above, with the possible exception of Ruiz, also are nothing more than roster filler, to put it charitably. Less charitably, they are cannon fodder. Minaya has had plenty of chances. Vieira can't find the plate. Osich has tried and failed with other organizations.

By now, wouldn't you like to think more interesting pitchers would be around in the organization and available to take these innings? Alas, it isn't to be. Manny Banuelos is starting Tuesday against the Nationals, and he's another guy who you'd expect to see in a first-year rebuild.

Year 3, and there are still mornings when I wake up and say, "The Sox are in trouble today." It's so frustrating to watch this bad pitching, especially when there are position players who are decent and making progress on this team.

Of course, the White Sox got swept by the Nationals

Reynaldo Lopez

We should have known the White Sox weren't actually going to get back to .500, right? After a 6-1 homestand, the South Siders briefly sustained the momentum by jumping out to a 5-0 lead against Washington Nationals ace Stephen Strasburg on Tuesday night.

Alas, they had the wrong guy pitching. Reynaldo Lopez blew the whole thing, the Sox lost, and the Nationals went on to sweep the two-game series.

In Lopez's past three starts, he has been handed 4-1, 7-1 and 5-0 leads. He has won none of those games, and the Sox (29-32) as a team are only 1-2 in those three contests. That's not how it's supposed to work as a starting pitcher.

Lopez is 3-6 with a 6.62 ERA after he posted a respectable 3.91 ERA in 32 starts in 2018. He's the opposite of Lucas Giolito, who stunk last season and is pitching well in 2019. If the Sox had any rotation depth whatsoever, Lopez would be a candidate for demotion to Triple-A Charlotte.

Here's a look back at this brief, disastrous series in Washington:

Tuesday, June 4
Nationals 9, White Sox 5: Lopez walked two men to start the third inning and both of them scored. He gave up a solo home run to Howie Kendrick in the fourth and a three-run homer to Anthony Rendon in the fifth. The homer by Rendon was Lopez's last pitch of the night, a hanging, get-me-over slider, and he left the mound trailing, 6-5.

Josh Osich provided little relief, giving up three more runs before the fifth inning was over. Lopez's final line: 4+ innings, 6 runs, all earned, five hits, four strikeouts, four walks and two home runs allowed. Fifty-four of his 92 pitches were strikes, but it felt much worse than that. His fastball command was terrible, and he could not throw an offspeed pitch for a strike -- except for that hanger to Rendon.

It's too bad, too, because the Sox cuffed Strasburg around for four runs in the first inning, capped by a two-out, two-run single by Yolmer Sanchez. Yoan Moncada added a long solo home run in the second inning to make it 5-0, and the Sox were in position to get back to .500.

Alas, it was not to be.

Wednesday, June 5
Nationals 6, White Sox 4: This was a more conventional Sox loss, characterized by three errors, leadoff walks that came back to bite them in the ass, and of course, a failed bunt in the ninth inning that killed a potential winning rally.

The Sox never lead, and they played poorly, so we can't really say they should have won. However, they had their chances. Alex Colome (2-1) had his worst outing of the season, his first failure in a high-leverage spot. He entered with the score tied at 4 in the bottom of the ninth inning. He walked Brian Dozier on four pitches and gave up a game-ending homer to Trea Turner on a 3-2 fastball.

The Sox had battled back from a 4-1 deficit with three runs in the eighth. Jose Abreu's two-run homer made it 4-3, and Welington Castillo's solo shot tied it.

Alas, it was not to be.

Hey, at least Dylan Covey wasn't terrible. He pitched five innings and allowed two runs. And Moncada homered for the second straight game, which is nice.

The winning on the last homestand was exciting, but I'll go back to my usual combination of apathy and cynicism now.