Chicago White Sox fans are witnessing what is quite possibly the most sour free-agent signing in franchise history as Adam Dunn goes through a nightmarish season.
Dunn stunk in April. He stunk in May. He’s currently stinking up June.
He stinks against righties. He stinks against lefties. So far in 2011, Dunn has served up hot donkey stink on ice for the White Sox.
The sad news is that the only course of action may be to keep the stench in the lineup until Dunn starts to come out of the funkiest funk seen on the South Side since…I can’t remember since.
Jermaine Dye’s last half of 2009 comes to mind, but we didn’t have three more seasons at an average of $14.75 million to look forward to. The tough part to swallow is that fact that we have no choice but to look forward.
What’s transpired up to this point is too gruesome to dwell on for long, but here goes.
Dunn managed two hits in Friday night’s loss to Washington. Of course, it took him 14 innings to do it. Dunn’s previous multi-hit game was back on May 14. Going into this month, his numbers (.185, five home runs, 23 RBI) suggested that he had nowhere to go but up.
Wrong.
Dunn’s June as of Saturday morning? A .161 average, two homers and six RBI. That’s against several familiar National League opponents.
Dunn looks like a beaten man at the plate. He is hitting .020 against left handed pitching. Even when he connected with what looked like a two-run homer in the sixth, Roger Bernadina was able to go over the wall and stick another shiv in the side of Big Donkey.
That’s how things go when you’re in a valley. Right now, Dunn is the Sultan of Slump.
At this point, the White Sox have decided to keep Dunn in the lineup, as opposed to bringing a guy like Dayan Viciedo for most of Dunn’s at-bats. No one deals for that contract, and sending Dunn to the minors won’t help and just humiliates a guy who by all accounts is showing up every day and trying to get his act together.
The best that we can hope for is that for some stretch of time Dunn is able to put together a productive streak in the second half. We can only hope that the White Sox will be contending if and when that happens.
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