Pregame notes: Luis Robert’s plate discipline is growing, right as his future with White Sox is in doubt

There's always a slight risk of misinterpretation when someone is turning a phrase in another language, but something suggests Luis Robert Jr.'s answer on assessing the White Sox first half was not a statement of approval.

"You can’t hide what everybody can see," Robert said via interpreter of an unthinkable 70 losses before the All-Star break, though he didn't allow that as an excuse for a cascading effect on his own performance. "I don’t think that the situation of the team is something that’s going to limit your ability to perform on the field. You always have to go out there and do your best, and that’s what I try to do."

A putrid last couple of seasons for the White Sox invite memories of moments where Robert probably would have performed better if the game situation offered anything to push him to another level. And his answer on the team's potential to return to contention was much more tilted--accurately so--toward that being a matter beyond his reach, rather than some manner of singular determination to carry the franchise back to glory singlehandedly.

"I keep replying, that's something I can't control," Robert said via interpreter. "That's the front office’s job, but if they do a good job and put together a good team, yeah, we can be good again, like we were in 2020 and ‘21."

Even with that hanging over everything, Robert has consistently stated his preference to stay in Chicago, even if the question has been asked more than enough for him to ponder life elsewhere.

"Not just me, but the players, we know there is always a chance to be traded," Robert said via interpreter. "This is the team that gave me the chance to play here, and we were good here for a couple years. It’d be nice to get back to that, to have a good team and compete with this organization."

"We can't hide from the fact that this is an uncomfortable couple of weeks for some of these guys; that's the reality of it," Pedro Grifol said of the looming trade deadline. "These guys are human, everybody's human. Shoot, even the coaches every once in a while we talk about what are the possibilities of what our roster is going to look like."

Barring a descent into swing-happy madness on Sunday, Robert is hitting the All-Star break at the highest walk rate (9.2 percent) and lowest chase rate of his career. Per Statcast, Robert's 32.6 percent rate of swings at pitches out of the zone is over five percentage points lower than his next most restrained season, which ironically was his rookie year (37.8). For the first time in forever, Robert is closer to a league average chase rate (28.3 percent) than his career norms.

It's encouraging progress in addressing his primary weakness as a player, or just a logical response to the fact that teams are also throwing him fewer pitches in the zone than any other point his career. Also, because it's the 2024 White Sox, Robert is riding a career-high 32.8 percent strikeout rate. A lot of that is seemingly the poor timing he had after returning from the injured list, but Robert is already two away (15) from matching last year's total for strikeouts looking (17), and getting burned by bad umpire calls has made it hard for him to stay committed.

"It's very difficult, it’s a challenge, because you have a  plan and you try to swing at pitches in the strike zone, you try not to chase," Robert said via interpreter. "But when you're getting those calls out of the strike zone, even though you don't want to, your mind goes like ‘You know you need to swing at those pitches because they’re getting called.’ That's the hardest part, and something I need to keep working on."

Lenyn Sosa is continuing to see a sustained run of action at second base, despite a steady run of at least one mistake per game at the position and an accompanying 2-for-20 stretch with eight strikeouts over his last five games. As we've established, commitment is hard.

Andrew Benintendi is 5-for-30 in July with two doubles and three walks. At least he's not striking out much (10 percent)?

Andrew McCutchen is back in the lineup after departing Saturday's game with hamstring discomfort. Who doesn't love Cutch?

Initially the White Sox said it would a bullpen game led by Jared Shuster or Chad Kuhl. They eventually announced Shuster as an opener, but you should expect a lot of Kuhl.

First pitch: White Sox vs. Pirates

TV: NBCSCH

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