FROM ALL-STAR TO FLOP STAR
Robert says he got so frustrated that he even thought, ‘I’m quitting’
Luis Robert Jr. says the tradedeadline chatter didn’t bother him. And grinding back from his strained hip flexor didn’t affect his hitting.
For him, the 2024 season is the year of the fall and the flop. With Robert felled by the injury seven games into the season when a weak lineup desperately needed him, the White Sox got off to a 3-22 start.
And flopped when he returned. The 2023 All-Star center fielder and Home Run Derby participant wasn’t hitting his weight entering the Sox’ game against the Yankees on Wednesday at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Robert is covering ground and making plays in center field, though, and he led the American League with 12 stolen bases in July, an indication he feels good. But he’s far from his All-Star form.
Sox fans have winced along with him, watching their team tumble and stumble toward an American League record-tying 21-game losing streak and another streak of 14 losses while pacing itself past 120 defeats, the record for the most by any team in the modern era. At 2992, they were officially eliminated from the AL Central race Tuesday.
Robert had a hand in it, batting .199/.262/.394 with 12 home runs in 64 games.
“It’s frustrating, so frustrating that sometimes you think, ‘I’m quitting,’ ’’ Robert said Tuesday. ‘‘But, of course, you won’t. You just have to keep working.”
Fans are frustrated, too — with the team, with ownership, with consecutive 100-loss seasons almost guaranteed. Robert, the player they might pay the price of admission to see play, heard boos after striking out Tuesday.
Robert has pride. But he said he wasn’t put out by the boos.
“Not at all,” he said. “That’s how they feel, and you have to respect that. Nothing I can control. I’m passing through this; I’m struggling right now.”
“It’s going to happen,” interim manager Grady Sizemore said Wednesday. “We’re all pros in here. It’s not the first time any of us have been booed or heard boos. It’s not distracting us from what we need to work on.”
Signed by the Sox for a $26 million bonus in 2017, Robert, who turned 27 on Aug. 3, is the lone holdover from the core (Yoan Moncada is invisible with his latest injury in what will be his last season with the Sox) that was supposed to bring “multiple championships,” as former general manager Rick Hahn said. There was a division title in 2021 and a largely noncompetitive 3-1 AL Division Series bow-out to the Astros that year, Robert’s second.
As the Sox rebuild again under GM Chris Getz, Robert and AllStar lefty Garrett Crochet were made available before the trade deadline and likely will be trade candidates again in the offseason. The asking price was very high, and Robert’s performance did nothing to enhance his value.
Robert said coming off the injury might have affected him, but the trade chatter does not.
“Not at all,” he said. “The trade rumors, definitely not. The injury a little bit after I came back. But after a couple of weeks, I can’t blame my season on the injury.”
After getting booed Tuesday, Robert cracked a sharp single to score the Sox’ only run.
“It’s building off of at-bats like that and trying to string multiple days like that together,” Sizemore said. “It’s a comfort and a confidence thing right now. He looks like he’s maybe lost a little bit of that, a little bit of comfort. He’s been through a lot this year.”
“A base hit or something can get you out of your mood and get your confidence back,” Robert said, “but I still need to work and try to get my rhythm.”
And while he’s at it, regain some confidence.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “That’s a big indicator when a player is struggling because sometimes you are doing everything right, you are doing all your work. Your confidence will start kind of going down a little bit.”