Eloy Jiménez has long been the Goofus to Luis Robert Jr.'s Gallant, although he doesn't volunteer himself for the role the way he would before. When the White Sox were AL Central favorites and postseason-bound, he could ham it up for comedic effect and bobblehead sales. As the team's fortunes plunged into the abyss, he's read the room, and (correctly) took Robert to task for it at one point last year.
Since that brief stretch in April where Robert looked burned out and/or checked out, he's been able to hone his game in a way that has eluded Jiménez, even if you take natural defensive talents out of the equation.
Saturday's game -- the second game of the season, we must note -- was the latest game to demonstrate the divide.
Robert went 3-for-4 with a pair of homers after protracted battles with Kenta Maeda, followed by a walk later in the game. He saw 29 pitches over his five plate appearances, and said the discipline wasn't coincidental, but the result of offseason work quadrant-hunting. Late in the game, he flagged down a Riley Greene drive that Statcast says had an expected batting average of .860. All in a day's work.
Meanwhile, Jiménez went 1-for-5 with a single, but the line alone doesn't tell the story. He erased himself on the basepaths with a bad read on a ball in the dirt that had him thrown out at second standing up, and while he saw 14 pitches, half of them came on one plate appearance, which ended in a strikeout.
Not all of it was bad, or indicative of shortcomings. The strikeout was on a quality Alex Faedo slider, and that'll happen. Likewise, although Jiménez's first at-bat was a first-pitch groundout to second ...
... swinging at that pitch wasn't necessarily a mistake. Maeda's struggled with hanging sliders all day, and this one was up in the zone. The White Sox pounced on Maeda's spinners before and after to great effect, and Jiménez also recognized the weakness. The inside-out swing on a first pitch was the bigger issue.
Later on, though, pitch selection eventually entered the chat. In the seventh inning, Jiménez strode to the plate with the bases loaded, one out and the game tied at 6. Even though those bases were loaded entirely on Alex Lange walks, he faced Will Vest with no intent of taking. When Vest started with a fastball well inside, Jiménez checked his swing just before his hands (or knob of the bat) ran into the pitch.
Vest came right back in there on a 1-0, a little closer to the plate but still clearly a ball. Jiménez offered, and bounced into an inning-ending 5-3 double play.
Capping off his afternoon, when the Tigers scored one in the top of the 10th, Jiménez started off the bottom of the inning by popping up a Shelby Miller fastball above the strike zone.
In summary, Jiménez came to the plate for two of the three biggest plate appearances of the game and saw only three pitches, and none of them were strikes.
Again, it's early. It's likely that everybody will forget this game, not just because it's one of 110 losses or summer will provide more reliable forms of entertainment, but because Jiménez will have some great games that offset this particular disappointment.
It's just remarkable that the second game of the season so neatly captured most of the elements that have hamstrung Jiménez's career. There was the ungainly grounder-generating swing early, the poor swing decisions later, and a TOOTBLAN showed up as a representation of the way he gives up ground on the margins. An awkward landing on first base would've completed the set, but assuming today's lineup card doesn't tell a different story, he appears to be as healthy as can be. There's a reason why the excellent start to his spring inspired a lot of hope, even though the quiet end to his Cactus League game log served as a reminder to temper expectations.
The intent of this post is more descriptive than predictive. We're taking a snapshot of these flaws in order to see if any of them diminish over the course of the next several months, because his (in)ability to correct course will determine whether he has any trade value at the deadline, or whether the White Sox will have to wrestle with his options afterward. The White Sox have employed three different hitting coaches over the last three years -- Frank Menechino gave way to José Castro, who was let go after a year for Marcus Thames -- so they've thrown different philosophies at him, as well as a different setup this spring.
If it doesn't work, it won't be for a lack of trying. "What will it be a lack of?" is the better question, because it's a tougher one for everybody involved to answer.
