Players will tell you the best two days of the season are the first day of spring training and the last day of the regular season. When it ends with a meaningless game in a season that was supposed to be anything but, it’s just not going to end well.
A couple of hours before the White Sox’ finale, a 10-1 thrashing from the Twins sending the Sox home at 81-81, equipment bags were laid out by clubhouse lockers as players were already packing and saying goodbye. Handshakes and well wishes were exchanged.
The Sox had already absorbed the disappointment of not making the postseason days ago and sa in on 78-year-old manager’s Tony La Russa sad farewell press conference Monday. Some of them won’t be back.
“A bunch of the guys here, they’ve started thinking, realizing this is their first time they’re not going to be in the postseason,” said shortstop Elvis Andrus, a free agent. “I went to back-to-back World Series my first years in the league and thought it was so easy. You have to be grateful and realize how lucky you are just to be able to make it to the postseason.
“I know everybody’s going to go home with that in their mind and put in a good offseason and not let that happen next year.”
The season was already over before Wednesday’s the season finale at Guaranteed Rate Field, and then right-hander Davis Martin got shelled for nine runs on seven hits including two home runs in 1 2/3 innings.
And then Martin left the game with right biceps soreness. It was one last fitting injury for a team riddled by injured list casualties this season.
Jose Abreu, who will be a free agent, asked acting manager Miguel Cairo to sit out Wednesday, denying fans the chance to give him a farewell if this happens to be his last season.
“I don’t like goodbyes,” Abreu said Tuesday.
Fans chanted his name in the ninth inning, hoping for an at-bat but to no avail.
Romy Gonzalez played shortstop as Andrus was the DH. Yasmani Grandal, AJ Pollock and Eloy Jimenez did not play, and the grind of spring training and 162 games came to a merciful end. It’s a grind often lost on fans, who don’t want to hear how tough it might be to play a kids game and get paid millionaire’s money. Especially if they’ve let said fans down like maybe never before.
Such was the case with the Sox, who declared themselves World Series contenders but needed to win five of their last seven games to avoid an eighth losing season in the last 10.
“It’s hard to put into words, there is a lot of emotion,” reliever Kendall Graveman said before the game, looking around the clubhouse. “We didn’t succeed.”
