Know Your Enemy: Kansas City Royals
Once again, not actual royals.
I will be very honest here: I’m not entirely sure that the Royals are the real enemies anymore. It’s not a secret that I use any and all opportunities possible to make fun of messy bitch Mike Matheny and his band of Royals, and when I’m not feeling it we’re really in trouble.
It’s not depression. It’s burnout.
The White Sox have all the makings of a good team. The pieces are there to be put in place, but they’re just not happening. The offense is sluggish, to start off. Sitting 13th in the AL in terms of runs, 12th in hits, 10th in home runs, 15th in walks, 11th in batting average, 13th in OBP, 10th in slugging ... well you get the idea. Tim Anderson has a Silver Slugger and a batting title, José Abreu has three Silver Slugger awards and an MVP, and Luis Robert has enough power that if he had been born and gone to high school in the U.S. he would have been drafted into the NFL. The Top 10 White Sox players in terms of offense have a collective slash of .227/.283/.353.
Pitching isn’t faring much better. The staff has a combined ERA of 3.83, sitting at 11th in the AL. Control is a huge problem, as they have the most walks in the league, but they are otherwise middling, at ninth in hits, 11th in runs, and tied for seventh in earned runs. They’re great at giving up home runs, with a stingy 30 flying so far, third in the league.
Defense is woof. Andreson leads the team with nine errors over 257 1⁄3 downright painful innings. The fielding percentage as a team is .978, which is last in the AL. Unfortunately, Anderson’s glaring errors are getting less and less defensible the longer he is in the league. Do the White Sox not practice fielding? It’s confusing.
While opponents have stolen “only” 18 bases against the White Sox, tied for sixth-best in the AL, Yasmani Grandal and Reese McGuire have combined to gun down just three runners, which is the very worst mark so far.
Don’t forget: if you criticize the team, you’re not a fan, at least not according to sleepy fan-gatekeeper Tony La Russa. I don’t know what game he’s watching, but I do know that you can’t do it from the corner of the dugout that he likes to fall asleep in. Fans were promised a good, competitive team starting in 2018. They were promised a parade. Turns out they were promised the St. Patrick’s Parade, probably.
All in all, this is not great, Bob.
Pitching: Here’s some stuff
Today will see the appearance of Johnny Cueto facing Brad Keller. Supposedly, Cueto is here to save us all. I have my doubts. Cueto has been languishing in Triple-A, before joining the White Sox, posted a 4.08 ERA with the Giants in 2021, and hasn’t even had an average season in the league since 2017.
We’re supposed to be excited about this?
You know what? I don’t have it in me to care about the rest of the pitching. Ethan Katz can only do so much, and he isn’t a miracle worker. Dylan Cease and Michael Kopech are the only two starters worth watching, and we’re not seeing them again until the Yankees series this weekend. Anyway, here’s the rest of the probables:
Do what you want, but I’m going to invest time watching teams that actually care what they’re putting on the field.