Lack of home runs one of White Sox's many issues this season

Among the White Sox's endless issues this season, a failure to hit for power ranks high on the list.

"It's obvious the home run ball has played a huge part in our success," catcher Yasmani Grandal said. "I also think it plays a huge part in any team's success."

With a week to go in the regular season, the Sox have only hit 144 homers, which ranks No. 22 among the 30 teams in MLB.

The White Sox are 55-39 when they hit one home run in a game this year and 27-6 when they hit 2 or more.

When they've failed to go deep, the Sox are 21-40.

The White Sox didn't hit a home run Wednesday night and they lost to the Twins 8-4 at Target Field.

Jose Abreu and Josh Harrison both were 2-for-3 with an RBI for the Sox, who have lost 8 in a row.

Starting pitcher Johnny Cueto gave up 6 runs on 10 hits and 1 walk in 5⅔ innings.

There are three main reasons for the White Sox's lack of power.

First, Abreu has only 15 home runs this season after hitting 30 last year and 33 in 2019.

Second, Eloy Jimenez, Luis Robert, Yoan Moncada and Grandal have combined for only 44 homers while being in and out of the lineup due to a string of injuries.

Heading into the season, a reasonable expectation for the quartet was 100 home runs.

Third, the White Sox have been emphasizing spraying the ball to all fields rather than pulling it over the fence under hitting coach Frank Menechino.

"(Expletive) the home run," Menechino said last season. "Let's hit 300, then we'll worry about the other stuff later."

That's a sound plan in theory, but the Sox only have two .300 hitters this year.

Abreu is batting .305, but 126 of his 178 hits are singles. Tim Anderson is batting .301 but he's been out since early August with a finger injury and is done for the season.

The White Sox are likely going to hope for better health in 2023 and a return to power.

If he can stay off the injured list, Jimenez would lead the way. He's hit 15 home runs in only 79 games this year.

"Extremely perplexing," Sox general manager Rick Hahn said earlier in the season. "I'm a simple guy - ball goes far, team goes far. That's kind of how it works a lot of the time. We know there's that element in there."