Carlos Rodon's elbow injury the latest blow to White Sox rebuild

Carlos Rodon

As an anti-ownership, anti-Rick Hahn, anti-rebuild White Sox fan, I should probably be taking more delight in the continuing collapse of this ill-fated "rebuilding plan."

There's a part of me that wants to say, "See, I told you they wouldn't be good in 2019, or 2020, or 2021, either," but now that it's coming to pass, I'm more angry than anything else.

I'm sick of the losing. I'm sick of the excuses, and I'm sick of being told to be patient. And there's was another reason for anger Thursday, as the Sox announced that Carlos Rodon is headed for a lengthy stay on the injured list.

Rodon has left elbow inflammation, which Hahn described more specifically as edema in the flexor mass, or blood in the muscle. Both Hahn and Rodon conceded that Tommy John surgery is a possibility.

Over his past two starts, Rodon has been terrible by any standard. He gave up eight runs in three-plus innings against the Detroit Tigers on April 27, and he failed to get through the fourth inning Wednesday against the Baltimore Orioles, despite being handed an early 4-0 lead.

The Sox ended up losing, 5-4, although they recovered to win the second game of the doubleheader, 7-6.

I'm guessing we've seen the last of Rodon for 2019, and possibly a good chunk of 2020, as well. The worst-case scenario tends to find the Sox. It's the residue of bad design.

Speaking of bad design, guess who is back in the Sox starting rotation? Yep, it's Dylan Covey!

It's feeling like 2018 all over again, and with Boston, Cleveland, Houston and Minnesota looming on the May schedule, the Sox's record likely will look like it's 2018 all over again.

After all, you don't get to play Kansas City, Detroit and Baltimore every day.

P.S.: How long until they sign James Shields to plug the gap in the rotation?

Thyago Vieira, Aaron Bummer and Dylan Covey, oh my!

I mentioned the Eloy Jimenez injury in my previous blog post. The White Sox's rookie left fielder has a high ankle sprain and will be re-evaluated in two weeks.

What I didn't mention: Nate Jones and Ryan Burr also have been sent to the injured list. Jones has elbow inflammation; Burr has shoulder inflammation.

The Sox's bullpen wasn't very good with Jones and Burr in it, so imagine it now.

Who is taking these three roster spots, you ask? Well, Thyago Vieira, Aaron Bummer and Dylan Covey, of course. Three pitchers who have received opportunities in the past and didn't do much with them.

All three are available as the Sox open a series against the Baltimore Orioles on Monday night.

This 2019 roster is starting to remind me a little too much of the 2018 roster, you know?

White Sox sweep snow-abbreviated series vs. Detroit Tigers

Tim Anderson

Tim Anderson apparently isn't listening to the Kansas City Royals.

The White Sox shortstop hit a game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning Friday night, and he punctuated the moment with a bat flip similar to the one that provoked a benches-clearing incident with the Royals on April 17.

Nope, he isn't changing his ways.

The home run capped a 12-11 victory over the Detroit Tigers, and the Sox went on to sweep a snow-abbreviated, two-game series. Here's a look back at the weekend that was:

Friday, April 26
White Sox 12, Tigers 11: Coming into the game, you figured the recipe for a Sox victory would include a quality start by Carlos Rodon. You would be wrong. Rodon pitched terrible, giving up eight earned runs, including three homers, in three-plus innings.

After the top of the fifth inning, the Sox trailed, 9-2. But they stormed back with two runs in the fifth inning, five in the sixth inning and two more in the seventh.

It should have been three in the seventh. Jose Abreu hit what should have been a three-run homer, but he passed Anderson on the bases rounding first. He was called out and credited with a two-run single.

That was a dumb play, but nevertheless, Abreu had a great night -- 4 for 5 with five RBIs, including a home run that actually counted during the five-run sixth. Yonder Alonso and Jose Rondon also homered for the Sox, and Anderson totaled four hits.

Anderson connected on the first pitch he saw in the bottom of the ninth, a hanging slider from reliever Joe Jimenez (1-1), and sent it into the left-field seats to break an 11-11 tie.

That made a winner of reliever Alex Colome (1-0), who worked a scoreless ninth.

All that said, we might have buried the lead here. Rookie left fielder Eloy Jimenez was injured in the third inning when he crashed into the wall chasing a home run hit by Detroit catcher Grayson Greiner. The future of the rebuild hung in the balance as Jimenez writhed about on the warning track in pain.

Diagnosis: high ankle sprain. Jimenez will be re-evaluated in two weeks. That means he'll likely be out at least a month. He's lucky he didn't break his leg, and this is why I recently called for him to receive more DH at-bats.

Saturday, April 27
Tigers at White Sox, ppd. snow: I was holding tickets to this game, and I'm glad it didn't happen. We had a freak late-April snowstorm in Chicago. It was that heavy, wet snow that leaves slush on the road.

