As a public figure, Pedro Grifol is uninteresting. Like, aggressively uninteresting. In a way that makes "uninteresting" a mere observation instead of an insult.
Everything about the way he carries himself suggests that he doesn't care to be known for anything outside of his baseball work, at least at this point. It's one thing to play it close to the vest with strangers and acquaintances, but even Eduardo Pérez, who has been friends with Grifol since high school, couldn't get anything out of him.
ESPN's broadcast opened the seventh inning with Pérez interviewing Grifol on the way to the park. It attempted to convey a deep bond between them as Grifol embarked on a managerial career. Pérez did what he could to sell it, almost choking up at one point. Grifol agreed it was emotional, but maybe just to be polite.
Without any real gold from this interaction, the results was mostly two guys manspreading in the back of an Uber and getting in the way of Oscar Colás' MLB debut.
Grifol didn't provide any gripping material in terms of his job, either, but that's mostly because Dylan Cease retired 19 in a row. Once Cease's breaking ball started losing bite and the Astros built their first real rally of the game, Grifol sprung onto the field to make his first pitching change. He's here for the baseball, and when the baseball demanded his intervention, he rose to the occasion.
The decisions he had to make in his first game -- which turned out to be a 3-2 White Sox winner against the defending champion Astros -- weren't particularly complicated, but they're our first chance to learn about the guy. Based on what we've seen so far, we have to glean everything possible from his actions, because he's not going to give us much else.
The Romy González/Oscar Colás tandem worked
Once the White Sox re-signed Elvis Andrus to play second base on an everyday basis, the cynical motivations for the Romy González Hype Train disappeared. When the Romy González Hype Train continued apace, that's when it captured my attention.
There was no natural reason to pump up González at this stage in his career, which is not an invitation to dismiss González. There were a number of reasons to believe he could bounce back from his 2022 season, but nothing pressed the Sox to circulate his name. They could have just as well remained quiet, waited for the González they believed would emerge, then told reporters that they believed in him all along. Nothing would be lost. It's not like he's selling tickets or moving jerseys from the bench. In terms of age and MLB accomplishments, it's like watching the 2019 White Sox getting really fired up about José Rondon.
González led the White Sox with six homers during Cactus League play, but the Sox lined him up for a 26-man roster spot -- and foreshadowed Leury García's release -- even before the results arrived.
If the White Sox are going to lay all this track for him, then I want to see where it's going. That means playing him whenever it makes sense, and it made a lot of sense with how the Astros lined up their pitching for the start of the season. They started a Cy Young candidate in lefty Framber Valdez, then backed him up with an entirely right-handed bullpen. Naturally, the opposing manager should want to start every right-handed bat, then sub in the lefty bat. Without no LOOGY types in the Houston pen, Grifol faces no drawbacks for pursuing such handedness advantages.
So Grifol started González against Valdez, and when the ninth spot in the order finally encountered a Houston reliever in the seventh inning, he called on Colás. They both went 1-for-2, and neither struck out. González's single led all White Sox hitters at 110.8 mph, and Colás was right behind him at 109.4. Colás stayed in the game to face Ryan Pressly in the ninth inning, and came about 15 feet and 5 mph short of putting the Sox ahead.
It's the simplest platoon call imaginable, at least if you believe González will hold down a bench spot for the entire season. One game in, Grifol and González passed their respective tests.
The bullpen calls made sense
Aaron Bummer was only available for 32 games last year and his spring training was delayed by a lat strain, so it would've been nice if Grifol could've found a low-to-medium-leverage opportunity for Bummer's 2023 debut.
But Grifol needed a lefty to lessen the threat of Kyle Tucker after Dylan Cease allowed Yordan Alvarez and José Abreu to reach with one out in the seventh, and Bummer was the best candidate for that moment, because Jake Diekman is his competition. Bummer ended up allowing the run in classic Bummer fashion -- a sequence of deep counts thanks to unnecessarily nasty sliders that sometimes bounce the wrong way -- but the only other logical choice in that scenario was Joe Kelly, who I'd also prefer to see for the first time in the bases empty.
Once Bummer recorded the third out of the seventh, the seas smoothed. Kendall Graveman faced the bottom of the order and the minimum in the eighth. Reynaldo López pitched in a two-run save situation and wasn't afraid to give up a Yordan Alvarez homer that couldn't tie the game, which is good for him because that absolutely happened. López shrugged it off to win a protracted battle against José Abreu, and then pitched around Tucker to face a far less qualified hitter in Yainer Diaz. He chose wisely.
It appears that López's strategy to avoid crumbling in the ninth inning is to convince himself it's the seventh or eighth inning.
Pedro Grifol didn't make himself known otherwise
When Tim Anderson reached base with one out in the eighth via a walk, I'd wondered if Grifol would put Anderson in motion. Teams ran wild on Opening Day, including a Jeremy Pena steal off Cease in the first inning.
But Anderson wasn't in motion in either of the two pitches Luis Robert Jr. saw. And when Robert reached base on a single through the left side to put good speed aboard, the two of them remained stationary during Andrew Vaughn's five-pitch battle against Ryan Pressly. Vaughn made the idea of a running start unnecessary, because both scored standing up on Vaughn's decisive double to left center.
Aside from the González/Colás swap, the White Sox lineup doesn't naturally inspire a whole lot of razzle-dazzle, and Grifol sounded comfortable with that:
“These guys are good hitters and we were facing some pretty damn good pitching,” Grifol said. “(The Astros are) world champions out there. The last thing I want to do is over-manage. That’s the last thing I want to do. These guys got to go out and play the game like they do. We’re going to make adjustments. That’s what we’ve got coaches for. That’s the reason we’ve got those iPads and communication out there in the dugout. The last thing I want to do there is start over-managing and give away outs.”
Strategically speaking, it was a pretty uninteresting game on both sides of the ball, so Grifol had to feel at home. There'd be no need to write about the manager if this were his 501st game, but this was Grifol's first, so he gets the laundry cart treatment after the game, and the front-and-center treatment in the next morning's Sox Machine post. Eventually his role will fade closer to the background, and he's doing what he can to expedite that process.
