CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago White Sox are on course to finish with baseball's worst record of the modern era. Change clearly is needed.
The White Sox made a switch in the dugout, firing manager Pedro Grifol and three coaches on Thursday, two days after the team ended a 21-game losing streak that tied the American League record.
Chicago began the day 28-89, on pace to finish 39-123, which would be the worst major league record since the National League's Cleveland Spiders were 20-134 in 1899.
The White Sox ended the losing streak with a 5-1 victory at Oakland on Tuesday night, then wasted a two-run lead in a 3-2 loss on Wednesday. The 21 losses tied the mark set when the 1988 Baltimore Orioles started 0-21.
“We know the flaws in this roster," general manager Chris Getz said. "But with that being said, we expected to win more games — we did. These factors led to the decision.”
Grifol was in the middle of his second season as a major league manager after a long career in the game, lugging an 89-190 record.
He was the first manager fired this season. Getz said a replacement likely will be hired from outside the organization after the season and it would be someone currently in a major league uniform.
Major league coach Grady Sizemore will take over as interim manager, with his first game scheduled for Friday when Chicago hosts the crosstown Cubs. A three-time All-Star and two-time Gold Glove center fielder with Cleveland, he is in his first season as a White Sox coach after serving as a minor-league instructor with the Guardians and a coach with the Arizona Complex League Diamondbacks in 2023.
Chicago also fired bench coach Charlie Montoyo, third base coach Eddie Rodriguez and assistant hitting coach Mike Tosar. They have been replaced by Doug Sisson (bench coach), Justin Jirschele (third base coach) and Mike Gellinger (assistant hitting coach).
The White Sox had a 14-game losing streak from May 22-June 6, setting a team season record that lasted only until the skid that followed the All-Star break.
“My mentality and the way I look at things is we’re all in this thing together, and I’m the first one to take blame for anything that happens on this team. I’m the manager, right? And I’ve done that since day one. I did it last year. I’ll do it again this year,” Grifol said on July 30. “I don’t hide away from blame. Blame is what it is. I’ve got the position, the office, that’s the chair. I would never blame our players for this season. That’s not my makeup.”
The 54-year-old Grifol presented a positive outlook in spring training, after the White Sox went 61-101 in his first season for their worst finish since going 56-106 in 1970. The optimism quickly evaporated, though, in a 3-22 start.
“We knew this season was gonna have its struggles based on the roster that we had,” Getz said. “When you make a change, you want to be very certain that it’s going to be effective, and there are a lot of different factors in why a team is underperforming."
Getz plans to sell potential candidates on the idea of “building something special from the ground up.” But he doesn't have a track record to fall back on, in his first full season on the job after being promoted in late August to replace longtime executives Ken Williams and Rick Hahn.
“They have to have faith in the direction of our organization, that message comes from me and certainly others,” he said. “I’m very confident we’re going to find someone who is going to be a great fit for moving forward, in filling a need that is a high priority for us moving forward. I’m excited to begin this search and I know there’s a long list of worthy candidates.”
The White Sox made the playoffs in 2020 and won the AL Central in 2021, but they’ve stumbled hard since. Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa stepped down late in the 81-81 season in 2022, and Grifol was hired to replace him. The former minor league catcher, who had four seasons of minor league managing experience in the Seattle Mariners system, spent 10 years in a variety of coaching roles with the Kansas City Royals from 2013-22.
The White Sox were one of baseball’s worst hitting teams last season, when Williams and Hahn were fired in August. And there hasn’t been much to work with on Chicago’s South Side lately.
Relievers Aaron Bummer and Gregory Santos were traded away in the offseason, and ace right-hander Dylan Cease was dealt to San Diego in March. Then, All-Star center fielder Luis Robert Jr. and key hitters Yoán Moncada and Eloy Jiménez were sidelined by significant injuries early this season.
The White Sox also have been hurt by lackluster production from first baseman Andrew Vaughn, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2019 amateur draft, and veteran outfielder Andrew Benintendi, who signed a $75 million, five-year contract for 2023.
At the trade deadline, the White Sox kept Robert and ace starting pitcher Garrett Crochet, but they dealt designated hitter Jiménez to Baltimore, pitcher Tanner Banks to Philadelphia and infielder Paul DeJong to Kansas City.
The White Sox are headed toward their sixth 100-loss season, which would be the first time in franchise history it’s occurred consecutive years. Their all-time worst winning percentage (.325) was recorded in 1932, when they went 49-102-1.
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Chicago White Sox manager Pedro Grifol reacts as he talks to players while waiting for Chicago White Sox relief pitcher Fraser Ellard during the ninth inning of a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals in Chicago, Wednesday, July 31, 2024. The Royals won 10-3. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Chicago White Sox manager Pedro Grifol stands in the dugout before a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals, Monday, July 29, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Israeli military said Tuesday an American activist killed in the West Bank last week was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by its soldiers, drawing a strong rebuke from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the activist's family.
