MINNEAPOLIS — Since spring training, first-year manager Pedro Grifol has emphasized fundamentals, baserunning, situational hitting and more as the White Sox looked to rebound from a most disappointing 81-81 season under Hall of Famer Tony La Russa.
‘‘I know it’s March 7,’’ he said back then. ‘‘But I’ll stress this again: To address these things on March 25 is too late. We’ve got to secure the baseball, we’ve got to throw the ball to the right base [and] we’ve got to have cutoff guys in the right situations.
‘‘We’re getting closer to Opening Day. And this is how we’re going to win a lot of games — by being able to be fundamentally sound to prevent the other team from being opportunistic against us.’’
Flash forward to Saturday, when Grifol managed his 100th game. The Sox’ 3-2 loss to the American League Central-leading Twins dropped them to 41-59, a season-worst 18 games below .500 and a season-worst 11 games behind in the division.
What happened?
‘‘We have to play better baseball,’’ Grifol said. ‘‘‘Seventeen, 18 games under .500 — whatever it is — isn’t going to cut it.’’
The Sox are way out of contention, so far behind in the standings that selling at the trade deadline Aug. 1 has become a no-brainer.
‘‘We have to tighten things up,’’ Grifol said. ‘‘We have to put things together on both sides of the ball. There’s a lot of things I don’t like.’’
Controlling the strike zone on both sides of the ball is where it’s at for the Sox, who rank first with a 33.5% chase rate for hitters and second with a 3.99 walk rate per nine innings for pitchers.
‘‘There’s some things I do like,’’ Grifol said. ‘‘I like the fight we’ve shown, the at-bats when we’re down. I like the way our starting pitching eats innings. I don’t like our mental lapses. Our baserunning needs to be better. Our inconsistency in discipline at the plate needs to be better.
‘‘There’s always room for development; there’s always room to get better. I need to be better, too. We all need to be better.’’
With Dylan Cease allowing one run and three hits and striking out nine in six innings, the Sox were better for most of Saturday than they were in a 9-4 loss Friday in which Lance Lynn allowed four home runs and three unearned runs because of bad defense.
But all Cease (4-4, 4.04 ERA) had to talk about afterward was another defeat.
‘‘Disappointing loss,’’ Cease said. ‘‘We stayed in it to the end, we battled and, unfortunately, we didn’t come away with it.’’
For the Sox, it has become ‘‘just being professional and still showing up,’’ Cease said. ‘‘There’s never any excuse not to give everything you have.’’
Tim Anderson scampering home from third as Luis Robert Jr. was stealing second for a double steal in the third and Yasmani Grandal’s eighth RBI in his last five games later in the inning gave Cease a 2-1 lead.
But Keynan Middleton’s one-out walk to Byron Buxton and Kyle Farmer’s dribbler in front of third baseman Jake Burger for a single set up tying and go-ahead RBI by Christian Vazquez (double) and Michael A. Taylor (single) against Gregory Santos in the seventh. Buxton stole second but might have been out if second baseman Elvis Andrus had handled catcher Seby Zavala’s throw cleanly.
‘‘We didn’t make that play,’’ Grifol said.
Robert batted with two on and two outs in the ninth against Twins closer Jhoan Duran, but he struck out to end the game.
‘‘We were 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position,’’ Grifol said. ‘‘It’s hard to win that way, especially on the road. We battled. Freaking broken record, we battled. We just came up short.’’
