Sox' Gordon Beckham a bust with the bat
In 2008, Gordon Beckham was blasting baseballs over the fence while leading the University of Georgia to the College World Series.
The following year, he was doing much the same with the White Sox after playing just 59 games in the minor leagues.
What in the heck happened to that guy?
While Adam Dunn and Alex Rios have taken the brunt of the blame for one of the most frustrating seasons in Sox annals, Beckham has continued his disturbing backward slide.
An 0-for-3 showing in Friday night's 7-4 loss to the Rangers at U.S. Cellular Field continued a slide that now stands at 3 hits in 27 at-bats over Beckham's last eight games.
The average is down to .236, and Beckham's power numbers (9 home runs, 33 RBI) through 114 games are also subpar. As a comparison, the 24-year-old infielder batted .270 with 14 home runs and 63 RBI in 103 games as a rookie in 2009.
Is it too early to say Beckham's career has reached the fork in the road?
“No,” White Sox general manager Kenny Williams said. “Because with his current approach I think they're going to continue to expose his weakness. As I've told him in the past, I liked the swing coming out of the University of Georgia, the one that we saw when he first got here to the big leagues where he was able to drive the ball and pound it into the right-center field gap.
“And any high fastball, he could get on top of it with his top hand. But again, as the general manager you sit back; you have to respect the work that your coaches do and you have to respect the desire from the player as to what he thinks will work.”
Nothing has worked for Beckham this season, and his inability to lay off pitches out of the strike zone — whether over his head or down in the dirt — is directly to blame.
Beckham is aware of the problem, but he can't seem to fix it.
“It's a matter of not swinging at balls,” Beckham said. “Just swing at strikes. If I can swing at strikes, I'm going to fine. But when you're 0-2 and you got there by swinging at two balls, it's really hard to hit.”
Dunn has been a strikeout machine this season, and he leads the American League with 149. Beckham is second on the White Sox with 87.
“I want to be aggressive, but at the same time you can't be passive,” Beckham said. “I'm too aggressive but you don't want to let a pitch go that you might hit. It's just a fine line and I've got to do a better job of walking it.”
Rediscovering his old swing would be a good starting point.
“It doesn't matter what I think, it doesn't matter what you think or anybody else thinks,” Williams said. “It's what he takes from that on-deck circle to the plate with the most confidence that's going to ultimately yield his failures or successes. I personally liked the swagger and the cock that he had of his wrists and the loading of his hands when he had the previous swing I spoke of.”
The Sox are now 5 games behind the first-place Tigers after losing their third straight.
The offense was held to 4 hits, but Jake Peavy couldn't hold a 3-0 lead.
Texas scored 4 runs in the fourth inning with two outs and added 2 more two-out runs in the sixth.
“Just frustrating,” Peavy said. “I just didn't get anybody out with two outs. It's frustrating because I had pretty good stuff tonight and when you have good stuff you don't expect that. When they score 6 runs with two outs and nobody on, that can't happen. It's as disappointing as it gets.”