Pedro Grifol mentioned he didn’t anticipate the Chicago White Sox’s struggles.
“But you don’t control the cards you’re dealt,” the first-year supervisor mentioned earlier than Wednesday’s recreation in opposition to the Toronto Blue Jays. “You management the way you reply to it. And that’s the one factor we will management.
“Adversity is educational. And how you deal with adversity is also very important. We’re not going to panic through this thing. I’ll reflect and work and make adjustments and be hard on myself, but I’m definitely not going to panic.”
Those changes should be made at house after the Sox accomplished a winless six-game journey with an 8-0 loss in entrance of 35,069 at Rogers Centre.
The attempting instances continued for the Sox, who suffered their seventh consecutive defeat and are 11 video games underneath .500 at 7-18. It’s their worst 25-game begin since 1986, when in addition they started 7-18.
“We’re in a funk and we have to come together as a team and figure out how to get out of it because this isn’t fun,” catcher Seby Zavala mentioned.
The Sox adopted three losses to the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field with three extra in opposition to the Blue Jays, who did a portion of their harm Wednesday with two outs.
Sox starter Michael Kopech retired the primary two batters of the third inning. Santiago Espinal singled and Kopech hit George Springer with a pitch. Bo Bichette adopted with an RBI single, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. drove in two with a double.
“(They) put together some decent ABs, hit a couple good pitches, hit a couple mistake pitches and had one big inning there that can hurt you,” Kopech mentioned. “I didn’t feel like I threw the ball terrible, but the bottom line is I have to throw better.”
Espinal had a two-out RBI single within the fourth to increase the Blue Jays result in 4-0.
Kopech allowed 4 runs on six hits with 4 strikeouts and two walks in 5 innings.
“Right now we haven’t done both (pitching and hitting) together very well,” Kopech mentioned. “Still assured issues will come collectively. It’s been a tricky stretch for us and all of us really feel it.
“Bottom line is pitching side has to be better and as a whole we have to be better. I’ll take this one by myself. I have to be more efficient. Eliminate big innings, and I didn’t do that.”
The Sox had been outscored 20-2 within the collection. Their solely runs got here on an Andrew Vaughn double within the third inning of Monday’s 5-2 loss. They’ll take a 24-inning scoreless drought into Thursday’s collection opener in opposition to the Rays at Guaranteed Rate Field.
The collective offensive droop continued Wednesday with 17 strikeouts. Toronto pitchers struck out 10 of the ultimate 11 batters.
“We’ve got to clean it up, we’ve got to be tougher outs,” Grifol mentioned after the sport. “I see frustration once we get behind, and we’ve bought to wash that up. Just as a result of we get behind in a recreation doesn’t imply we will’t win a recreation.
“We’ve come back before. We were just down 4-0 to Tampa (on Friday) and came back and took a 7-4 lead (in an eventual 8-7 loss). We’ve just got to clean some things up.”
For the second consecutive recreation, the Sox had been restricted to 4 hits — all singles. They had 11 hits within the collection, 4 by Andrew Benintendi.
“We give up big innings and it’s hard for our offense,” Zavala mentioned. “It places plenty of stress on our offense and in flip places stress on our pitchers as a result of we will’t rating runs or we’re not scoring runs.
“If you can’t score runs, you can never win a game. And that puts pressure on the pitchers. When you’re putting unnecessary pressure on both sides, it’s tough.”
The Sox had been shut out in back-to-back video games for the primary time since April 21-22, 2017, in opposition to Cleveland. They’ve misplaced 9 of 10 and 12 of 14.
A seven-game homestand begins with a four-game collection in opposition to the Rays, who’ve baseball’s finest document at 20-4 going into Wednesday’s evening recreation in opposition to the Houston Astros.
Asked if the Sox are leaning into the upcoming problem, Zavala mentioned, “We have to.”
“There’s no other way to say it,” he mentioned. “We have to find a way to start winning and we can’t curl up in a ball. If you curl up in a ball, then you leave our locker room. I don’t think we have any of those guys. But if anybody does feel that way, then it’s definitely going to bring us down.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com