White Sox sim roundup: April 18
The Baseball-Reference White Sox win again, giving them the best record in baseball
The Out of the Park sim we started at South Side Sox is running over with Brett and his team at South Side Hit Pen — Sports Illustrated.
All you need to know about the wide range of outcomes these sims provide comes from looking at Lucas Giolito: ace for the best-in-baseball B-R Sox, injured in the SSHP sim, and reverting to 2018 Giolito for the last-place Strat-o-Matic Sox.
Baseball-Reference OOTP sim
Final White Sox 5, Rangers 3
Winning Pitcher Lucas Giolito (3-2)
Losing Pitcher Corey Kluber (2-2)
Save Evan Marshall (2)
HRs José Abreu (6), Eloy Jiménez (3), Yasmani Grandal (6)
Standings 16-5, 2 ½ games ahead of Cleveland, best record in baseball
Interesting here, as the White Sox B-R juggernaut rolls on to 16-5, that Marshall is closing some games. How do I know this? Well, Alex Colomé entered in the eighth inning and ended up with hold, his fourth. Now, Ricky Renteria may have been aiming for a two-inning save from Colomé, but it appears a change was made, as early on it looks like Alex’s ERA was more than 10.00 in the closer role (down to 8.31 now). I’ll also point out here that until we started reporting on the B-R sim and doing these updates at SSS, Eloy had zero homers; he’s gone long for three straight games since.
South Side Hit Pen OOTP sim
Final Rangers 4, White Sox 1
Winning Pitcher Corey Kluber (1-0)
Losing Pitcher Dallas Keuchel (2-1)
HRs Todd Frazier (8), Yoán Moncada (4)
Standings 11-10, third place, 1 ½ games behind Cleveland
The White Sox offense has gone flat against a very hittable pitching staff from Texas. The SSHP SIMSox have dropped three straight against Texas, and, given the outliers of the sims you’re reading above and below, seems the most realistic. A 2-2, two-out grand slam from Todd Frazier was the difference in this one.
Strat-o-Matic sim
Final Rangers 7, White Sox 3
Winning Pitcher Lance Lynn (2-0)
Losing Pitcher Lucas Giolito (0-3)
HRs Ronald Guzman (3), Edwin Encarnación (3)
Standings 6-15, last place, 8 ½ games behind Kansas City, second-worst record in baseball
Well, methinks I found a reason why these White Sox are 6-15: Giolito is not a hard-luck 0-3 this season, as he’s carrying a 7.09 ERA through five starts now. This outing, with six earned runs and SIX WALKS in just 4 ⅔ innings seems to indicate things are getting worse for our ace as the season gets rolling. Yikes. I mean, we had to suspect things were ugly in the rotation and bullpen when six of the nine guys in the lineup are hitting .282 or better. Yeesh.