If Anderson's bat stays cold, White Sox have no chance to heat up; Ohtani puts on show in Sox's 4-2 loss
When it comes to the White Sox's odious offense, there is plenty of blame to go around.
Heading into Tuesday night's West Coast game against the Angels, the White Sox were baseball's lowest-scoring team in June with 3.2 runs per game.
They had the second-lowest batting average at .212.
Clutch hitting has been a problem all season and the Sox have really struggled lately while going 8-for-70 with runners in scoring position the last 11 games, leaving 67 runners on base.
The latter stat came into play in the White Sox's 4-2 loss to Los Angeles.
After opening the inning with 4 straight hits - Jake Burger's RBI single cut into the Angels' lead - the Sox had the bases loaded with no outs against closer Carlos Estevez, who was 19-for-19 in save tries.
But Seby Zavala struck out and Elvis Andrus grounded into a double play to send the White Sox to their 11th loss in 16 games.
Two-way star Shohei Ohtani sparked Los Angeles with his arm and bat.
Ohtani started against the Sox and allowed 1 run on 4 hits while striking out 10 in 6⅓ innings.
At the plate Ohtani was 3-for-3 with 2 solo home runs.
Michael Kopech had another wild start for the White Sox. The right-hander lasted just 4 innings and gave up 2 runs on 4 hits and 7 walks.
Getting back to the offense, Burger was mired in a 3-for-25 slump with 15 strikeouts over his last 10 games heading into Tuesday.
Andrew Vaughn was 8-for-41 in his last 11 games. Gavin Sheets was 8-for-45 over his last 19. Zavala was 4-for-34 over his last 16.
Luis Robert Jr. is putting an MVP season together, Andrew Benintendi has been steady with the bat and Eloy Jimenez is getting healthy and dangerous again.
Still, there's been way too much of a drag on the White Sox's offense and Tim Anderson continues to pull hardest in the wrong direction.
He's the guy who made everything go when the Sox were making consecutive playoff appearances in 2020-21.
Anderson's the guy that hit .300 or better the last four seasons and won the 2019 batting title with a .335 average.
This year, Anderson has not been that guy. Not even close.
The 30-year-old shortstop was in a 2-for-34 rut through Monday's play and Anderson was 0-for-4 Tuesday night.
There is little doubt Anderson is playing at well less than 100%.
The two-time all star missed the final two months of last season with a sagittal band tear on the middle finger of his left hand and he's been dogged by knee and shoulder injuries this year.
If Anderson can't get himself relatively healthy and back to being one of the game's best hitters soon, the Sox are likely to remain a nondescript team battling to reach the .500 mark.
Manager Pedro Grifol has little doubt Anderson is going to bounce back in a big way.
"He's been so good at this level that he's going to be good again," Grifol said. "Everybody goes through something like this, everybody does, at some point in time in your career. Nobody's exempt from adversity at the major-league level, playing against the best in the world every single night, 162 (games), for years and years."