Staying out of harm’s way tough challenge for White Sox outfielders

GLENDALE, Ariz. — It was a year ago this time when it happened, all so unnecessarily, it seemed.

White Sox left fielder Eloy Jimenez leaped up on the warning track, stretching his glove over the fence at Camelback Ranch during a Cactus League game with no chance of catching a home run sailing well over his head. Jimenez’ tore his left pectoral muscle and missed the first 99 games of the season.

Jimenez wants to do well in left field. Luis Robert wants to do great in center. The competitive athlete in them prevents them from being overly cautious. On Sunday, right fielder Andrew Vaughn was injured making a diving catch in right-center field, laying out and hitting the turf with a hard flop.

In games this spring, Robert has banged into a wall attempting to make a catch and dived head-first trying to snatch a sinking line drive. There have been sliding attempts, too. If Robert gets up slowly and brushes himself off, all eyes are on a player some view as an MVP candidate, if not this year sometime soon.

“It’s really difficult to hold back a little bit, especially in the outfield,” Robert said Sunday through translator Billy Russo. “I think I can do it running the bases, but in the outfield when you have to react, it’s tough. It’s very very difficult for me to manage that reaction. That’s something I have to learn, but it’s difficult to do.”

Jimenez played 55 games last season and Robert, who tore his right hip flexor running out a ground ball in May, played in 68. Yasmani Grandal [knee] played 93, and those were just the longest injured list casualties the Sox overcame toward a 93-win, division winning season. Now it looks like Vaughn will be sidelined.

With eight spring games left before Opening Day April 8, the thing general manager Rick Hahn and manager Tony La Russa care about most is that the Sox manage to stay healthy. Until Vaughn went off on a cart, the Sox had done it.

Jimenez has flopped his 6-4, 240-pound frame into nets and into the first row of seats at Guaranteed Rate Field. In April 2019 he sprained his right ankle colliding with the wall in a game against the Tigers. The following July he got tangled up with center fielder Charlie Tilson and sprained his right elbow. Jimenez is far from the Gold Glover Robert is, but not for lack of trying.

“Being smarter, but not stopping playing hard,” he said last week. “Because if I stop playing hard, I’m going to be a DH, and that’s what I don’t want. So I think I learned more about taking care of me, but [I’ll be] playing hard like always.”

There have been no risky attempts by Jimenez in the field this spring, and Jimenez shouldn’t have to worry about Robert charging into his space with over-the-top aggressive catches on routine fly balls as he’s done in the past.

“At that time I was trying to catch every fly ball in the outfield and probably went a little bit crazy doing that,” Robert said, “but I’ve learned that you have to let the other guys play, too, and just adjust. It’s fun they’re making that bobblehead.”

That would be a bobblehead of Jimenez stopping in his tracks in left field and crossing his hands as Robert steps in front and makes a catch. “I GOT THIS, ELOY” is inscribed on the bobblehead.

Before Sunday’s Cactus League game, Robert wasn’t ready to say “I got this” when it came to his feel at the plate this spring. But he hit two homers to right center field Sunday, his second and third homers in two games, against left-handers Andrew Heaney and Garrett Cleavinger, so maybe he is now.

“I still have enough time to get ready for Opening Day and my swing, my real swing,” he said. “My A swing is going to be ready by Opening Day.”

Sounds good, Sox fans everywhere said. In louder voice they’re saying “No more injuries before Opening Day.”

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