KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Entering Saturday's action, the White Sox offense--through all of 14 games--have the lowest OPS in MLB, the highest strikeout rate, tied for the league-worst wRC+, the lowest ISO, the lowest walk with runners in scoring position.
You get the idea.
"You could pick apart each guy, and each guy has things that they need to continue to improve," said Will Venable. "We know collectively we need to do a better job moving fastballs forward, so I think in the early going here, you'd love to have some more results, score some more runs. We know that they can be tough to come by here in April. And as this group continues to get comfortable with each other and continues to find ways to put an offensive gameplan together, yeah, we have confidence that they're going to be able to do it, and we've just got to get on some heaters."
Munetaka Murakami is not even close to the hitter scuffling the most in the White Sox order, but all the more reason to think that he could be the guy who actually heats up and provides a glimmer of hope.
"Wasn't able to make the adjustment on [Kris] Bubic and the spin that he threw at him, [Lucas] Erceg comes in and he smokes a ball to center field, so he's fine, he's in good shape," Venable said of Murakami. "This is part of a guy who's new to this league figuring out how to just survive in this league and perform in this league, which is part of being a major league player. So, he's doing a great job.
He's very professional. He's very calculated in everything that he's doing. He's spending a lot of time and energy on the details, and it shows up on the field, which gives me even more confidence that as he continues to learn this league, he's going to be just fine."
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Help is coming, or at least a restoration of the opening day roster is coming: Everson Pereira is scheduled to head out on a rehab assignment for his sprained left ankle on Sunday. In the meantime, Tanner Murray gets another start in the field.
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The White Sox only have one outfielder with enough qualified attempts to even be on Statcast's leaderboard for outfield jumps, and as it turns out, Tristan Peters grades out as awesome: 4.4 feet above average. Julio Rodríguez, Andy Pages, both are clod-footed loafers compared to Peters.
"Pre-pitch, if you watch him he never takes a pitch off; he hops and he's always ready to go, expecting the ball to be hit to him," said first base coach José Leger. "He never missed early work [in spring]. Sometimes, we made early work optional for them, and he was the first one who would say 'Let's work on this, let's work on that' or 'what you got for me?' So he wants to be better and he's been playing really good defense in right and center for us."
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Duncan Davitt is still on the roster after pitching Friday night, and the White Sox rotation is scheduled to be in the same order when they return home on Tuesday and send Sean Burke out against the Rays, but Venable has not revealed Sunday's starter yet.
Jonathan Cannon would be a logical fit given his spot in the Charlotte Knights rotation.
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Speaking of uncertainty over Sunday, the tarp just went on the field at Kauffman Stadium
First pitch: White Sox at Royals
TV: CHSN+
Radio: ESPN 1000 AM
Lineups:
| Royals | White Sox | |
|---|---|---|
| Maikel Garcia, 3B | 1 | Chase Meidroth, 2B |
| Bobby Witt Jr., SS | 2 | Munetaka Murakami, 1B |
| Vinnie Pasquantino, 1B | 3 | Andrew Benintendi, LF |
| Salvador Perez, C | 4 | Colson Montgomery, SS |
| Carter Jensen, DH | 5 | Lenyn Sosa, DH |
| Jonathan India, 2B | 6 | Dustin Harris, RF |
| Jac Caglianone, RF | 7 | Tristan Peters, CF |
| Michael Massey, LF | 8 | Tanner Murray, 3B |
| Kyle Isbel, CF | 9 | Reese McGuire, C |
| Michael Wacha | SP | Erick Fedde |
