It probably is not a good sign when one of your position players has two relief appearances in the same three-game series. The Chicago White Sox lost two of three against the San Francisco Giants in their first home series of the 2023 season and after Wednesday’s massacre, a new home run record was set on the south side.
The Giants hit five home runs against Michael Kopech in the home opener on Monday, leading to a 12-3 win and then they clobbered three more long balls against Lance Lynn on Thursday en route to a 16-6 victory. Overall, the Giants homered 13 times, setting a record for the most home runs hit in a three-game series at the White Sox’s home ballpark.
Meanwhile, the White Sox hit one home run against San Francisco’s pitching staff, a solo shot from Luis Robert in Monday’s nine-run defeat.
Yet, that wasn’t the only bad record the White Sox set after Wednesday’s loss because thanks to the 13 home runs in the past three games, the team has now given up 15 home runs, which is the new franchise record for most home runs allowed in the team’s first seven games to begin a regular season.
The numbers keep getting ugly after the disastrous series against the Giants because despite Dylan Cease only surrendering two earned runs and three total hits in 11.1 innings, the White Sox lead the majors in runs allowed, walks and obviously home runs allowed.
Now, this isn’t to say that Kopech and Lynn are going to be giving up 3-5 home runs every start because manager Pedro Grifol was a little slow to react with his bullpen moves this week. It is still early and only the White Sox know who is and isn’t available out of the bullpen on any given day, but with a day off on Tuesday, it was strange to see Kopech staying out as long as he did in the home opener. Kopech was getting crushed all game long and especially during the fifth inning, when he allowed four home runs before he was finally given the hook.
Meanwhile, Grifol had at least two or three opportunities to go out and get Lynn out of the game on Thursday, but he opted to stick with the veteran righty despite his control issues and also getting hit hard. It has to be a tough balancing act for a manager of not trying to drain the bullpen, while also attempting to keep a game within reach. At the end, after cutting the lead to 4-2, Lynn allowed four more runs before he was taken out in the fifth inning on Thursday.
Through the first week of the season, Cease is the only pitcher in the starting rotation to pitch into the seventh inning and that was on Opening Day, when he was amazing in 6.1 innings. However, since then, only Lynn has reached the sixth inning, which was the next game in Houston.
But again, over the course of the season, Lynn and Kopech shouldn’t be this bad. However, another part of the home run problem in the Giants series was right-handed reliever José Ruiz, who gave up three homers in two innings against San Francisco. The White Sox, for now, are done with Ruiz, DFA’ing the pitcher on Friday.
On the flip side, White Sox batters are hitting for a high average just like they did in 2022, but they’re not hitting for a lot of power…just like last year.
The Giants out-homering the White Sox 13-1 is obviously extreme, but the 2023 season at home picked up right where it left off in 2022. Last year, the White Sox were out-homered 98-77 at home.
A lot was made about the approach at the plate and hitting coach Frank Menechino got the ax following the 2022 season that saw the White Sox with the fifth highest ground ball rate in baseball at 45.6%. You can’t hit home runs hitting the ball on the ground. This is only a seven-game sample size, but entering Friday, the White Sox had the highest ground ball rate in the majors at 50.8%. The White Sox also still aren’t a team that will draw a lot of walks, ranking dead last in BB% so far in 2023.
TL;DR, White Sox should hit more home runs and stop allowing a lot of home runs.
