OAKLAND, Calif. — Zach Remillard was a minor-league lifer who made his major-league debut at 29 two weeks ago. He has made an impact, the depth of which can be debated, on an underachieving team of said-to-be talented players.
Remillard plays several positions, takes good at-bats, has some occasional pop in his bat and has had a flair for the dramatic, too.
Manager Pedro Grifol has trusted Remillard enough to put him in the top two spots of his lineup. When the White Sox opened a three-game series Friday against the Athletics, Remillard batted ninth and played third base, giving slumping slugger Jake Burger a day off.
The day before, he was on base three times, had two hits and drove in two runs in a 9-7 victory that gave the Sox a four-game series split with the Angels.
Before the game, Grifol talked up Remillard’s ability to bunt.
Other topics about this 36-47 team were discussed, including shortstop Tim Anderson’s slump, Michael Kopech’s tired arm, the lineup’s poor chase and walk rates and health issues for $70 million third baseman Yoan Moncada, whose spot was financed Friday by Remillard’s major-league minimum paycheck.
Remillard’s occasional contributions to needed victories are a breath of fresh air, especially from a player appreciating the big-league life for the first time.
“It’s very thrilling,” Remillard, a 10th-round Sox draft choice in 2016, said at his locker after the Sox’ victory Thursday. “A lot of preparation and practice went into this.”
Remillard is that player who, every spring training, looks like a useful player. But Cactus League games are no forum to gauge performance and how it would translate to the regular season.
“The day I sent him down, he hit two homers in the spring-training game against Cincinnati,” Grifol said. “He passed right by me after the second homer and said, ‘You made those cuts too quick.’ I loved his versatility all along. I like the style of player. I like the superstar, the talented player. It was almost like this guy does almost everything right. You have to have a combination of both those styles of players on your team. He just brings a dynamic that’s important to this ballclub.”
Remillard is a .253/.326/.378 hitter with a .705 OPS and 57 home runs in 694 games over seven minor-league seasons. He entered Friday batting .400 with a .438 on-base percentage in 11 games and 33 plate appearances with the Sox. Those numbers will level off, and it’s too soon to know how long he’ll stick around or how far his career will take him. In the meantime, he knows his place in the clubhouse and role on the field.
“The job is to get on base,” Remillard said. “We’ve got a lot of guys on this team that drive the baseball a long way, and if we have guys on base, we’ve got a chance to score, and that’s the goal.
“You look around, and this is a very talented, strong, powerful offense that can put up runs.”
That’s what they say, anyway.
“He does a lot of things right in terms of baseball moves,” said former Sox infielder and current broadcaster Gordon Beckham. “He has a good first step; he’s thinking about the game as it’s going. It’s not necessarily how do I get a hit; it’s how do I do something to help the team win.
“He’s just doing things that stand out on this team. And it’s good for the rest of the guys to see things he’s doing.”
Maybe Remillard can patch a hole here with a bunt hit there, move the line with a walk and knock in a run with a well-placed single when needed.
“You need three or four guys like that to make the team cohesive,” Beckham said.
“I can’t say enough about the baseball he’s playing,” Grifol said. “I’m proud of him for hanging on [after] all those years in the minor leagues, coming here and not being fazed by this environment and for competing his butt off every time we put him in there.”
