White Sox season ticket holder perk ... It's not much of a perk

I'm not impressed by the so-called perks the White Sox are giving their season ticket holders these days. Maybe it's because I've been a customer for 19 years, and I see the decline in quality.

One year on Fan Appreciation Day, I remember coming home with a couple of really nice Sox hats. I still own and wear both of them, in fact, and it's probably been about 10 years.

Safe to say, I will not be getting anything like that when I attend Fan Appreciation Day this coming Sunday.

The Sox on Wednesday sent out an email to season ticket holders, giving us all two vouchers for the chance to "secure two complimentary promotional items from past and current seasons."

OK, that's not necessarily bad, but look at the list of items that is available, with my reaction in parenthesis:

• Blackhawks/White Sox hats (Might be OK, depending on how it looks)
• NASCAR coolers (We already have nice coolers, and they don't say NASCAR on them.)
• Moncada bobbleheads (I already have it. I was thinking of throwing mine out.)
• Grandal bobbleheads (Are you shitting me?)
• Eloy bobbleheads (I already have two.)
• Dual Eloy/Luis bobbleheads (It's nice, but I already have it.)
• Police and fire hats (Not interested.)
• Indiana Vaughn bobbleheads (Not interested.)
• Margaritaville bobbleheads (Don't even know what this is. Pass.)
• Benny the Elf bobbleheads (Who?)
• 2022 soccer jersey (This is baseball, not soccer.)
• 2022 Hawaiian shirt (I already gave mine to charity.)

Most of this stuff is garbage. It's the sort of thing you would pay $1.50 for at a garage sale. This is supposed to be a benefit? No, it's the Sox trying to get rid of some stuff that would go in the trash anyway.

Dare I say, "Flush it," just like the rest of the 2023 season.

Knee injury ends Luis Robert Jr.'s season

The White Sox on Tuesday placed center fielder Luis Robert Jr. on the 10-day injured list with a mild MCL sprain in his left knee.

Robert injured the knee when he made an awkward slide on a wet field during Sunday's 3-2, rain-shortened win over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park.

Before Tuesday's game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Sox selected the contract of 32-year-old outfielder Tyler Naquin from Triple-A Charlotte. To make room for Naquin on the 40-man roster, the Sox transferred right-handed pitcher Jimmy Lambert (right ankle surgery) to the 60-day injured list.

With only six games to play in the regular season, Robert's 2023 campaign is over. That said, the 26-year-old had the best season of his career to date: Here are his accomplishments:

• 38 home runs
• 36 doubles
• 80 RBIs
• .542 slugging percentage
• 20 stolen bases
• 128 OPS+
• .857 OPS
• 4.9 bWAR
• 5.0 fWAR
• 13 outs above average in CF
• career-high 145 games played
• first career All-Star selection

It would be no surprise if Robert adds a Gold Glove or a Silver Slugger to this list after the season.

The hell of it is, Robert had the breakout season all Sox fans were hoping for, yet the team swirled down the drain anyway.

Robert's pursuit of the 40-homer mark was one reason to watch the final week of this season. That reason is now gone. Good luck drawing fans to the ballpark this week, Sox. No, I don't think Naquin will move the needle.

It's interesting that the Sox added a journeyman outfielder to the roster, instead of recalling Oscar Colas, isn't it?

A few notable numbers as White Sox play out string

There's no need to report everything that's going on with the White Sox as they play out the string in a miserable 2023 season. But here are a few notable things that have happened recently:

• Mike Clevinger pitched all six innings of Sunday's rain-shortened 3-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox. The right-hander gave up two runs on five hits, and he neither struck out nor walked a batter. This is notable because it's the fifth straight start for Clevinger without a walk. He should get one more start before the season ends. The last time a Sox pitcher went six straight starts without a walk? That was LaMarr Hoyt in his 1983 Cy Young-winning season. Clevinger is 9-8 with a 3.40 ERA this year.
• I was talking baseball with some people at a party Saturday afternoon, and a Sox fan who is in his 70s asked me, "How many hit batters do they have this season? My whole life, I've never seen a pitching staff hit so many batters." I guessed, "More than 70," then went about the business of looking it up. Turns out, the Sox had hit 88 batters as of Saturday afternoon. Well, Clevinger hit two Boston batters on Sunday. That makes 90 hit batsmen, and yes, that is a new team record.
• Dylan Cease had perhaps his best outing of the season Saturday in a 1-0 victory over Boston. He went seven innings, allowing no runs on six hits. He struck out 11 and did not issue a walk. During this performance, Cease cleared the 200-strikeout mark for the third straight season. He has 207 strikeouts this year, after posting 226 strikeouts in 2021 and 227 strikeouts in 2022. Cease becomes only the third pitcher in Sox history to compile 200 or more strikeouts in three different years. The others are Chris Sale, who did it four times from 2013-16, and Ed Walsh, who holds the franchise record with five such years (1907-08, 1910-12).
• In that 1-0 victory, the winning run scored in the top of the ninth inning on Luis Robert Jr.'s 38th home run of the season. With six games to play, Robert still has an outside shot at reaching both 40 doubles and 40 home runs for the season -- he has 36 doubles. The All-Star center fielder also collected his 20th stolen base of the year in Sunday's win. Unfortunately, Robert slid awkwardly in the wet dirt and had to leave the game with right knee soreness. Hopefully, he'll be able to return to the lineup Tuesday against the Arizona Diamondbacks and continue his pursuit of the 40-homer mark.
• The Sox won two of three in Boston despite only scoring six runs in the three-game series. Man, this offense is sleepy. The Sox are 60-96. They will need a 3-3 homestand to avoid a 100-loss season. 

