ANAHEIM — Tim Anderson is battling through a crazy-bad slump at the plate, and manager Pedro Grifol waits patiently for him to break out, confident it will happen at any moment, enough so that he kept Anderson in the second spot in his lineup for the White Sox’ series finale against the Angels Thursday afternoon.
Grifol dropped Anderson from his customary leadoff spot on June 17 in Seattle, bumping Andrew Benintendi from second to first, where Benintendi is batting .319/.375/.394 in 23 games.
The left-handed hitting Benintendi got a planned day off Thursday against left-hander Patrick Sandoval, and Grifol kept Anderson in the 2-spot, batting rookie second baseman Zach Remillard first after Remillard got three hits for the second time in 10 games in the Sox’ 11-5 win Wednesday night.
“He gets on base. He does the little things that help us win games,” Grifol said, explaining his decision to bat Remillard first. “He’ll take a walk, he’ll take a hit by pitch. Bunt. Got good energy. There’s a lot that I like.”
Anderson is hitless over his last 24 at-bats and is 2-for-43 (.047) with three walks in his last 12 games.
“It’s one of those things where guys go into slumps,” assistant hitting coach Chris Johnson said . “Even the greats, Tim Anderson, you know? Yes, we all know he’s a .300 hitter and right now he’s struggling and finding himself like anybody else. All hitters go through it. The good thing about Tim is when he figures it out, he’ll take off. And you’ll see Tiim Anderson.”
Anderson is batting .227/.267/.266 with no homers, no triples, nine doubles and eight stolen bases in 57 games. Per Baseball Reference wins above replacement, he’s a minus-1.2 player this season.
Johnson said Anderson is working hard to find his swing. Before facing Shohei Ohtani Tuesday, “he was out here 50 minutes, hitting, early work, hitting Ohtani’s slider on the iPitch.
“He’s working his tail off,” Johnson said. “He’s out here every day. Buying into the things we’re saying, so there’s no complaints there.”
The Sox are 173-132 when Anderson starts 71-89 when he doesn’t since the start of 2020. His 15 career leadoff homers rank second in club history behind Ray Durham (20) but Anderson hasn’t homered since July 15 in a 6-2 Sox win at Minnesota.
In the field, Anderson has made six errors and is minus-6 in defensive runs saved, per FanGraphs. Grifol has been nothing but supportive throughout the season for the 2021 and 2022 All-Star, by keeping him at or near the top of the lineup and by talking him up publicly.
On Wednesday Anderson was 0-for-5 but did not strikeout and made good contact twice, but Grifol went out of his way to praise a contribution made on the bases.
“It goes unnoticed but that inning where [Andrew Vaughn] hit the double that cleared the bases, TA went head first on a forceout at second base that he beat,” Grifol said. “That was big-time baserunning and a big-time safe call for us. It kept the bases loaded.
“That’s a pre-pitch thing where you’re thinking about that. If you’re not thinking about that you just slide in feet first and you’re out. But it was great baserunning and he beat the throw.”
Here is the Sox lineup for Thursday:
Remillard 2B Anderson SS Robert Jr CF Jimenez RF Vaughn 1B Grandal DH* Burger 3B Frazier LF Zavala C Lynn P
