White Sox activate Yasmani Grandal, place Luis Robert on IL
The White Sox open the second half with Yasmani Grandal back behind the plate, but Luis Robert is still out of action.
Robert, who departed last Friday’s game at Target Field with lightheadedness and didn’t see any baseball activity the rest of the series, was placed on the injured list with a description of symptoms, not a cause. The hope is that he’ll be back for next weekend’s series against Oakland.
Because it’s the White Sox, they revealed the roster move in cloak-and-dagger fashion.
Step 1: See the lineup, which includes Grandal behind the plate and Eloy Jiménez DHing, but no Luis Robert.
Step 2: Learn from James Fegan that while Grandal is back, Seby Zavala and Reese McGuire still have lockers, and Gavin Sheets is here as well.
Step 3: Find out about it through Rick Hahn about 40 minutes after seeing the lineup.
Robert’s loss is a blow. He’d been hitting .339/.367/.554 with six homers and 33 RBIs over his last 30 games. He’d also started drawing walks with regularity, snapping a streak of 19 walkess games through Independence Day by drawing five walks over his last 11 games.
He hits the injured list shortly after taking over the team lead in homers with 12, and this is the kind of timing that might prevent any White Sox hitter from reaching 20 on the season, although you’d think that José Abreu would get there by sheer force of will alone.
At any rate, this really makes the White Sox outfield a mess. Adam Engel will likely be pressed into everyday duty in center field, which means he’ll be flanked by some combination of Jiménez, Sheets, AJ Pollock and Andrew Vaughn for offensive-minded lineups, and Leury García in lineups nobody likes.
As for Grandal, he spent his rehab stint proving that Triple-A pitchers couldn’t test his batting eye, but he didn’t catch a full game. With three catchers on the roster, Tony La Russa can aggressively sub him out, as long as the restrictions on his playing time weren’t out of concern that he could easily get hurt again.
OUT: Vague leg
IN: Vague brain
Really don’t like that. I have to wonder if blurred vision to a lesser degree has been affecting his jumps in the outfield. Get well soon, Luis.
I don’t know how much to question whether the Sox should have been more on top of something when looking at how his defense had degraded, if something has been going on for a while
It is interesting that he has been seeing the ball well at the plate but apparently not in the field. Hope he’s okay.
We don’t really know. Maybe hitting he hasn’t always seen it as well as he could have.
Could be. That said, he has been performing very well at the plate lately, including seeing balls and strikes. Per Jim’s piece:
“ Robert’s loss is a blow. He’d been hitting .339/.367/.554 with six homers and 33 RBIs over his last 30 games. He’d also started drawing walks with regularity, snapping a streak of 19 walkess games through Independence Day by drawing five walks over his last 11 games.”
Jim refers above to a messy outfield but he didn’t mention Pollick. I hope Robert is just dizzy for the excessive heat. Maybe dehydrated. Hoping for hearing good news soon.
The glass half empty is it’s the Sox and they manage injuries and information about them poorly so we should assume the worst about Robert.
The glass half full is that because of Grandal’s return and the other two catchers being out of options the Sox will stop carrying unavailable guys on the active roster and start to use the IL strategically for the stretch run.
He’s there now. I left him out when I rejiggered the paragraph.
Pollock being one of our healthiest outfielder was probably in nobody’s book.
I won’t snigger because I figure it’s de rigueur to rejigger with vigor when you configure words about a major leaguer that might trigger those who don’t dig your bigger point.
Not sure how they could be optimistic he’ll be better after a week off when the previous week he saw little progress.
Nothing really to say, just wanted to show off my grandson’s first fish profile.
When God closes a door, he opens a window, and then he throws in a Molotov cocktail.
Am I right to think how much Grandal is expected to catch is considered a Sox secret?
I assume that Leury must be hurt, or dead, for him not to be in the lineup today as well.
The sox will check for a pulse each day, if none shows up by Wed, they’ll consider the DL possibly