Pedro Grifol talked about he didn’t anticipate the Chicago White Sox’s struggles.
“However you don’t management the playing cards you’re dealt,” the first-year supervisor talked about sooner than Wednesday’s recreation in opposition to the Toronto Blue Jays. “You administration the best way you reply to it. And that’s the one issue we are going to administration.
“Adversity is academic. And the way you cope with adversity can be crucial. We’re not going to panic via this factor. I’ll mirror and work and make changes and be arduous on myself, however I’m positively not going to panic.”
These adjustments must be made at home after the Sox achieved a winless six-game journey with an 8-0 loss in entrance of 35,069 at Rogers Centre.
The making an attempt cases continued for the Sox, who suffered their seventh consecutive defeat and are 11 video video games beneath .500 at 7-18. It’s their worst 25-game start since 1986, when as well as they began 7-18.
“We’re in a funk and we’ve to come back collectively as a workforce and work out easy methods to get out of it as a result of this isn’t enjoyable,” catcher Seby Zavala talked about.
The Sox adopted three losses to the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Area with three further in opposition to the Blue Jays, who did a portion of their hurt Wednesday with two outs.
Sox starter Michael Kopech retired the first 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 collectively some respectable ABs, hit a pair good pitches, hit a pair mistake pitches and had one massive inning there that may harm you,” Kopech talked about. “I didn’t really feel like I threw the ball horrible, however the backside line is I’ve to throw higher.”
Espinal had a two-out RBI single throughout the fourth to extend the Blue Jays lead to 4-0.
Kopech allowed 4 runs on six hits with 4 strikeouts and two walks in 5 innings.
“Proper now we haven’t carried out each (pitching and hitting) collectively very properly,” Kopech talked about. “Nonetheless assured points will come collectively. It’s been a difficult stretch for us and all of us actually really feel it.
“Backside line is pitching aspect must be higher and as a complete we’ve to be higher. I’ll take this one on my own. I’ve to be extra environment friendly. Get rid of massive innings, and I didn’t do this.”
The Sox had been outscored 20-2 throughout the assortment. Their solely runs received right here on an Andrew Vaughn double throughout the third inning of Monday’s 5-2 loss. They’ll take a 24-inning scoreless drought into Thursday’s assortment opener in opposition to the Rays at Assured Fee Area.
The collective offensive droop continued Wednesday with 17 strikeouts. Toronto pitchers struck out 10 of the last word 11 batters.
“We’ve received to wash it up, we’ve received to be harder outs,” Grifol talked about after the game. “I see frustration as soon as we get behind, and we’ve purchased to clean that up. Simply because of we get behind in a recreation doesn’t indicate we are going to’t win a recreation.
“We’ve come again earlier than. We had been simply down 4-0 to Tampa (on Friday) and got here again and took a 7-4 lead (in an eventual 8-7 loss). We’ve simply received to wash some issues up.”
For the second consecutive recreation, the Sox had been restricted to 4 hits — all singles. They’d 11 hits throughout the assortment, 4 by Andrew Benintendi.
“We surrender massive innings and it’s arduous for our offense,” Zavala talked about. “It locations loads of stress on our offense and in flip locations stress on our pitchers because of we are going to’t ranking runs or we’re not scoring runs.
“When you can’t rating runs, you possibly can by no means win a recreation. And that places strain on the pitchers. Whenever you’re placing pointless strain on either side, it’s powerful.”
The Sox had been shut out in back-to-back video video games for the first 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 assortment in opposition to the Rays, who’ve baseball’s best doc at 20-4 going into Wednesday’s night recreation in opposition to the Houston Astros.
Requested if the Sox are leaning into the upcoming downside, Zavala talked about, “We have now to.”
“There’s no different approach to say it,” he talked about. “We have now to discover a approach to begin successful and we are able to’t curl up in a ball. When you curl up in a ball, then you definitely depart our locker room. I don’t assume we’ve any of these guys. But when anyone does really feel that means, then it’s positively going to carry us down.”
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