'No magic wand' for White Sox offense as Bryan Ramos goes down and the Andrews stay put

Briefly a functional part of a mostly unproductive Chicago White Sox offense, Bryan Ramos is now hitting below .200.

The team’s third baseman of the future had an unexpected rise to become its third baseman of the present, called up from Double-A seemingly because of his status as a member of the 40-man roster. But he impressed and stuck around for a bit, gathering seven hits across his first five starts in the big leagues.

But he went 2-for-28 after that, a nine-game span that included some time spent on the injured list, necessary after he hurt himself running the bases on a play where he missed a sign for a hit and run.

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Pedro Grifol described Ramos as someone who was not overwhelmed by the major league atmosphere. But he has been overwhelmed by major league pitching recently, and so he was sent down to Triple-A Charlotte on Thursday.

Of course, Ramos is not the only bat in the White Sox’ lineup that has struggled mightily of late. And increasingly, “of late” is describing a longer and longer period of time.

While Ramos going back down to the minor leagues is far from a punishment — he was promoted to the majors in the first place as an injury replacement, skipping Triple-A entirely; spending time at the Triple-A level makes plenty of sense for his development — plenty of fans reacted to news of his demotion wondering why the same treatment wasn’t being handed out to some of his big league teammates.

Specifically, two other regulars, Andrew Vaughn and Andrew Benintendi, have spent the first two months of the season flirting with the Mendoza Line. Vaughn is hitting .199, with a 65 OPS-plus that has him hitting 35 percent worse than big league average, while Benintendi is batting .189 with an eye-poppingly poor OPS-plus of 41.

The Andrews have had their moments, brief signs of life that have been enough to be cited by Grifol and others as examples of their ability to break out of these dueling season-opening slumps, but it’s mostly been a struggle for both hitters. The manager has shuffled both guys around in his lineup, trying out new batting-order positions, and given them sporadic days off to attempt to snap them out of it, but it doesn’t sound as if anything more serious is planned.

Benintendi or Vaughn getting the Ramos treatment? Unlikely.

“I don’t think so,” Grifol said Wednesday, asked if there were more drastic moves that could be made with those two. “You can get creative with some stuff, but you also can’t overreact to a couple months of baseball. When you’ve done something for such a long time and you’ve done it consistently, two months of baseball, two months of facing adversity is not going to force me to overreact on anything. I’m not going to do that.

“I believe in these guys. I believe in their ability. I’ve seen what they can do on the field, and I’m not going to overreact to 150, 160 at-bats.”

That number, of course, is only getting bigger, while the results refuse to turn. Grifol has been insistent, particularly when it comes to the more veteran Benintendi, that the results will turn. Certainly Benintendi has a track record of major league success. But South Side fans’ skepticism can be excused considering Benintendi has yet to perform well in a White Sox uniform. Though Vaughn was an above-average big league hitter in 2023, he, too, has failed to perform to the high expectations of his No. 3 overall draft position.

Some might point to a franchise legend currently battling the Andrews for the status as baseball’s most disappointing hitter. José Abreu is in Year 2 of his three-year deal with the Astros and was sent down to the minors — with his approval, given his veteran status — after starting the season 7-for-71. He spent nearly a month working at the team’s spring-training complex in Florida and participating in a few rookie-ball games before a couple games at Triple-A. Abreu returned to the Astros’ lineup earlier this week and had one hit in his first two games back.

That move was shocking because of its rarity, though, and might not be a trend that will start sweeping the majors when it comes to struggling veterans, likely meaning that the Andrews will continue to get big league opportunities to right their individual ships.

But the White Sox’ offensive malaise is not limited to Ramos, Vaughn and Benintendi. Fans have aimed their angst at Martín Maldonado, whose statistical struggles are worse than those of the other three; he’s hitting .081. But the entire team has struggled to score runs, first during a miserable 3-22 start to the season and more recently during a 1-12 stretch against AL East foes.

On the campaign, the White Sox rank dead last in baseball in runs scored, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and home runs. They’re second-to-last in hits and third-to-last in walks. They’re the worst team in baseball, at 15-42, the only team yet to reach 20 wins.

That lack of production was on full display during an 0-7 home stand against the Orioles and Blue Jays, the first winless home stand of at least seven games in club history. They averaged 2.6 runs per game. Go back to the last 13 games, and they’re runs-per-game average is even lower, at 2.5.

It was bad enough last Sunday against the Orioles to set off Grifol, who during his postgame media session called out his team for being, in his estimation, “f—ing flat,” an opinion that wasn’t shared by the guys who were doing the hitting that day.

How does it all change? It might not, at least not soon.

This is the outset of another long-term rebuilding project on the South Side, and the team carried rock-bottom expectations into this year, expectations they hoped to exceed but instead are meeting, if not playing below. Low-cost free-agent and trade additions were brought in not necessarily to strengthen the lineup but improve the team defensively and fundamentally, and with Luis Robert Jr., Yoán Moncada and Eloy Jiménez all spending significant time on the injured list, this lineup has rarely had enough talent to compete on a nightly basis, however much the team believes in the players it’s sending out there.

Robert’s nearing return could infuse some juice into the offense, but he’s just one guy. The long-term fixes are still developing in the minor leagues, prospects like Colson Montgomery and Edgar Quero, who aren’t expected to make much impact in 2024 but in seasons to come.

Chris Getz could theoretically bring more potential offensive talent into the organization with trade-deadline deals this summer, but that hinges on the vast number of players he has to trade performing well enough to net something of note. Erick Fedde, Garrett Crochet, Michael Kopech and Tommy Pham have been good so far. Will they play well enough for long enough to bring back some bats?

And so, while it will come as no comfort to frustrated fans, Grifol’s answer to his team’s offensive doldrums is to keep on keeping on.

“We have to continue to grind and continue to get creative, continue to work. There’s no magic remedy here,” he said after Wednesday’s loss. “The remedy here is, ‘You know what? Let’s get ready to work again (this weekend) in Milwaukee. That’s it.

“There’s no magic wand here: ‘OK, now we are going to start to hit.’ It’s about work. It’s about preparing, working. These guys are not afraid to sweat, not afraid to get after it. We have to continue to get after it.”

You can be sure they will. They have no other choice. After all, there’s four months of baseball still to play.

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