On Saturday morning, the White Sox took batting practice with a wall of protective screens pulled up adjacent to the pitching mound.
Since they began this practice last week, the idea is to emphasize driving the ball in the air for a group of hitters that, per FanGraphs, entered the weekend with the highest ground-ball rate in the majors. In a 5-4 walk-off victory over the Red Sox, the scuffling White Sox offense provided proof of concept, blasting a season-high four solo home runs.
“We’ve been working really hard on it, trying to get the ball off the ground,” said Andrew Vaughn, who lifted the last of the four. “Homers are cool. Homers are fun, and they score runs. It gets everybody fired up and keeps us going.”
Elvis Andrus’ game-winning, two-out single in the bottom of the ninth? Maybe it would have clipped off the top of the screen.
“There’s a good possibility because the ball landed in the outfield somewhere,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “We’re having fun with those screens. At the same time, it’s serving a purpose. In this league, ground balls pretty much are outs, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid.”
Yasmani Grandral’s wall-scraper to left in the second inning was all White Sox hitters could muster off Red Sox starter James Paxton. But after knee soreness ended Paxton’s day after four innings, Jake Burger, Luis Robert Jr. and Vaughn provided a trio of no-doubters off reliever Josh Winckowski. It made for an increasingly rank celebratory home-run jacket.
“Definitely a little sweaty after Burger puts it on,” Vaughn quipped.
“Everybody would be more than happy to wear that sticky, sticky jacket,” Andrus said.
The victory kept the White Sox (33-45) from clinching their fifth series loss in a row and from matching a season-high 14 games under .500. It also made a winner out of Kendall Graveman (3-3) after a hard-luck blown save, sealed by a two-out, game-tying bloop RBI single from Justin Turner in the top of the ninth.
In his team rallying behind Triston Casas’ error trying to field a two-out chopper by Gavin Sheets at first, pinch runner Zach Remil-lard stealing second and scoring on Andrus flaring a cutter from Kenley Jansen to shallow right-center, Grifol saw some happy symmetry in both halves of the ninth.
“I faced him yesterday, and I kind of knew how he was going to approach me, what location he was trying to throw that cutter,” said Andrus. “We know that you’re always a hot streak away to get in the race. In this year, our division hasn’t been the best so far, which is kind of good for us.”
Now that they’re driving the ball in the air again, the next seasonlong focus for Sox hitters to act upon is taking more pitches and getting on base. They entered Saturday with the lowest on-base percentage in baseball. In fact, 15 of their last 16 home runs have been of the solo variety.
“We definitely need to string more hits together,” Vaughn said. “It’s a part of baseball. You have to score runs a bunch of ways.”
“We’re working on shrinking the strike zone and not chasing and getting on base prior to these homers,” Grifol said. “The good thing is we’re hitting these balls, we’re putting these balls in the seats. We’ve just got to continue to work and put this offense together.”
Sox hitters were limited to one walk but were able to get starter Lance Lynn off the hook for a loss after 5‰ innings with three runs allowed. Employing a new, sharper “gyro” slider aimed at stemming his seasonlong troubles with left-handed hitters, Lynn was an out away from completing six innings of one-run ball against a lefty-heavy lineup. But he split the plate with a cutter to Casas, another lefty, and paid for it with a two-run homer.
With a 6.40 ERA, not getting away with any mistakes has been a theme for Lynn.
“When you throw the ball well and still give up three, strike out 16 and give up three, it’s kind of like a kick in the [groin], to be honest,” said Lynn.
How does he, and the White Sox, cope with that?
“Wear a cup,” Lynn replied.
