By Roger Wallenstein

I’ve tried hard. I really have. And I’ll continue to make attempts to be more inclusive and tolerant while keeping an open mind about new and different ways of looking at things. However, I can’t disavow my genes. Rosters of major league ballclubs are changing constantly so that many of today’s players are foreign to me. Just like when I was eight years old, when I see a new guy, I want to know what he’s hitting. Not his average exit velocity, barrel rate, wins above replacement, or his spray chart but what’s his batting average? Then, how many homers and RBIs? This is who I am. I also like a Polish with onions, fries and a PBR.
So I wasn’t as agitated as some of the analytics’ followers last Wednesday after the White Sox 4-0 loss to the Cardinals, the lone setback for the Sox in a 6-1 homestand at The Grate, leaving the local crew atop the AL Central Division with a 3½-game bulge over Cleveland.

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Posted on May 31, 2021

By Roger Wallenstein

Home runs are good. Strikeouts? Despite the viewpoint gaining traction that they’re just another out, well, not so fast.
Take the White Sox, for example. They’ve hit 44 home runs in the season’s first 45 games. Only four other clubs have hit fewer. When they’ve managed at least one in a ballgame, the team has won 22 of 28. To summarize, their chances of winning if they can deposit at least one ball into the outfield seats is almost 80 percent. And that’s really good. When the Sox don’t homer, they’re 4-13, and that’s downright crummy.

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Posted on May 24, 2021

By Roger Wallenstein

This is being written before Lucas Giolito takes the mound this afternoon in Minneapolis in what very well could be the pivotal game thus far this baseball season for the Chicago White Sox. In fact, we might be able to look back four months from now just to see how crucial this contest turns out to be.
That may sound panicky and an overreaction, but the events of the past two nights have thrust the team into a situation of their manager’s creation, and it’s not a pleasant place. We awakened this morning wondering which ballclub, the Sox or the Twins, Tony La Russa is managing. He publicly chastised Yermin Mercedes on Monday night for tomahawking a ninth-inning, 47-mile-an-hour, three-and-oh offering from position player Willians Astudillo over the wall in left centerfield. That would have been splendid had the score been tied or close. However, with the White Sox in command at 15-4, and with the take sign on, poor etiquette doesn’t come close to describing La Russa’s interpretation of the Yerminator’s zealousness.

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Posted on May 19, 2021

By Roger Wallenstein

“Your Phone Is Your Ticket,” says the sign, assuming, of course, that every fan brought their cellphone to the ballpark. And if, heaven forbid, you don’t own a cellphone, you’re out of luck as far as seeing the best team in town.
That was the message last Thursday afternoon as we stood in line to enter The Grate for what turned out to be a 4-2 White Sox victory over the Minnesota Twins. In the 20 months since I last watched the Sox in their home park, not only have some of the rules of the game changed, but the fan experience is a clearly different as well.

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Posted on May 17, 2021

By Roger Wallenstein

Why in the world would you ever walk Yasmani Grandal? Why not have the opposition simply plant a batting tee at home plate, place a ball atop the contraption, and ask the White Sox catcher, “Mr. Grandal, how’s that? A little higher or lower? Would you like us to bring the tee a bit closer to you? Maybe a bit more toward the outside corner?”
Rather than issuing yet another base on balls, at least the fielders would have a chance to get the guy out.
Perhaps I need to back up a bit. Grandal, who went 0-for-4 Sunday with three strikeouts in the Sox 9-3 win in Kansas City, has registered three hits in 47 at bats in his last 18 games, dating back to April 7. Check the calendar. That’s more than a month ago and computes to a .064 batting average.
Dylan Cease, one of the club’s starting pitchers and a battery mate of Grandal’s, never had batted in a major league game until last Tuesday when he collected three hits including a rousing double off the right field wall in Cincinnati. Cease probably will pitch in a National League park before the season ends, but for right now, in one afternoon he equaled Grandal’s hit production for an entire month.

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Posted on May 10, 2021

By Roger Wallenstein

Bobby Winkles, who managed the Angels and A’s after winning three College World Series in the ’60s with Arizona State, used to tell the story about Nolan Ryan when the Hall of Famer was pitching for the Angels.
Seems that Ryan was tiring in the late innings of a close game when Winkles went to the mound to make a change. Before handing the ball to his manager, Ryan said, “You mind if I ask you a question?”
“No, of course not,” replied Winkles, who had great respect and admiration for one of the game’s all-time greats, especially since he won 21 games for Winkles’ club in 1973 while striking out 383 batters.
“Would you rather have a tired Nolan Ryan face the next hitter or that guy warming up in the bullpen?” deadpanned Ryan.

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Posted on May 3, 2021

By Roger Wallenstein

By the time the White Sox’ $54 million closer Liam Hendriks strode to the mound in the top of the ninth inning last Saturday on a chilly night at The Grate, the contest between the local club and the Texas Rangers displayed the kind of drama that makes the game so compelling.
Sox starter Dallas Keuchel had pitched into the seventh inning, allowing seven hits. Two runners got as far as third base but advanced no further. Keuchel fanned just two batters, but the key to his success was that he walked no one. When he departed, his teammates led 1-0.
The lone run had scored on a wild pitch in the bottom of the sixth after two outs and no one on base. A couple of base hits and a walk followed before catcher Jose Trevino was unable to corral a breaking ball from Kyle Gibson as Yoan Moncada raced home. The wild one was one of six Texas misfires during the weekend series in which the Rangers were swept by Tony La Russa’s surging forces.
Last season with Oakland, Hendriks gave up a home run in the first of his 24 appearances. It was the lone round-tripper he yielded over 25⅓ innings in the entire COVID-shortened season.

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Posted on April 26, 2021

By Roger Wallenstein

No-hitters come along about two a season, and they come in a variety of shapes and forms. Sort of like a box of chocolates. You bite into one hoping for something sweet like caramel or strawberry, but occasionally you get an unknown foreign substance which requires the nearest trashcan for relief.

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Posted on April 19, 2021

By Roger Wallenstein

Had we been told before the White Sox season began that after nine games the starting pitchers would have covered 47-plus innings with a 3.02 ERA, we’d have burst with optimism, assuming that the club had six or seven wins.
We knew that Lucas Giolito, Dallas Keuchel and Lance Lynn were solid, whereas Dylan Cease and Carlos Rodon needed to prove that they could fortify the end of the rotation. So the good news 12 days into the season is that those five hurlers, who have fanned 60 batters while walking just 19, compose one of the better starting staffs in either league.
Included in those numbers, of course, was the complete game masterpiece spun by Lynn last Thursday, blanking the Kansas City Royals 6-0 in the home opener at The Grate. Lynn walked no one while striking out 10 – only the ninth time in team history that a pitcher has recorded double digits in strikeouts without walking anyone in pitching a shutout. Hall of Famer Ed Walsh was the first to do it in 1910, and Giolito accomplished the feat in 2019 against the Twins.
This is all fine and dandy news. So what is the explanation that instead of racking up lots of wins in this young season, the ballclub has struggled to post a disappointing 4-5 record? The answers are not at all complicated.

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Posted on April 12, 2021

By Roger Wallenstein

Five years, 10 years, 25 years from now, few will remember the botched fly balls and blown leads, but the legend of Yermin Mercedes will remain alive.
Chances are, even a century into the future, his eight hits in as many at-bats to kick off the season will remain as the hottest streak ever for a ballplayer’s first two games of a new campaign. The Yerminator has landed.

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Posted on April 5, 2021