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Yes, it’s deja vu all over again.
Welcome back to White Sox baseball, where Eloy Jiménez’s health always seems to be a topic of discussion.
On the third day of the team’s 2024 campaign, the oft-injured designated hitter pulled up running out of the box on a ground ball, straining his left adductor.
It was an all too familiar sight for White Sox fans, who in their frustration have come to expect this sort of thing from Jiménez. He’s spent a lot of time on the injured list in his big league career, whether in short bursts or months-long stretches. Even this type of injury, suffered while running the bases, has been a relatively frequent occurrence.
To this point, though, Jiménez has not landed on the injured list, and the team’s day-to-day, wait-and-see approach is another thing that’s caused fans to tear their hair out in recent years. The White Sox played without Jiménez, a man down, in the two games of their rain-shortened series with the Braves.
Pedro Grifol said before Wednesday’s scheduled game was washed away by inclement weather that the team hasn’t put Jiménez on the IL because it’s hopeful he can return during this weekend’s series against the Royals, citing the evaluations of the medical and training staffs as informing that decision.
“He’s feeling pretty good, better today than yesterday,” the South Side skipper said. “We should be cranking him up and running a little bit today. I say day-to-day, but what I mean by day-to-day is we’ve got to do the work and wait and see what he feels like tomorrow morning.”
The White Sox clearly value Jiménez to the point where they’re willing to play a few games without a full roster if it means having him play in as many games as possible. For example, they’d rather have only 25 guys for four games if it means having Jiménez for the six he would otherwise miss, unnecessarily, if he were to go on the IL.
But fans haven’t reacted well to that line of thinking over the years, arguing a team should never willfully play at a disadvantage, their thoughts influenced, too, by the fact that Jiménez, in particular, has missed so many games in his career. Through little fault of his own, he hasn’t proven to be a reliable presence.
The White Sox think differently, though, and Grifol’s stated basis for that thinking, that the team listens to the experts, is hard to argue with.
“You might say it’s precautionary,” Grifol said. “But what’s not out there is how bad it really is. And we have to go on what he’s feeling and what our doctors are saying and what our trainers are saying. If we feel that he can get back before the 10 days, then that’s what it is. That’s why we have these people.
“We trust our doctors, we trust our trainers, we trust our strength-and-conditioning guys, we trust Eloy. When everybody gets together, which we do, and that’s what we come up with, then that’s what we go with. It doesn’t become precautionary or ‘err on the side of caution.’ It becomes a decision made by very qualified people and the player.”
That’s probably the best explanation of that “approach,” if you can call it that, that we’ve heard from a White Sox manager — these fan complaints date back to Tony La Russa’s most recent tenure as the skipper — though who knows how many hearts and minds it will change.
Right now, Jiménez is said to be improving to where he might be able to return to the lineup at some point during the next four games, and if he’s back in the lineup without any issue, that will make this moment of fan anxiety quickly forgotten.
But we’ve seen Jiménez affected by lower-body issues throughout the last couple seasons, even if it didn’t mean time spent on the injured list, and you wonder at what percent he’ll be operating upon his return and if his hitting and running could be impacted for some time to come.
Unfortunately, Jiménez’s injury luck has been so bad during his time in the major leagues that it’s almost impossible for him to escape these questions regarding his health and how it will affect his play, especially as his production has not lived up to expectations in recent years.
But the White Sox would certainly rather have him in the middle of their lineup than not, and we’ll see how long it takes them to get him back there.
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