Now that the White Sox's departure from the pennant race is all but official, the season's focus will naturally turn to individual pursuits and priorities, and whether those come into conflict with the fact that baseball remains a team sport regardless of the standings.
Miguel Cairo's persona reflects the delicate balance. When he took over for Tony La Russa, the team remained in contention, which gave him enough gravity to shake things up with a get-in-or-get-out speech. Now that their hopes have evaporated, he's reduced to a standard array of self-blame, cap-tipping and bemoaning standard-issue misfortune because the White Sox have yet to put him officially in charge. As long as he's wearing the interim tag and the Sox offer no conclusive timetable for Tony La Russa's return, he can't afford to abuse the very moderate amount of power they gave him.
So that leaves the players, all of whom have different motivations. You have Gavin Sheets saying the right thing after the Sox were swept out of contention by Cleveland Thursday night, because he's still under team control for quite a long while.
“Have to play for each other,” Sheets said of the team’s approach for the final 12 games. “Go out there with the same goal. Go out and try to win every game. Obviously we’ve put ourselves in a very, very tough spot. I don’t even know what the percentage is at this time, but more than anything we need to go out and play for each other.
“Play to get a win and regardless of where we’re at, we need to try to win every game.”
At the same time that Johnny Cueto was saying the more real thing, in response to a question about whether the team got its act together too late:
Cueto showed up as veteran rotation ballast with hopes that he could hold down a No. 4 or No. 5 job for a few months. Instead, he became the White Sox's second-best starter. He wasn't part of the original plans, and after doing as much as anybody in a White Sox uniform to keep the team's hopes afloat from the day he arrived, he's using the leeway his expiring contract affords to remain a tourist.
Cueto's comments echoes those made by José Abreu, another impending free agent, in early August.
“The only thing that I can control is just trying everyday,” he said. “Try every day to do my best and bring the best to the organization. That’s one thing I can control. I don’t have control over other things than that. That’s what I try to bring everyday here.”
Elvis Andrus, who is also playing for his next contract and should have a few different possibilities, showed the risk of trying to speak for the team. I was struck by his confidence in Cleveland crumbling, because he just got here. It gave me 2016 vibes, where respected professional from other organizations arrived to the White Sox with no comprehension of the amount of self-sabotage they're about to experience. I'm curious about his experience the rest of the way, and how Tim Anderson's potential return cramps his style.
Just like the last months of 2016, it's every man for himself from here on out, especially since Robin Ventura was just as much a placeholder as Cairo. The difference is that everybody could see the rebuild's writing on the wall six years ago, whereas these Sox have to stick with the bulk of the remaining core for one reason (actual talent) or another (hefty financial obligations).
There's no way to salvage anything from this season, and there's nothing that can be said that helps. We can only look for the quotes that reflect actual hurt, and try to extrapolate about whether that reflects any meaningful changes to how the White Sox conduct themselves at every level. It's only 13 days, but it'll feel like 13 weeks, unless or until nothing changes, and it reverts to feeling like the day before.
