Reminders of White Sox trades — future, past and present — were everywhere you looked Thursday afternoon at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Chris Sale, the former White Sox ace traded to the Red Sox in Dec. 2016 to kick off a rebuild, was lowering his ERA to 2.79 while striking out 11 over seven innings in a 1-0 Sox victory in a makeup game against the Braves.
Aaron Bummer, traded to the Sox for five players in the offseason, was sitting in the Braves bullpen. One of the five in the Sox package, left-hander Jared Shuster, pitched three scoreless innings, lowering his ERA to 3.18.
Shuster followed Chad Kuhl (three innings) and Justin Anderson and preceded John Brebbia and Michael Kopech on the combined shutout.
Trade talks and talk about trades dominate the woebegone Sox’ world as June comes to a close, a month away from the July 30 trade deadline. With a 22-61 record, the Sox will be plenty active.
Trade rumors are part of the Sox’ daily diet.
“You know they are there,” outfielder/first baseman Gavin Sheets said inside the Sox clubhouse Thursday. “You can’t avoid them. We always have MLB Network on in here every day.”
There’s no sense in getting beat down by it, not when you’re already losing games at a .744 clip.
“You embrace it,” Sheets said. “Good teams want good players. We have some guys in here who can really help some teams.”
Outfielder Tommy Pham and shortstop Paul DeJong have already said they expect to be traded to a contender, not the worst thing for a veteran player who wants to win. Garrett Crochet and Luis Robert Jr., the biggest chips in general manager Chris Getz’ pocket, could be dealt, too.
Crochet and Robert deals carry much more risk and costs.
“It’s unfortunate there’s a possibility of guys getting traded but I’ve said this before, they’re just possibilities,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “To execute a trade with the players we have, everything has to work perfect. These guys are really, really good players. I don’t worry or think about it too much, I tell them to do the same because it’s out of our control. And executing trades nowadays is difficult because it has to work for both sides and sometimes it doesn’t. Just keep going. I go about it this way and tell them the same, just go about your business and preparing yourself to perform, help us win a baseball game and control the things you can control.”
Robert homered against Sale in the first inning, a solo shot that held up to the end. Sale gave up just three more hits, walked one and struck out 11 over seven innings.