There was a time during White Sox manager Pedro Grifol’s first season, especially during the 7-21 start, when he boiled after every loss.
“Last year, every game we lost was the end of the world,” Grifol told the Sun-Times.
Not so much anymore. Perhaps it’s because defeat has become the norm, defeats that, whether Grifol’s to wear or not, have left him open to criticism. Unhappy fans have much less patience through the first stages of this rebuild than they did during the teardown of the late 2010s.
Grifol knows he’s not managing a Yankees-caliber roster that, as he said, “boatraced” the Sox in a series sweep last weekend in New York, but he still has reached boiling points.
A Sunday loss to the Guardians on May 12, when a chance for a four-game sweep was lost, still burns.
“That game pissed me off because we lost energy,” Grifol said. “Had opportunities in the first [four] innings, didn’t score. The energy was high. They came back and [took a 4-0 lead in the fourth], and we got down. That pissed me off because we had a chance to have a four-game sweep against a team in first place. If we bring energy, I’m good.”
Say this for Grifol, he brings energy each day. He landed his dream job, replacing Tony La Russa before last season, and oversaw a 101-loss year with a club built to win.
“This year, we start 3-22; you don’t think . . . ‘Are we ever going to win another game?’ [crossed] my mind?” he said. “But right away, I can dismiss that and say this will all level out. It’s just experience, man. So when you do turn this thing around, all that adversity you’ve gone through, it helps you, helps the clubhouse, organization, relationships. Helps everybody just to settle down. We’ll get to where we need to get.”
In the second season of his three-year deal, ask Grifol to assess the here and now after 51 games with a team that has a 15-36 record after losing 8-6 in the opener of a four-game series against the Orioles on Thursday at Guaranteed Rate Field, the worst record in baseball, and he notes that Eloy Jimenez went down to injury in the third game of the season, and Luis Robert Jr. and Yoan Moncada followed on the first road trip.
“We haven’t had our team,” he said. “Then [third-base prospect Bryan] Ramos comes in, a nice little jolt, and he gets hurt.”
Grifol has rolled with the flowing injury rapids that roar through his clubhouse. He’s not a “why me?” sort, rather a turn-the-page guy, giving someone else a chance to play and manage with the roster at hand.
He talks about how much he loves the job and the challenges accompanying it.
“I’ve been in the game long enough to know this doesn’t last forever,” he said. “The one thing you learn as you get older is you appreciate every single day in the major leagues. The best of the best retire, and the game goes on and on, and they don’t miss you one bit.
‘‘So while you’re here, [give] everything you got with incredible appreciation for the opportunity we have in front of us, and that’s really what I got. And my faith.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t work at it and get mad, but I’m grounded. I have faith. I have faith this is going to turn around, this is going to be really good.”
Grifol is reminded that, whether he’s good, bad or in between at his job, if the Sox break the franchise record of 106 losses, his name will be attached to it forever.
“Yes, my name would be on it as the manager of this team, but do you think if that were to happen and we turn this thing around, you think I’m going to give a [crap]?” he said. “I don’t look at it like that. We’re facing this, fighting adversity.
‘‘If we make trades [before the deadline] to better the organization for the long term, and I’m the manager to go through this, and I’m still the manager when we turn this around, it won’t matter.”