A couple days ago, the NBC Sports Chicago used a White Sox-Twins game to talk about Rod Carew and his magical 1977 season. He won the batting title by hitting .388, leading the league in runs, hits, triples and OBP as well, culminating in an easy MVP award.
Given how close he was to hitting .400, I was curious whether the White Sox could've claimed responsibility for the reason he didn't reach that number.
Nope. The opposite, actually. The White Sox were a big reason why he got so close.
Carew torched White Sox pitching for a line of .492/.537/.678, or 29-for-59. He hit four homers against the Yankees -- only one against the Sox -- but he victimized the White Sox the most in just about every major column. Nor did the White Sox even try getting in his way at the end of the season. Carew had at least two hits in each of the last six games he faced the Sox last year, finishing 15-for-27 for September.
Nelson Cruz only hit .368/.437/.743 against the White Sox during his time with the Twins, which came to an end with a trade to the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday. If it felt like Cruz's production rivaled Carew's in 1977, that's because he made a helluva first impression in that uniform. Most of that production over the 41 games was front-loaded, after which the White Sox eventually figured out how to wrangle him into a more ordinary kind of dangerous.
| Span | PA | H | HR | RBI | BB | K | BA | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First 21 games | 93 | 36 | 11 | 34 | 14 | 15 | .456 | .538 | .975 |
| Last 20 games | 82 | 20 | 4 | 8 | 7 | 22 | .274 | .321 | .493 |
It sucks that the White Sox might've seen Cruz fewer times from here on out had he remained a member of the Twins (three games) instead of joining the Rays (three games, plus postseason?), but I'm here to provide positive reinforcement. He was an obvious fit for the Rays as an everyday DH threat with an acceptable/enviable strikeout rate for the amount of power he provides, but the White Sox have neutralized him before. Or perhaps a move to Florida will allow his retirement instincts to kick in faster.
As for the return, it seems like the Twins did well enough for a rental player limited to one league. They received right-handed pitching prospects Joe Ryan and Drew Strotman, both of whom would rate higher in another team's farm system, but since the Rays placed eight prospects in the top 100, they're relegated to second-10 status within their own organization. Ryan has a really good high fastball, while Strotman looks like he's fully past Tommy John surgery and ready to fill out a starter's arsenal.
They should help fill out of the depth for a Minnesota pitching staff that collapsed this year, assuming the coaching administration is not a contributing factor to the foundering.
* * * * * * * * *
The next time the White Sox face the Cleveland Nine, there's a new way to write around their current team name without writing "Cleveland" five billion times. The "Indians" moniker is officially on the way out, with the team introducing a replacement this morning.
"Cleveland Guardians" feels generic, but it makes sense when learning that it's based on the city's Guardians of Traffic statues, and I already liked the winged-G baseball before understanding what it meant. Just about every current MLB team name would get trashed if it were introduced on Twitter, so give it five years -- and maybe a font update once the franchise completes its transition from the Indians era -- and it'll probably seem like they've been there for 50.
The team name will be introduced for the 2022 season, but we can start calling them Future Guardians now.
(Photo by Quinn Harris/Icon Sportswire)
