Leave it to Eloy Jimenez to bring the holiday cheer. The White Sox’ effervescent 23-year old left fielder opened his Fourth of July zoom call with media with a ‘Wow! What a mustache!’ salute to NBC Sports Chicago’s Vinnie Duber and closed it with a two-handed good-bye wave to all.
“Bye, guys! Have a great afternoon!”
It was a typically colorful hello-goodbye from Jimenez, the Sox left fielder whose happy moods are a constant in the clubhouse, dugout and on the field. No frustrating stoppage of play late in spring training, just as he was about to lift off after landing on his rookie year with a big September, and no national pandemic are going to sour the Sox’ budding star’s mood.
“It feels great; I’m happy to be back in Chicago and I’m happy to be back with my boys,” Jimenez said after his second day of workouts at Sox summer camp in preparation for the abbreviated 60-game season. “And I feel like what happened around with all this, the pandemic, we are still happy, you know. Go out, work out, smile and just work out hard.”
Jimenez, who clanked a bunch of batting practice homers in the aluminum outfield bleachers, batted .340/.383/.710 with nine homers and 25 RBI in September to finish with 31 homers, 240 total bases and 79 RBI in 122 games, the most among AL rookies. Entering the season with great expectations after crushing minor league pitching, Jimenez needed time to adjust to major league pitching. The big thing, though, he said, was playing more relaxed.
“I feel really good, much better this year,’’ Jimenez said. “This is my second year and I got experience last year. I think it’s going to be better this year.
“I can say at the beginning I was just worrying about I needed to do this and I needed to do that. But at the end, I just said, ‘I’m going to play hard and if it’s happening it’s happening, if it’s not, another day. I think that helped me a lot, that got me out of the pressure and just go and have fun. For me, that was the key at the end of the season.”
Only two days in, manager Rick Renteria hasn’t seen enough to know where his players are at physically, and until they begin playing intrasquad games Wednesday, he won’t know where they’re at timing wise. There is rust to shake off after a three-month break but players have been working out and hitting where they can. Jimenez, who has been with the morning group, looks good so far.
“His mindset is right. You see him out there, he’s moving around good,” Renteria said Saturday. “We’re very optimistic that he’s going to to continue what he’s been doing in the past. He’s working out there.”
As players find their way through distancing restrictions, a big challenge is resisting the urge to high five and be close. The Sox’ pregame handshake routine was one of the more creative in baseball, but now they’ll have to figure something else out. Jimenez and Dylan Cease, the right-hander who came with him in the Jose Quintana trade, were photographed Friday doing a social distance “hug.”
“It’s going to be a little bit hard when the season starts,” Jimenez said. “I think this is for now, six feet distance, you know, it’s going to be just for now. It’s going to be better.”
Word Saturday that four Atlanta Braves, including Freddie Freeman, tested positive, was a grim reminder that things aren’t better. Jimenez said there are “too many rules, but we need to get used to it until this pandemic slows down a little bit.”
“It’s really hard because you know as a baseball player like me, I’m joking around a lot,” he said. “Now, we need to keep distance.”