Can't the White Sox celebrate 1983 from a different angle?

The White Sox excessively celebrate the 1983 AL West Division championship, don't they?

On Sunday, the team marked the 40th anniversary of the division-clinching game. Social media accounts featured a picture of manager Tony La Russa and outfielders Daryl Boston, Harold Baines and Ron Kittle.

You might be asking yourself why Boston was in the photo. Good question. He didn't make his debut with the Sox until 1984. At least La Russa and Baines are in the Hall of Fame, and in case you haven't heard (LOL), Kittle won AL Rookie of the Year in 1983. Boston just doesn't fit here.

On the Sox Machine podcast this week, they asked why the 1983 team is celebrated for every anniversary, while the 1993 AL West Division champion Sox are mostly lost to history.

Great question. I don't have a good answer. 

Me personally, I loved the 1983 team. I was 7 years old at the time, and that was the team that helped spark my love of baseball and the White Sox. That being said, I agree that the nostalgia for that team has gotten excessive. Do we really need to see those 1983 uniforms for every Sunday home game? Not in my world.

But, if we must continue to celebrate the 1983 team, couldn't we at least hear from some different players?

Kittle doesn't have a story to tell that I haven't already heard. He won Rookie of the Year and hit homers onto the roof at Comiskey Park. Yeah, we know.

And Baines is well-known as a quiet man, despite being an exceptional player during his day. He just doesn't have much to say.

I realize some of the players from the 1983 squad have passed now -- LaMarr Hoyt, Julio Cruz and Dick Tidrow come to mind as some guys who are no longer with us. 

But you know who's still alive? Greg Luzinski. And Rudy Law. And Richard Dotson. And Vance Law. And Jerry Dybzinski. And Jerry Hairston. And Tom Paciorek. And Floyd Bannister. Heck, Jerry Koosman turns 81 in December, but he's still around! I could go on.

Why not bring back some of these former players? We haven't heard much from any of them over the years. That would be more interesting than hearing Kittle talk about that season for the 1,000th time.

Minnesota Twins outscore White Sox 30-11 in 4-game series

Guaranteed Rate Field on Sept. 16

There are two things that I can say about the Minnesota Twins:

1.     They are going to win the American League Central Division, easily.
2.     They are not a particularly impressive team.

After taking three games out of four from the White Sox this weekend at Guaranteed Rate Field, the Twins are still only eight games above .500 at 79-71. They also possess a seven-game lead in the division with 12 to play, because the second-place Cleveland Guardians are 72-78.

That said, that mediocrity did not stop Minnesota from outscoring the Sox 30-11 over the course of the four-game series. Each of the Twins' three victories came in convincing fashion, the closest of the bunch being their 4-0 win on Sunday.

It's very difficult to sweep a four-game series. The garbage team usually wins one, and the Sox happened to win the game I attended this weekend, 7-6 on Saturday.

The Sox had a 7-1 lead after seven innings Saturday, but they gave up four runs in the eighth and one run in the ninth. The Twins had the bases loaded when Tanner Banks recorded the final out for his first career save.

So, it was pretty close to being a four-game sweep. Again, keep this in mind when the Sox claim they can compete in 2024. This weekend, they were completely outclassed on their home field by the middling Twins.

The Sox are 22 games behind Minnesota at 57-93. The Twins would be at least five games out if they were in any other division besides the AL Central. I don't see them winning anything in October, but there is no denying they are far superior to the Sox.

Sox manager Pedro Grifol continues to prattle on about "setting a tone" for next season and "developing a winning culture" and such. As far as I can tell, the only thing he's doing is getting his ass kicked by mediocre and bad teams.

The Sox are 4-12 in September, all against AL Central foes. What does that tell you?