Israel said a criminal investigation has been launched into the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old activist from Seattle who was taking part in a demonstration against settlements. Doctors who treated Eygi, who also held Turkish citizenship, said she was shot in the head.
Blinken condemned the “unprovoked and unjustified” killing when asked about the Israeli inquiry at a news conference in London. “No one should be shot while attending a protest,” he said. “The Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way they operate in the West Bank.”
Eygi's family in the U.S. released a statement saying “we are deeply offended by the suggestion that her killing by a trained sniper was in any way unintentional. The disregard shown for human life in the inquiry is appalling.”
During Friday's demonstration, clashes broke out between Palestinians throwing stones and Israeli troops firing tear gas and ammunition, according to Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli protester who witnessed the shooting of Eygi.
Pollak said the violence had subsided about a half hour before Eygi was shot, after protesters and activists had withdrawn several hundred meters (yards) away from the site of the demonstration. Pollak said he saw two Israeli soldiers mount the roof of a nearby home, train a gun in the group’s direction and fire, with one bullet hitting Eygi.
Israel said its inquiry into Eygi’s killing “found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by (Israeli army) fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot.” It expressed its “deepest regret” at her death.
International Solidarity Movement, the activist group Egyi was volunteering with, said it “entirely rejects” the Israeli statement and that the “shot was aimed directly at her.”
The killing came amid a surge of violence in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, with increasing Israeli raids, attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis, attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians and heavier military crackdowns on Palestinian protests.
Israel says it thoroughly investigates allegations of its forces killing civilians and holds them accountable. It says soldiers often have to make split-second decisions while operating in areas where militants hide among civilians. But human rights groups say soldiers are very rarely prosecuted, and even in the most shocking cases — and those captured on video — they often get relatively light sentences.
The Palestinian Authority held a funeral procession for Eygi in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday. Turkish authorities said they are working on repatriating her body to Turkey for burial in the Aegean coastal town of Didim, as per her family’s wishes.
Eygi's uncle said in an interview with the Turkish TV channel HaberTurk that she kept her visit to the West Bank secret from at least some of her family members. She said she was traveling to Jordan to help Palestinians there, he said.
"She hid the fact that she was going to Palestine. She blocked us from her social media posts so that we would not see them,” Yilmaz Eygi said.
The deaths of American citizens in the West Bank have drawn international attention, such as the fatal shooting of a prominent Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, in 2022 in the Jenin refugee camp.
Several independent investigations and reporting by The Associated Press determined that Abu Akleh was likely killed by Israeli fire. Months later, the military said there was a “high probability” one of its soldiers had mistakenly killed her but that no one would be punished.
In January 2022, Omar Assad, a 78-year-old Palestinian-American, died of a heart attack after Israeli troops at a checkpoint dragged him from his car and made him lie facedown, bound, temporarily gagged and blindfolded. The military ruled out criminal charges and said it was reprimanding one commander and removing two others from leadership roles for two years.
The U.S. had planned to sanction a military unit linked to abuses of Palestinians in the West Bank but ended up dropping the plan.
The deaths of Palestinians who do not have dual nationality rarely receive the same scrutiny.
Human rights groups say Israel military investigations into Palestinians' deaths reflect a pattern of impunity. B’Tselem, a leading Israeli watchdog, became so frustrated that in 2016 it halted its decades-long practice of assisting investigations and called them a “whitewash.”
Last year, an Israeli court acquitted a member of the paramilitary Border Police charged with reckless manslaughter in the deadly shooting of 32-year-old Eyad Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian man in Jerusalem’s Old City in 2020. The case had drawn comparisons to the police killing of George Floyd in the United States.
In 2017, Israeli soldier Elor Azaria was convicted for manslaughter and served nine months after he killed a wounded, incapacitated Palestinian attacker in the West Bank city of Hebron. The combat medic was caught on video fatally shooting Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, who was lying motionless on the ground.
That case deeply divided Israelis, with the military saying Azaria had clearly violated its code of ethics, while many Israelis — particularly on the nationalist right — defended his actions and accused military brass of second-guessing a soldier operating in dangerous conditions.
Associated Press reporters Matthew Lee and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s Gaza coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
This undated family photo provided by the International Solidarity Movement on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, shows Aysenur Ezgi Eygi of Seattle. (Courtesy of the Eygi family/International Solidarity Movement via AP)
ADDS WITNESS SAYS: Two fellow activists of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who a witness says was fatally shot by Israeli soldiers while participating in an anti-settlement protest in the West Bank, carry posters with her name and photo during Eygi's funeral procession in the West Bank city of Nablus, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