The 6:10 p.m. game was postponed by 10:30 a.m. Good decision. You can't play baseball when there's a winter storm warning.

Sunday, April 28
White Sox 4, Tigers 1: Reynaldo Lopez tossed the most dominating six innings of his career, totaling 14 strikeouts against three walks. He allowed only one unearned run on two hits.

The right-hander's fastball overpowered Detroit hitters. Thirteen of the 14 strikeouts came on the four-seamer, and they were evenly distributed. Lopez (2-3) struck out the side in the second and sixth innings, and he had two strikeouts in each of the other four innings he pitched.

Instead of having to play from behind, the Sox took the lead in the first inning for a change. Welington Castillo's two-out, two-strike double with the bases loaded gave the South Siders a 2-0 lead.

Detroit nicked Lopez for an unearned run in the second, and the game remained 2-1 until the seventh. Matthew Boyd pitched well for the Tigers through six, but the Sox scored one in the seventh and one in the eighth against the Detroit bullpen.

A squeeze bunt from Leury Garcia plated the run in the seventh. Yolmer Sanchez added a sacrifice fly in the eighth.

Jace Fry, Kelvin Herrera and Colome each worked a scoreless inning of relief. Colome picked up his fifth save.

Each reliever struck out two, so Sox pitchers totaled 20 strikeouts for the game. Yeah, that's a team record for a nine-inning game.

Next up for the Sox (11-14): a three-game series against the Baltimore Orioles, starting Monday night.

White Sox DFA Ervin Santana, reinstate Eloy Jimenez from bereavement list

Ervin Santana

When a veteran pitcher is signed to be an "innings-eater" at the back of the rotation, you expect him to -- well, you know -- eat innings.

However, when said pitcher struggles to make it through five innings in every start, that deal becomes a difficult proposition.

Ervin Santana, we hardly knew ye.

The White Sox on Friday designated the right-handed pitcher for assignment. Rookie left fielder Eloy Jimenez was reinstated from the bereavement list to take Santana's place on the 25-man roster.

Santana made three starts and went 0-2 with a 9.45 ERA. He allowed 14 earned runs and six home runs in 13.1 innings, and he walked more people (6) than he struck out (5).

In Santana's best start, he lasted only five innings against the sad-sack Kansas City Royals, and in his most recent outing, he was knocked out in the fifth inning of a loss to the sad-sack Baltimore Orioles.

This is the right move. Santana has shown nothing, even against poor opposition. That said, I'm a little surprised the Sox let Santana go so quickly. They have a cherished history of sticking with struggling players way too long.

Not this time.

I'm guessing this means Lucas Giolito will be healthy and ready to take his next turn in the rotation, likely next Tuesday. Giolito is on the injured list with a hamstring strain right now. This also means Manny Banuelos is likely to get a chance at sticking in the rotation. He tossed four shutout innings in his first start of the season Monday against Baltimore, a game that Sox won handily.

As for Jimenez, he returns after missing the Baltimore series because of the death of his grandmother in the Dominican Republic. The rookie had been struggling of late both at the plate and in the field.

A modest suggestion for Sox manager Rick Renteria: Detroit is pitching two left-handers against the Sox this weekend -- Daniel Norris on Friday and Matthew Boyd on Sunday. Let's allow Jimenez to DH a couple games to take some of the pressure off. He can focus on his hitting and forget about defense.

Sit Yonder Alonso against the lefties -- he's only hitting .179 and hasn't done enough to deserve an everyday role. Then put the best defensive outfield available out there -- Leury Garcia in left field, Adam Engel in center and Ryan Cordell in right.

I think that alignment gives the Sox the best chance to win against left-handed pitching, at least for now.

As a season ticket holder, I'm putting the White Sox on the clock

The White Sox lost the last two games of their three-game series with the Baltimore Orioles, the same Baltimore team than went 47-115 last season.

When this season started, many pointed to the stretch of 16 games the Sox are in the middle of now as reason for optimism. Three with Kansas City, four with Detroit, three with Baltimore, three more with Detroit and three more with Baltimore.

Hey, that's a long stretch of games against rebuilding teams -- and teams that happen to be a year behind the Sox in terms of starting the rebuilding process. Some believed this would be an opportunity to have a winning month of April, even if the long-term prognosis for the 2019 season wasn't the most promising.

Turns out the Sox can't do much more than tread water against these three teams, which combined to lose 317 games between them in 2018.

We are 10 games into that 16-game stretch, and the Sox are 4-5 with one rainout. What can you really say? This is a terrible baseball team for the third straight season, and it will be a losing baseball team for the seventh straight season.

As a "valued season ticket holder," I've had just about enough of not being entertained by something that is supposed to be entertaining. I'll give the Sox the rest of this season and next to get this right.

You figure, next year Michael Kopech will be back from injury. Dylan Cease will be on the team, maybe Zack Collins, too. There will be another year of experience for Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, Tim Anderson, Carlos Rodon, Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez.

