Stabilized pitching staff, strong defense yield White Sox sweep
Matt Marton-Imagn Images When the White Sox returned to Chicago after their 1-5 opening road trip, there was a collective sense that they needed to regroup. Coming into the season, expectations were high that the Sox could at least take a step toward being a team that puts three consecutive 100-loss seasons behind them, but after the first week, things were looking bleak. “You look at that road trip and you could say that this season, all the momentum we’ve had, all the excitement we’ve had all offseason, if that carries into this homestand, you could say that it might be too much to overcome,” Davis Martin said.
The rain that postponed Thursday’s home opener may have been a much-needed blessing in disguise. It gave the White Sox a chance to stabilize themselves, from the coaching staff to the players in the locker room. “I think it starts with Will [Venable] saying ‘Hey guys, this isn’t what we did in spring, this isn’t the kind of baseball that we practiced and drilled in for six, seven weeks in spring training,'” Martin said.
“The rain delay off day kind of came at the perfect time. Gave everybody a day to kind of collect their thoughts at home, settle in at Chicago and come to the field excited, ready to go for this homestand. “I think it was a culmination of it, but there was a visible effort and conversations being had of ‘Hey, we need to steer this in the right direction now.
'” Three games later, with a sweep of the defending American League champion Blue Jays under their belt, the White Sox look like they have righted the ship, or at least not let the opening road trip carry over at home. Key to doing that was getting the pitching staff sorted out. Grant Taylor as opener worked in back-to-back games to begin the Toronto series, and Martin cruised for six shutout innings on Sunday en route to a 3-0 White Sox victory.
That’s quite the shift from how they looked through the first six games, when the Sox posted a league-worst ERA of 7. 63. The pitching staff looks in better shape, and the opening week stumbles might have been at least partially due to adjusting to a lot of new faces in player development and on the coaching staff.
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