Pedro Grifol doubles down on assessment of ‘f---ng flat’ White Sox as players weigh in — and disagree

“Most of the guys were f—ing flat today,” Pedro Grifol said. “Unacceptable.”

It was the angriest we’ve ever seen the Chicago White Sox manager, who has had plenty of reason to be upset during his loss-filled tenure on the South Side. Through a season and two months, he’s got a miserable 76-140 record. After a massively disappointing 101-loss season in his first year as a big league manager, he seems destined for an even greater number of defeats in 2024, helming a rebuilding club on pace to drop 117 contests.

But though fans have noticed similar results for the last two seasons, something really bothered Grifol about the way his team played Sunday, when Orioles hurler Kyle Bradish — who finished fourth in the AL Cy Young vote last year — no-hit the White Sox through seven innings, the home team only picking up its first (and only) hit after Bradish, north of 100 pitches, was pulled for a reliever.

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Bradish’s performance against a White Sox lineup that’s struggled to do much of anything for much of the campaign wasn’t exactly the most shocking thing in the world. It was a loss that finished off a four-game sweep and sent the White Sox to 1-9 in their last 10 games.

But the results seen from afar and the level of effort that goes into those results that the manager sees from up close can differ. And apparently, they very much did.

“Flat. Period,” Grifol said. “Major league game, got to respect it. Pretty simple.”

The guys doing the playing, however, didn’t all see it that way.

“He’s going to feel that way, and obviously we have a different feeling,” Korey Lee said after Grifol’s postgame explosion, a media session that followed a clubhouse meeting with the team where he shared similar thoughts. “He is entitled to his own opinion also. I think that’s a valid reason. It’s nothing to hide about that. He has his opinions, and everyone is going to have their own opinions.”

The contrast of Grifol’s assessment and the vocal disagreement of one of his players was obviously striking in the moment.

A day later, clubhouse opinions seemed more mixed.

“Obviously, we’re all going out there and competing,” Nicky Lopez said. “We want to get the job done as professionals, but sometimes it can be looked at as coming out flat. We didn’t get a hit for the first (seven) innings. It was kind of dead in the dugout because there was really nothing to get up for.”

“Right after a tough stretch like that, emotions are high. Everybody’s pissed off, everybody’s disappointed, and that’s what happens,” Gavin Sheets said. “You go right into interviews, and obviously we had a closed-door meeting that got outside the doors. But obviously everybody’s frustrated in that moment, and that’s what happens after a tough stretch like that.”

“Yeah, there’s frustrations,” Zach Remillard told CHGO. “Look at the record over the last 10 games, and it’s understandable to be frustrated. I think everyone’s frustrated. We’re all people. And to see someone frustrated, I think that’s very understandable.”

For his part, Grifol’s anger over how his team played didn’t seem to have cooled much a day later.

“You know what? I’m doubling down on what I said yesterday, OK?” he said in his pregame media session Monday. “I thought we were flat, and that’s where I’m going to leave it. We have to make adjustments today and go out there and play the game as hard as we can.

“They have their opinions. I have mine. This is not (a clubhouse) divided by any means. This is not them against Pedro, Pedro against them. It’s just a situation. I thought we were flat. They didn’t think we were flat. It’s over. We’ve got to go out there and play baseball.”

Grifol insisted he wasn’t trying to send any sort of message by publicly blasting his team’s energy or effort, not trying to shake them out of their current funk, a 10-game stretch that’s bringing back memories of the hideous 3-22 start to the season.

Certainly, Sunday’s game was not without its mistakes. The White Sox made a couple overthrows on one play that got a base runner from first to third. Corey Julks let a fly ball drop in front of him in left field. Tommy Pham was picked off first base. And the offense was lifeless. All on a day when Garrett Crochet continued his impressive season with six sensational innings of work.

But those types of things have been happening all season long, the White Sox not exactly fulfilling their manager’s promise of a different-looking, fundamentally improved team from the one that lost 101 games a season ago.

Grifol, though, hammered home that the result of the game was not what bothered him about what happened Sunday.

“I’m not going to get into what flat looks like and it doesn’t look like. Everybody who saw the game yesterday is going to have their own opinion. I had mine,” he said. “If we win, we win. If we lose, we lose, and we can live with that. … That kind of effort I can’t live with. That’s it. That’s what I saw yesterday.

“I’m looking for good baseball to be played, hard-nosed baseball.”

Fans frustrated with Grifol and the team’s losing under his watch will be quick to formulate theories that he’s lost his team, and that will likely stay the headline in the minds of many.

But Grifol’s angry reaction by itself was noticeable enough. This is a guy who has been praised by his players for his even-keeled demeanor, someone whose consistency helped the clubhouse through that awful start.

“Very even-keeled. His emotions are always just like a straight line,” Andrew Benintendi told CHGO earlier this month. “Never gets worked up, never gets down too much. It’s nice to see. It’s a long year, and you go through peaks and valleys. So to have a manager that’s even-keeled makes it easier.”

Grifol might be an even-keeled presence most of the time. He very clearly wasn’t Sunday.

“You can’t take any days off. You can’t. Not here,” Grifol said. “This is the big leagues. And if you want to take days off, then this is not the place to do it. I am even-keeled. I’ve been managing for 200 and whatever games. And everybody has that point where like, ‘OK, we’ve got to turn it up.’ That was yesterday.”

“I think that a lot of people look at this game and see a bunch of robots, but we’re a bunch of human beings. There’s fire in there. There’s love for the game in there,” Remillard said. “Holding us accountable to play this game the way it needs to be played, I don’t think that’s something you take personally, that’s something to listen to, to pull out words of wisdom from and to move forward with a game plan.”

Whether the intent was to rally the troops or not, we’ll see if Grifol’s outburst has any effect on his team or its fortunes. These rebuilding White Sox weren’t built to contend with the best teams in baseball, teams like the Orioles. Unfortunately for them, the schedule doesn’t offer many breaks in the coming weeks.

The losing is expected to continue in these early days of Chris Getz’s long-term rebuilding project. What Grifol is hoping doesn’t continue is the type of effort he saw Sunday.

It doesn’t mean these White Sox will be perfect. It doesn’t mean they even need to forget the frustration caused by the worst start to a season in franchise history.

“I don’t think you have to put anything aside,” Remillard said. “I think people have real things going on, and you learn to balance them. You use them as fire. I think our frustrations can be channeled and used in a direction of competitiveness that can propel us forward. I don’t think failure or struggle is something to avoid and pretend isn’t there. I think you work through it, you move through it, and that’s how you get better.

“I see a bunch of guys who show up every day and get their work in and are grateful to be here. That doesn’t make us perfect, and it doesn’t mean we’re not going to have days when we need to be called out and disciplined, or whatever that looks like.

“We have a manager who cares and wants to win, and we’re a team that cares and wants to win. And together, we’re going to find a way forward.”