Rick Hahn had the unfortunate task of providing a start-of-a-homestand media address after his team went 0-6 on the road. Then the White Sox went out and lost an eighth straight game in just as dismal a fashion, so if he's looking for silver lining, it would've been worse if he had to wait a day.
Speaking of silver lining, Eloy Jiménez's hamstring injury was as advertised.
That doesn't sound like much, but as Nick Madrigal's hamstring surgery last year showed, there's always a chance the timetable could turn darker once the doctors get all up in there. For Jiménez, his estimated recovery period remains six to eight weeks.
Hahn tried to thread a needle during the session, in which he had to discuss Jimenez's consecutive season-shortening injuries in detail while attempting to defend him as not uniquely susceptible to injuries. James Fegan helpfully relayed the answer in full:
“As players get older and learn their body and capabilities, they get a little better at sort of meting out that performance and effort,” Hahn said, alluding to Jiménez being just 25. “As a training staff, we can do everything in our power to push them to that limit during training, so when they have to go at it in-game, it’s not a new level that’s more taxing on the body. That is something we monitor and try to keep in tune with the players’ capabilities.
“The thing this year, running hard down the line, going to a level of speed he had hit only once else on the field this year so far, that could probably be more a factor of how the buildup went and ways try to prevent that going forward and communicating with him the work he needs in advance of trying to get to that level on the field. But again, part of that comes with maturity as a player.
“He made a bad decision last year trying to make a play. This year, trying to get to a level he barely accessed all year, that’s more a guy trying to do everything he can to help his team to win, even if it’s perhaps not the right decision at the time. That’s not a guy who is ‘injury prone.’ That’s just a moniker that, again, people try to besmirch a guy’s ability with an unfair label to put on someone like that. Whether they’re spouting stuff told them by others, it’s just unfair.”
Maybe Hahn spent some time lurking in especially cruel corners of White Sox Twitter, but his tone would seem more appropriate if Jiménez hurt himself the way Luis Robert pulled up lame, a couple of standard maximum-effort strides short of the bag. After an off-target lunge that had him landing on the back side of the base, it's more than fair to wonder why Jiménez ends up in positions few else do, especially while he's still so vital to future plans.
As for that other injured outfielder, Hahn said he expected Robert to return to the lineup for today's game against the Royals, saying before the game, "He’s checked just about every box and if he hasn’t he would by game time today."
Alas, Robert remains on the unofficial injured list, as he's out of the lineup for a fifth consecutive game.
With rosters holding two extra players and Adam Haseley being the guy who would be taking Robert's spot if the White Sox made a move, it doesn't feel like the Sox are missing anything by letting him linger in limbo. It'll only pinch if Robert is still out of the lineup come May 1, because then the loss of retroactive days would be felt.
Speaking of pinching, Liam Hendriks is also day to day with back spasms, which isn't a surprise given the way he winced leaning over for Yasmani Grandal's low throw back to the mound.
Tony La Russa's decision to let Hendriks face Byron Buxton with a fastball count still generated some debate days later. Dan Hayes tried to defend La Russa by emphasizing that Luis Arraez is not meaningfully worse than Buxton in such a situation.
And sure, that goes back to Hendriks' walk of Jose Godoy being the wrong turn that sent the White Sox on a course to hell.
Yet another element that revealed itself two days later was the timing of Hendriks' injury. According to La Russa, Hendriks didn't hurt himself during the inning, but rather before it.
And given that Hendriks was sitting 96-97 with poor command, missing badly with his secondary pitches and displaying physical discomfort with any unexpected movements, the debate is less "Why did Hendriks pitch to Buxton?" than "Why was Hendriks pitching at all?"
Perhaps that gets to the root of Hahn's unspoken disagreements with how La Russa went about it.
