Eaton shoulders his share of blame for White Sox' poor season

You can go up and down the Chicago White Sox' roster and find plenty of players to blame for an immensely disappointing 76-86 season.

You can also point fingers at Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams in the front office and Robin Ventura and his coaching staff in the dugout.

Well before the Sox ended the regular season with a 6-0 loss to the Tigers Sunday at U.S. Cellular Field, Adam Eaton was taking the brunt of the blame.

Eaton got off to a slow start at the plate, he made multiple mistakes in center field and he was guilty of one baserunning blunder after another.

Before Sunday's finale against Detroit, Eaton said he is going to have arthroscopic surgery on his left shoulder Monday.

Eaton initially hurt the shoulder diving for a ball at Cleveland in July. He aggravated the injury in August but has stayed on the field.

Considering he's been a lightning rod of criticism, it's only fair to credit Eaton for playing through some serious pain.

While playing at less than 100 percent, Eaton actually thrived in the second half with a .335/.418/.486 hitting line to go with 8 home runs, 38 RBI and 52 runs scored.

For the season, Eaton had a .287/.361/.431 slash line with 14 home runs and 56 RBI. The leadoff man also scored 98 runs.

"I'm actually very proud of me as an individual," Eaton said. "It's very easy to fold when you are hitting a dollar 80 a month into the season. To have the worst month of my career, it was tough on me individually. But you know, it was nice to be able to come back and continue to work hard and keep the vision that I can play in this league at the big-league level.

"It was nice to come back, have a good year, have some good power numbers, get on base at a decent clip, getting almost 100 runs. I think if I clean up my running on the basepaths, controlled aggression and understand when to take the extra base, I think I'll have 100-plus. With the year Jose (Abreu) had, there's no reason I shouldn't get 100 runs."

Eaton said Monday's surgery is relatively minor.

"Not to get into too much detail, but it's a nerve decompression," said Eaton, who signed a five-year, $23.5 million contract in March. "They are doing a couple of things of that nature, just to make sure my muscles are functioning properly and I don't have any pain. I'm excited to sleep better and be able to put my hand above my shoulder in the future. It should be outpatient type stuff, so it shouldn't be a big deal."

While Eaton was a dangerous hitter in the second half, it wasn't enough to spark a White Sox offense that finished last in the American League with 622 runs scored.

It also wasn't enough to salvage a season that started with so much promise.

"There is not a single guy in here who doesn't want to win," Eaton said. "I feel sorry for a guy like Adam LaRoche, he has 20-plus homers with five different teams, he's done it year in and year out. Same with me early on. Melky (Cabrera) had a tough go early on. All of us want to be successful and we work our absolute tails off in the off-season to be successful and play in the postseason.

"We're getting scrutinized and the whole team up and down and Robin (Ventura) and everybody, we're doing our (best) to put a good product out there and it hurts. And no one feels worse than the guys in this clubhouse. We know the city of Chicago and the fans deserve better. When we can't produce it tears us up, trust me."