Andrew Benintendi had three hits on Monday, but nevertheless has followed a very poor April with an ever worse month of May. The left fielder will turn 30 just before the All-Star break and is slashing .165/.212/.203 this month with 16 total bases.
While more typical Andrew Vaughn power production has come this month (.183 ISO), it’s still just a .204/.260/.387 line for him in May while playing a bat-centric position.
But after Tim Anderson stayed near the top of Pedro Grifol’s lineup last season despite career-worst numbers that he has made clear were affected by injury, something to watch this year was whether he would respond any differently to prolonged troubles from mainstays. Two poor months from Vaughn and Benintendi don’t sound like they are on the verge of provoking big changes, at least not ones driven by Grifol.
“You can get creative with some stuff but you also can't overreact to a couple months of baseball,” Grifol said. “When you've done something for such a long time and you've done it consistently, two months of baseball, two months of facing adversity is not going to force me to overreact on anything. I'm not going to do that. I believe in these guys. I believe in their ability. I've seen what they can do on the field and I'm not going to overreact to 150, 160 at-bats."
Grifol has said similar things about White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf as he said recently to the Chicago Sun-Times. And when asked to follow up on it on Wednesday, he reiterated similar themes.
"I feel fortunate that we work for an owner like Jerry. I just think he's been in this game for whatever, 44, 45 years and he's a baseball guy. I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to work for him and represent this uniform with them. I'm grateful to be here."
Grifol declined to get into whether he and Reinsdorf discuss the team’s current results and whether the Sox owner is satisfied.
Tommy Pham is getting a day off, which is effectively two days off ahead of Thursday’s off day. Amid a strong start (.294/.344/.429), Pham has been hitless in his last three games and certainly has shouldered a heavy workload.
"He's played 19 in a row,” Grifol said. “The double off day is a really good thing for him. He's played 19 in a row. Nicky Lopez has played nine in a row. Those are things that we monitor and just make sure that we don't put these guys in the position where they can get hurt."
The White Sox have their probable starters listed as Erick Fedde, Garrett Crochet and Nick Nastrini for this coming weekend set in Milwaukee. With an off day on Thursday and Monday, the Sox could find a way to give Crochet extended rest if they have a mind to, since they already plan to make him the last starter used out of the All-Star break.
But Mike Clevinger’s injury and the question of how much they want to use Jake Woodford as a starter clouds the picture somewhat.
“We'll wait and see after the game, see how we get through this game here and see what we've got,” Grifol said. “We'll have tonight to look at it, we'll have tomorrow morning to dissect it and see where we're at.”
First Pitch: White Sox at Blue Jays
TV: NBC Sports Chicago
Lineups:
| Blue Jays | White Sox | |
|---|---|---|
| Davis Schneider, 2B | 1 | Corey Julks, LF |
| Daulton Varsho, LF | 2 | Nicky Lopez, 2B |
| Vladimir Guerrero, DH | 3 | Gavin Sheets, RF |
| Bo Bichette, SS | 4 | Andrew Vaughn, 1B |
| Justin Turner, 1B | 5 | Korey Lee, DH |
| George Springer, RF | 6 | Paul DeJong, SS |
| Alejandro Kirk, C | 7 | Dominic Fletcher, CF |
| Isiah Kiner-Falefa, 3B | 8 | Bryan Ramos, 3B |
| Kevin Kiermaier, CF | 9 | Martín Maldonado, C |
| Alek Manoah | SP | Chris Flexen |
