With the most comfortable division lead in baseball and seven weeks remaining in the regular season, all the Chicago White Sox need to do is keep their heads above water to win their first American League Central title since 2008.
And that’s exactly what they’ve been doing for the last 50 games heading into Monday night’s series opener with the Oakland Athletics, going 25-25 while the Cleveland Indians have plummeted.
The suspense is gone, and the Sox should know the order of their postseason rotation by the time they face the Indians again in a five-game series Sept. 23-26 at Progressive Field.
This season already has had so many high points — Yermín Mercedes’ record-setting start, Carlos Rodón’s no-hitter and Tim Anderson’s walk-off home run in the Field of Dreams game, to name but a few — it almost seems fated to be one to remember forever.
That’s why Sox fans have to remind themselves that winning the AL Central for the first time in 13 years won’t make the 2021 season a success. You don’t bring in Tony La Russa to win a division title and say “nice try” after a first-round exit.
And until the Sox start winning at a more consistent clip, we won’t know if they have enough to get to the World Series, much less plan the victory parade. Last year they limped into the postseason with eight losses in their last 10 games and lost to the A’s in the opening-round series, costing manager Rick Renteria his job.
The teams came into the four-game series Monday with identical 68-50 records, even after the Sox took away the A’s closer, Liam Hendriks, and added a Cy Young Award contender in Lance Lynn.
Hendriks was supposed to be the difference-maker in a bullpen so talented that before the season, Aaron Bummer predicted: “I wouldn’t expect us to lose a game if we’re leading after the fifth inning.”
Not close. The Sox had 21 blown saves entering Monday, second-most in the AL behind the Seattle Mariners’ 23. Hendriks was tied for the AL lead with 26 saves but also led with six blown saves and had served up 11 home runs, tied for second-most among all relievers.
Overall, the Sox relief corps’ 4.04 ERA through Sunday ranked ninth in the AL. These numbers must change if the Sox hope to be a great team, not just a very good one. That’s why La Russa’s plan for employing Hendriks and his new, not-so-secret weapon, former Chicago Cubs closer Craig Kimbrel, will be so important to watch during these final two months.
Kimbrel had one rough outing against the Cubs in his return to Wrigley Field and blew a save Saturday against the New York Yankees by serving up a leadoff home run to Aaron Judge in the eighth. While it’s a small sample size, it’s obvious Kimbrel feels more comfortable pitching in the ninth with a lead, as any closer would.
Hendriks, meanwhile, has been up and down since an untouchable 19-game stretch from April 29 to June 10 in which he allowed no earned runs over 17 innings. He served up a pair of two-run home runs to Judge and Giancarlo Stanton to blow a three-run lead in the ninth inning of the Field of Dreams game, only to be bailed out by Anderson’s clutch home run.
On Saturday he gave up a run-scoring single to Judge in the 10th and a two-run moonshot to Joey Gallo that almost landed on the Dan Ryan Expressway, and he was visibly perturbed when he saw La Russa coming to the mound one out later to remove him.
If La Russa was trying to tick off Hendriks, it seemingly worked. Hendriks insists he pitches better when he’s angry, so perhaps getting a much-deserved hook was all he needed to get back to being the dominant closer we saw in May and June.
An even better option for La Russa would be using Kimbrel or Michael Kopech in the ninth, letting Hendriks set up the other two members of the self-named “Pony Tail Gang” for a while. Kopech is an unlikely candidate because he’s being closely monitored after being out since 2018, but using Kimbrel would be a no-brainer.
Going into Monday, Kimbrel had pitched in the ninth inning of 36 games this year without giving up an earned run, a span of 33⅓ innings. Hitters were batting .073 against him in the ninth with no home runs allowed in 109 at-bats.
Hendriks had a 4.29 ERA in the ninth in 39 games with 10 home runs allowed in 35⅔ innings. Meanwhile, he hasn’t allowed a run in the eighth in 10 appearances covering 7⅓ innings.
When the Sox acquired Kimbrel at the trade deadline, the assumption was they would use him to close games when Hendriks was tired or needed a day off. Hendriks was all-in on the plan and said he would pitch whenever they gave him the ball.
“Liam … he’ll get the outs when he’s called upon,” general manager Rick Hahn said after the trade. “On any given day, one of them might be unavailable and we’ve got the other available. Come October, all bets are off. You get the best guys to get the best outs based on matchups.”
Hendriks has yet to be “unavailable,” so Kimbrel has been relegated to the eighth. But if he’s going to continue to be the setup guy the rest of the way, you can’t expect him to be ready to jump back in as the closer in October if Hendriks isn’t keeping the ball inside the yard by then.
La Russa doesn’t mind experimenting with his lineups to keep everyone ready. He’s leaving Eloy Jímenez in left field frequently in spite of the risk of another injury. He even pitched Matt Foster in the ninth two days before Foster was sent down to Triple-A Charlotte. He’s comfortable with his moves and doesn’t care if his decisions grate on some fans. La Russa wants to find out what he has in certain players, and now is the time to take risks because every loss is not life-or-death.
That’s why giving Kimbrel the ninth inning, even if only temporarily, makes sense right now. See if it works.
If there really are no egos in the Sox bullpen, no one can fault La Russa for giving Kimbrel a chance to do what he does best — closing games.
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