Chicago White Sox close out dismal home portion of schedule
Home was anything but sweet for the Chicago White Sox this year.
The Sox were crunched by the Indians 10-2 Wednesday night, and they lost nine of their last 11 games at Guaranteed Rate Field.
With four more road games at Minnesota left in the regular season, the White Sox have the third-worst home record (30-51) in baseball this year. They also finish with the fourth-worst home record in franchise history.
"I think you have to establish, as you're improving and a winning club, winning at home," manager Rick Renteria said. "That's one of the things you try to take advantage of. Try to play the old .500 on the road and win at home in a significant way."
The Sox used the bullpen for the last home game instead of a starting pitcher, and first-place Cleveland took advantage of the mismatch.
Jace Fry started for the White Sox and gave up 1 run on 2 hits and 1 walk in 1 inning. "We tried to get through today with the relief corps," Renteria said. "They obviously banged us around a little."
Indians starter Shane Bieber had a no-hitter until Yoan Moncada reached on an infield single with two outs in the fifth inning.
See you in 2019:
As expected, White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu is not going to play again this season due to a right-thigh infection. The Sox's only all-star this season, Abreu has been out since Sept. 17.
Abreu also was on the disabled list from Aug. 22-Sept. 9 after having surgery to repair a testicular torsion.
"It is disappointing," said Abreu, who finishes the year with a .265 batting average, 22 home runs and 78 RBI, all career lows. "That is not the way I wanted to end the season, but like I always said, God does things for a reason and you have to take it. I took this just like another challenge, and I am happy for what I did during the season.
"I didn't accomplish all the goals that I wanted to accomplish this year, but I think it was, on the personal side, a good season."
Pitching wanted:
With only Carlos Rodon, Reynaldo Lopez and Lucas Giolito entrenched as starting pitchers for next year, look for general manager Rick Hahn to go outside this off-season and add an inexpensive veteran or two, most likely on one-year contracts.
"We are going to have some additions," Hahn said. "We are very optimistic about the progress many of our young starters made at the minor-league level.
"But as we've stated throughout this entire process, nobody is going to get rushed. Just because we foresee a guy like Dylan Cease, let's say, being a stalwart in a championship rotation in the future, we are going to wait until he's fully ready to start that process. In the interim, we need to come up with alternatives."