White Sox complete 0-6 homestand ... LOL

Remember last week when the White Sox were four games out of first and getting ready to start a "big series" against the Cleveland Guardians? 

All the talk was about how the Sox could get back in the hunt for the AL Central title with a three-game sweep. 

Well, instead, the Guardians swept, and then the last-place Detroit Tigers came into Chicago and swept the Sox, too. That completes an 0-6 homestand, and the irony is Sox starting pitchers turned in six consecutive quality starts.

Alas, the Sox are a terrible offensive team with an overpaid, overrated bullpen. So, they blew all the games. Meanwhile, Cleveland won every day and clinched the division title Sunday.

The Guardians are 86-67. The Sox are 76-77. That's a 10-game difference with nine games to play. Season over.

In case you were wondering, the Sox have never gone 0-6 on a homestand in the history of Comiskey Park II/U.S. Cellular Field/Guaranteed Rate Field.

In 1989, at Old Comiskey Park, the Sox went 0-6 on a homestand against the Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles from May 19-24.

Making history! In a bad way! Remember when people tried to tell us this 2022 Sox team was championship caliber? LOL. It's time for change.

3 good changes Miguel Cairo has made to the White Sox lineup

Miguel Cairo

The White Sox are 13-6 since Miguel Cairo took over as acting manager on Aug. 30. Tony La Russa remains sidelined while dealing with a heart problem, and while I wish La Russa all the best with his health, there's no getting around the fact that the Sox have played much better baseball under Cairo's direction.

That said, the Sox remain in dire straits in the AL Central Division race. Their hot streak has coincided with a hot streak by the Cleveland Guardians, who have won 12 of their past 15 games.

The Guardians (80-67) come to Chicago for a three-game series that starts Tuesday night, and they own a four-game division lead over the Sox (76-71) with 15 games left in the season. 

Yes, it feels like a must-sweep for the Sox, especially since the Guardians own a 9-7 edge in the season series, and they will secure the division tiebreaker with just one more win over Chicago.

That means any Sox loss to Cleveland, in effect, is like losing two games in the standings.

As Sox fans, the only comfort we can take is that team is playing as well as it's played all season right now, and focusing on some positives, here are three things Cairo has done with the batting order that have really helped:

1. He made Eloy Jimenez the full-time DH. Jimenez remains a prodigious offensive talent, and he's a destructive force in the middle of the lineup when he's healthy. The problem is he's rarely healthy, and many of his injuries have occurred during his misadventures in left field.

What's the answer to this problem? Get Jimenez the hell out of left field, where he's a hazard to himself and everyone out there. Yes, birds too. Cairo has done just that. Jimenez has started 18 games at DH and zero games in the outfield since Cairo took over the team.

In those games, Jimenez is batting .348 with seven home runs and 21 RBIs. That is excellent production. Jimenez's job is to hit, and he's getting it done right now.

There's always the chance Jimenez will hurt one of his balky hamstrings when running the bases, but keeping him out of the outfield maximizes his chances of staying in the lineup. When he's in the lineup, he hits.

2. Yasmani Grandal does not DH anymore. Putting Jimenez in the lineup as the DH means that Grandal cannot DH anymore. ... Praise Jesus!

We've heard Sox GM Rick Hahn talk a lot this year about expecting players to "play to the back of the baseball card" over a 162-game schedule. Well, anyone who is watching Grandal's at-bats knows that he's not going to finish anywhere near his career norms this season.

He's batting .202/.305/.274 with only five homers and 26 RBIs. Inexplicably, La Russa started him as the DH 24 times this season, even though those offensive statistics are terrible.

Sure, Grandal was a dangerous hitter the second half of 2021 -- he hit 23 home runs last season, which is terrific production for a catcher. However, injuries have taken their toll on Grandal in his age-33 season. His swing has been all upper body all season. His legs aren't helping him, and his power is gone. In other words, his bat is a minus, and if he's not catching, he's not helping.

As a matter of fact, Grandal's defense has suffered this season, too. He's a -1.2 WAR player, and Seby Zavala, an average defensive catcher, is arguably a better option behind the plate at this point. But kudos to Cairo for not trying to force-fit Grandal's struggling bat into the lineup at the expense of the team.

3. Leury Garcia is stapled to the bench. It truly boggles the mind that La Russa found a way to pencil Garcia into the starting lineup 71 times in the first 128 games of the season.

Under Cairo, Garcia has started only five times in 19 games, and he's started only once since Sept. 4. In other words, Garcia has been picking splinters out of his ass ever since Yoan Moncada came off the injured list.

You might say, "But Garcia had to play because of all the injuries!" To which I reply, "You know damn well that Garcia would be playing second base right now if La Russa were managing the team."

Cairo has wisely alternated between Josh Harrison and Romy Gonzalez at second base -- both of those two players have simply outperformed Garcia, who is batting .211/.234/.268 for the season and is a -1.0 WAR player. Garcia's OPS+ is 42, which means he is performing 58% below league average.

