But other times, the opposite happens. Where there'll turn out to be series that mean nothing. It's like a Week 16 Thursday Night Football match between the Jets and Raiders. Like, that's not gonna be riveting [maybe this year is different, who knows]. And so we have a September matchup between the White Sox and Angels, two genuinely terrible teams that have both been eliminated from playoff competition. Unsurprisingly they've been close. Today's game ended with a Jordyn Adams walk-off in extras, despite the fact that the Sox were leading for most of the game.
The White Sox' patheticness has been well reported. They're currently 36-117, meaning they might not even win 50 games this season, which...is incredible. Their biggest hitter, Luis Robert, is hitting .225. Their best pitcher, Garrett Crochet, has been limiting his innings for the past two months. One of the most crucial contracted players, Yoan Moncada, missed 5 months and has played 12 games this season so far. And people like Bryan Ramos, Miguel Vargas, Zach DeLoach and Chuckie Robinson, all of whom have been relied upon in the past month, are hitting under .200. Former All-Star Andrew Benintendi is hitting .226 with a .685 OPS this season. I have no idea what happened to this man. I really hope it wasn't the injury he got with the Yankees, I'd feel awful if that was it.
The emerging people now aren't even revelations or team-lifters, it's just 'well this guy isn't completely sucking right now'. Davis Martin was pushed into a starting role after people left, and he's been pretty decent, with a 4.27 ERA and 43 Ks. Unfortunately he's 0-5. Y'know, cause he plays for the White Sox. Is he a good pitcher for the long run? Who knows?? If you're a good pitcher on the 2024 White Sox, that may not mean anything further. Look at Erick Fedde, his Cardinals numbers paled in comparison to his Sox numbers because he was suddenly playing for an actual MLB team rather than Savannah Banana fodder.
The Angels, though, might have the more heartbreaking story. Mike Trout was off to an incredible start this year, and then almost immediately he gets hurt and the season is a wash. Again. Anthony Rendon similarly had a snakebit year, only playing 57 games this year despite genuinely looking like he wanted to play baseball this year. Even great pieces that accumulated throughout the season, like Luis Rengifo and Jose Soriano, got hurt right when they became the most useful. And so the rest of the season was just this upsetting stride to the finish, with lots of disappointment and lots of blown opportunities.
Again, you can give the Angels credit for finding pieces that work, like Zach Neto, Nolan Schanuel and Ben Joyce. They also got an excellent season out of Tyler Anderson, despite wasting a year getting to this point. But there's also a lot of people who were supposed to be great for this team, like Brandon Drury, Jo Adell, Caden Dana and Kyren Paris, just haven't gotten it done this year. Griffin Canning, finally healthy after a lot of setback years, is basically just a body this year. He's made 29 starts this year, one less than Anderson, and he's mostly been good for innings eating, with a 5.16 ERA and a 6-13 record. Canning was decent when he had more of a team around him, and now he's just...a pitcher. Y'know, good he was here all year, hope he keeps it up.
This series clearly isn't gonna be as well remembered as some other ones this season, but at the very least the stakes aren't as high. It's two teams on the same rung, it might be close, no use trying to be better than you are. Hopefully a series like this will actually mean something in a couple years.
Coming Tomorrow- His former team just clinched a division without him. He's gotta feel great about that.
No comments:
Post a Comment