White Sox still working on purging mistakes as rebuild creeps toward another 100-loss season

The White Sox did not look like a team with a mastery of the little things Friday night.

A 9-7 loss had its positives, like shortstop Colson Montgomery’s game-tying home run and a late rally built on the back of a patient approach at the plate; the Sox walked eight times in the game.

But outs on the bases and a critical throwing error made it hard for fans to forget that this is still a rebuilding organization, one trying to exorcise the mistakes that defined recent losing seasons.

“There’s been some good stuff. There’s been stuff where we haven’t progressed as much as we’d like,” Venable said Saturday. “But for us, our group and the spirit of continuing to fight for those things and continuing to work on those things has been great, knowing that we have to continue to work and continue to get better. But the process has been good.”

The Sox, in the thick of Chris Getz’s slow-moving overhaul, are on pace for another 100-loss season.

It’s obvious the problems weren’t going to be solved overnight, not even with the installation of Venable as Pedro Grifol’s successor, the second straight managerial hire tasked with eliminating those persistent on-field mistakes.

Late in August, the Sox are still showing how much work there is to do.

Both catcher Kyle Teel and third baseman Miguel Vargas ran into outs at home plate Friday, Teel doing so to bring an end to the first inning and Vargas gunned down trying to tag and score on a pop out down the third-base line. The latter proved far more costly, halting the eighth-inning rally that had already sawed three runs off a four-run deficit against Twins relievers struggling to find the strike zone.

“It was on me,” Vargas said after the game. “I thought I had a good shot, and then I didn’t. … It’s on me, 100 percent. It wasn’t the play for me to go and score, especially when we have [Luis Robert Jr. batting next]. I take all the responsibility, and I have to be better.”

“If we were able to take that back, we would, obviously,” Venable said Friday. “There was potentially some miscommunication after talking to [third-base coach Justin Jirschele] about it. He took responsibility for that. For me, got to clean that up. It’s a big spot.”

Shouldering the blame is plenty admirable. But as the Sox aim to do the right kind of work behind the scenes, progress has only appeared in short bursts, with wins in even shorter supply.

Though the Sox have continued to greatly outpace their first-half offensive production since the All-Star break – they’ve got a .778 team OPS in the second half compared to a .639 mark in the first – their hot stretch in mid July seems like a distant memory. They’re 4-14 since that 10-4 post-break surge.

The likes of Montgomery, Teel and fellow rookies Edgar Quero and Chase Meidroth have been huge reasons for positivity during this latest rebuilding season, and Getz can point to a solid core of position players that was harder to see before the campaign began.

The pitching, lately, has been the greater issue, with young arms Jonathan Cannon and Sean Burke demoted from the big league team and highly ranked lefty prospects Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith in the middle of disappointing seasons.

But the rookie position players aren’t immune from doing rookie things, like Meidroth’s errant throw on a double-play attempt Friday, which directly led to two unearned runs, obviously important in a two-run loss.

Even though Meidroth has looked good, Vargas has improved and Montgomery has made statement answers to longstanding questions about his glove, these Sox are still not a good defensive team, statistically. They started Saturday 25th in baseball with minus-22 Defensive Runs Saved and 22nd with minus-13 Outs Above Average.

It all points to the Sox’ continued slog toward their goal of contention, the main goal Venable has been tasked with accomplishing, even if it’s expected to take time.