This year is going to be awful. I've accepted it. But three years of tanking for draft position in a major market is enough, don't you think?

Dear White Sox: Improve by the end of 2020, or I won't be a season ticket holder in 2021. I've been with you as one of your best customers since 2004, but everyone has their limits.

I've reached mine.

Jose Abreu (finally) has a big game for White Sox

Jose Abreu

I don't know that Jose Abreu is necessarily a slow starter. His career March/April slash line is .258/.326/.486, and he has 30 home runs and 100 RBIs in 141 career games during the first month of the season.

That's respectable.

He is, however, a notorious warm-weather hitter. Look at his August career slash line (.331/.391/.575) and his July career slash line (.300/.366/.510). Abreu's pattern is characterized by a mediocre or less-than-mediocre first half, followed by a torrid second half.

This April has been slower than most for Abreu. He came into Monday night's game against the Baltimore Orioles with a .192/.273/.372 slash, which is uncharacteristically cold for such an accomplished hitter. The usual caveats apply about small sample sizes, and you had to believe Abreu was about due for a breakout.

Porous Baltimore pitching seemed to be the cure for what ails Abreu, and the Sox in general. The first baseman went 3 for 6 with a home run and five RBIs in Monday's 12-2 Sox win over the Orioles.

The Sox posted three four-run innings -- four in the fifth, four in the seventh and four in the eighth. Abreu contributed an RBI single in the fourth, a two-run homer in the seventh and a two-run single in the eighth.

He now has four home runs and 17 RBIs through the first 21 games, and with one good performance, he's basically back on the run production pace you'd like to see from him.

Obviously, most of the focus for the Sox is on the younger guys. Who will be part of the future and who will play their way out of the plans? Abreu is one of the veterans who may or may not be here next year and beyond, but for now, the team needs him to be the same stabilizing force he has been in the past.

That's especially true because he bats third, right behind Yoan Moncada. If Abreu is hitting well, and pitchers are worried about him, that means more fastballs to hit for Moncada.

Anything that makes Moncada better is good for the Sox's future.

The Sox are now 9-12 for the season and 2-2 on the current six-game road trip, after dropping two out of three over the weekend in Detroit. There are two games left in Baltimore before the South Siders come home to start a 10-game homestand.

Palka to Charlotte; Giolito to IL; Cordell excels; Fulmer flops

The White Sox on Wednesday optioned outfielder Daniel Palka to Triple-A Charlotte, just hours after he broke an 0-for-32 slump with a broken-bat single in a 4-3 loss to the Kansas City Royals.

Of course, Palka also grounded into a double play with the bases loaded and one out in a tie game in the bottom of the eighth inning, and he also made the final out of the game in the bottom of the 10th -- making weak contact in both at-bats.

It was time to send him down. Past time, in fact.

Amid all the Tim Anderson controversy, it was almost forgotten that pitcher Lucas Giolito had to leave Wednesday's game in the third inning with left hamstring tightness. It was unfortunate, because Giolito had his good stuff working. He had not allowed a hit and struck out five through 2.2 innings.

These two roster moves allowed Ryan Cordell and Carson Fulmer to return from Charlotte for Thursday's game in Detroit, a 9-7 White Sox loss. 

Cordell started in right field batting ninth, and went 3 for 4 with his second home run of the season, which briefly gave the Sox a 5-4 lead in the seventh inning. On this blog, we previously endorsed Cordell's recall from Charlotte, although I had suggested he replace Adam Engel, not Palka.

In any case, Cordell seems to be the best of the bad options in the Sox outfield right now. He's swinging the bat better than Palka, Engel or Nicky Delmonico, who is at Charlotte.

As we've stated before, Cordell should not be seen as a long-term solution to anything, and as a Sox fan, I long for the day when we aren't talking about shuffling through a bunch of never-will-be outfielders. But, this is the situation right now, and the Sox need to give the playing time to the man who is doing the best job.

At the moment, that's Cordell. Give it a week, and it might be someone else's turn.

As for Fulmer, he found himself on the mound in the eighth inning of a 7-7 game Thursday, and he gave up two runs and lost it on a single, two hit batters and two sacrifice flies. Fulmer continued his longstanding habit of giving things away by loading the bases with the two hit batsmen.

I didn't really like Fulmer being on the mound in that situation on his first day back in the bigs, but in fairness to Sox manager Rick Renteria, he lacks good options in the bullpen.

For me, Fulmer is a symbol of why the Sox rebuild has stagnated. The rebuild proponents want to the team to tank again for draft position this season, but the thing is, the Sox haven't done a good job with their first-round draft picks, of which Fulmer is one.

He's out of options, and this might be his last kick at the can with the Sox organization. Can a rebuild really work for an organization that a) doesn't draft well and b) doesn't want to spend in free agency?

It doesn't look good. The Sox (7-12) lost 100 games last season; they are on pace for 99 losses this season. As a friend texted me this afternoon, "This just keeps getting worse."