Garcia is another one who simply isn't going to perform to "the back of his baseball card" this year. He's rightfully taken a seat as the Sox fight to stay relevant in the AL Central.

White Sox fans: Let's talk about our feelings with 25 games to go

Maybe you're feeling optimistic after the White Sox rallied from a 4-0 deficit to defeat the Seattle Mariners, 9-6, on Wednesday. If so, that's cool.

Or maybe you're feeling pessimistic because, after all, the Sox are only one game over .500 (69-68) on Sept. 7, and they haven't looked like a playoff team all season. If so, that's also fine.

You can be whatever kind of fan you want to be. But me personally, my tendency is to look at the math and let that inform my view.

With 25 games to go, the White Sox are tied for second place with the Minnesota Twins, two games behind the Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central.

Can that deficit be overcome? Of course. Is it a good bet? Ehh, not sure about that.

The Guardians are 70-65 with 27 games left on their schedule. For the sake of argument, let's say they go 14-13 the rest of the way and finish 84-78. Seems like a plausible scenario, right?

Keep in mind that Cleveland leads the season series with the Sox, 9 games to 6, which means the tiebreaker goes to the Guardians. If Cleveland wins 84 games, then the Sox must win 85, or no playoffs.

The Sox are 69-68, so that means they would have to go 16-9 in their remaining 25 games to reach 85 wins. Mathematically possible? You bet, but it will require the Sox to sustain a stretch of winning baseball over a period of weeks -- something they've had trouble doing all year. They've had good weeks here and there, but they've been alternating winning and losing months and haven't had much consistency.

And that's assuming Cleveland doesn't do better than 14-13. They could do better; they could do worse. I'm just taking a reasonable guess.

Playoff odds have been on my mind today because the Sox have invoiced their fans for postseason tickets. Money is due by Sept. 20, and I find that date interesting -- it's the first day of a three-game series against the Guardians. That series will be the final matchup between Chicago and Cleveland this season, and it could decide the division.

So, Sox brass wants to know whether fans are in or out before we know the results of that critical series. Typical, because the Sox know if they lose that series, nobody will pay the playoff invoice, and then they won't be able to keep our money (without interest) over the offseason. 

For those who are not educated in this process, any money that goes toward playoff games that don't happen gets credited toward season tickets for the following season. If you demand a refund, you lose your seat location for next year.

Yeah, it's a dirty trick, so that makes this decision about whether to pay the invoice an important one.

Right now, my thought is that I'm not going to pay unless the Sox are either tied or ahead in the division by Sept. 20. That will require a hot streak over the next two weeks. So, this team needs to put up or shut up now. The schedule is favorable -- four at Oakland, two vs. Colorado, a makeup game at Cleveland and three at Detroit -- leading into Sept. 20.

The Sox probably need to win seven or eight of those 10. The margin for error is slim. Those are my feelings right now.

Lance Lynn, Elvis Andrus help White Sox win opener in Seattle

The White Sox offense still has trouble generating runs consistently, but it does seem as though veteran right-hander Lance Lynn has regained his form.

Entering Monday's series opener at Seattle, Lynn had allowed only five earned runs over 24.2 innings over his past four starts -- two wins and two no-decisions. Over that same span, he struck out 29 batters while walking only two.

Against the Mariners, Lynn (5-5) came up with his best outing of the season. He went seven innings, allowing an unearned run on three hits in a 3-2 Sox victory.

Lynn struck out 11 and walked only one, while generating 25 swings-and-misses on 89 pitches -- 63 of them for strikes. There were some pretty nasty shadows on the field with the game starting at 3:40 p.m. Pacific time, and that made conditions rough for batters.

Nevertheless, we have to say Lynn's stuff was sharp given that he retired the last 17 men he faced, and very little contact was made against him.

The Sox scored their three runs early off Seattle starter Marco Gonzales (10-13). In the second inning, AJ Pollock hit his 11th home run of the season. Elvis Andrus also hit his 11th homer (and third since joining the Sox) -- a two-run shot in the top of the third.

Andrus added a double and went 2 for 4. For whatever reason, he swings the bat really well in Seattle. At T-Mobile Park this season, dating back to his time with Oakland, he's 10 for 24 with five of his 11 home runs.

The Sox bullpen closed it out, although in dramatic fashion. Kendall Graveman worked around a two-out single to post a scoreless eighth. Liam Hendriks gave up a run on a walk and two singles in the ninth. The Mariners had the tying run at third and the winning run at second when Hendriks fanned Adam Frazier on three pitches to record his 30th save of the season.

Hendriks becomes the sixth Sox closer to record 30 or more saves in back-to-back seasons. The others are Bobby Thigpen, Roberto Hernandez, Keith Foulke, Bobby Jenks and David Robertson.

The Sox are 68-67.

Happy Labor Day from The Baseball Kid