The (entire) American League Central has passed the White Sox by

Guaranteed Rate Field

The White Sox just completed a stretch of 12 straight games against the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals.

They went 3-9. So much for the soft September schedule, huh?

Kansas City beat the Sox, 7-1, on Wednesday night at Guaranteed Rate Field. The Royals took two out of three in the series, and four out of six against the Sox over the past couple of weeks.

Mind you, Kansas City is 46-101 for the season. That's the worst record in MLB. But that didn't stop the Royals from going 7-6 against the Sox in 2023.

The Tigers swept the Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field over the Labor Day weekend, then took two out of three from Chicago in Detroit this past weekend.

Mind you, the Tigers are 66-79, but that didn't stop them from going 8-5 against the Sox this season.

The Sox are 56-90 after Wednesday's loss, and they are well on their way to finishing with 100 losses or more. I'm not going to break down any of these games. The blog metrics show that when I do that, nobody is reading. 

Almost no one cares about these results, and I don't blame them. The baseball is just atrocious. I wasn't alive for 1970's 106-loss fiasco, so this 2023 team qualifies as the worst Sox season in my lifetime. (I'm 47 years old.)

So why am I bringing these last 12 games up? Simple. ... This offseason, Sox brass is going to try to convince you that they aim to contend in 2024. They will tell you that the AL Central is "winnable," which is a polite way to say it's weak.

And, indeed, it is weak. The first-place Minnesota Twins are the only winning team in the division, but they have a pedestrian 76-70 record. They will make the 2023 playoffs by default.

All that said, the Sox are the weakest team in the weakest division at this moment in time. Sure, the Royals are about 10 games worse over the course of the 162-game schedule. But right now, even Kansas City is better than the Sox -- the recent results prove it.

The Sox haven't won a three-game series since they took two out of three from the New York Yankees from Aug. 7-9. They are 13-26 since Aug. 1, and 20-42(!) since July 1. Sixty-two games is not a small sample size. The Sox have a .323 winning percentage during that span.

This is a team that is nowhere near contention. Barring an uncharacteristic spending spree (LOL), it's going to take multiple offseasons to fix this mess. Don't buy any of the propaganda you'll hear this winter.

White Sox send Oscar Colas to Triple-A Charlotte

Remember when the White Sox opened the season with rookie Oscar Colas as their starting right fielder in the middle of an alleged contention window?

Yes, that was a major mistake, and it's the type of misstep that contributes to a general manager's firing. Indeed, former general manager Rick Hahn is fired.

But while Hahn is gone, Colas remains in the organization. However, the 24-year-old Cuban outfielder's future is in doubt after he was optioned to Triple-A Charlotte for the second time this season before Monday's game against the Kansas City Royals was postponed.

Colas got off to a brutal start in April. He was sent to Charlotte the first week of May, after batting .211/.265/.276 over the season's first month.

He was brought back to Chicago on July 4. Since then, he's batting .219/.253/.331. His on-base percentage is actually lower in this bigger sample, and while we've seen a slight increase in slugging, no one is excited about four home runs and seven doubles over a two-month period from a player whose power is supposed to be his carrying tool.

The Sox are 19-47 in the 66 games Colas has started this season, and he's weighing down the team with more than just poor offense. 

Colas has been called out multiple times by manager Pedro Grifol for his poor decision-making in the outfield. On Sunday, he threw to third base on a single to right, failing to retire a Detroit runner who was headed to third, and allowing the batter to take an extra 90 feet into second base. On a later play, Colas nearly decapitated second baseman Elvis Andrus on a collision in shallow right, turning what should have been an out into a double.

This comes on the heels of a big mistake in the bottom of the ninth inning last Tuesday in Kansas City, when Colas threw to second base on a play where he needed to throw the ball toward home. The Sox eventually lost that game in walk-off fashion.

A lot of fans are very angry about the demotion of Colas, believing the Sox are bullying a younger player. 

But guess what? Colas isn't a big leaguer. Nobody likes his .571 OPS, but with the team out of the race, you could live with that if the player were correcting his mistakes and showing competence in other facets of the game.

Unfortunately, Colas is a poor hitter, a bad baserunner and an even worse defender. He should not have been the right fielder at the start of the season. He should not be the right fielder now, and he should not be the right fielder at the start of next season either. 

As Sox fans, we've been screaming about the need for more accountability. Well, here's some accountability for a player. Good. Now apply the same standards to the more veteran players on the team, who have been dogging it far too often.

The Sox need to make more decisions like this.

Catcher Carlos Perez is taking Colas' spot on the roster. The Sox also optioned pitcher Edgar Navarro to Triple-A Charlotte and recalled pitcher Deivi Garcia.

Happy Labor Day from The Baseball Kid