When the White Sox formally introduced Pedro Grifol as their new manager, Rick Hahn hammered on a few key selling points. He covered most of them in one sentence…

“In Pedro, we are hiring someone who is a renowned communicator, a modern baseball mind who is seeking to build a cohesive and inclusive clubhouse environment and one where the attention to detail and the accountability will be priorities.”

… but he also went out of his way to tout what Grifol had in mind for everyday preparation:

“We spent a lot of time with Pedro talking through improvements to our pregame planning, something that he was heavily involved in in the past, as well as how we prepare from an offensive standpoint to get the most out of the traits of the players on the roster,” Hahn said. “How we go about our business in that area in particular I think you’re going to see a lot different from what we had in the past.”

I can’t speak for what’s going on inside the clubhouse, but we’re definitely seeing something a lot different on the field. The White Sox are 7-21, and they’ll finish April going 0-8-1 in series and without consecutive victories at any point over the month.

Yet that all feels besides the point after what did or didn’t happen with Luis Robert Jr. on Saturday night. There is not yet a cohesive story, so we’re left to participate in some sort of postmodern truth exercise based on the realities of the primary parties.

What we saw: Robert started sprinting out of the box on a weak chopper to the left side, but then eased up halfway down the line even though he would’ve beaten the throw by plenty.

The truth isn’t somewhere in the middle here, because either Robert is trying to manage a leg issue or he isn’t. But it also doesn’t matter what the truth is, because it’s already undercutting Grifol’s supposed selling points. There isn’t evidence of communication or cohesion, and it’s also a strike against the vaunted pregame planning, because you probably want to have a strong idea of what a player has to offer before batting him leadoff.

Which isn’t to say Robert is acquitted, because he’s having a terrible week as a teammate. One day he’s stealing fly balls from Eloy Jiménez, and another day he’s delegating his outfield duties to Jiménez, never mind that Jiménez was DHing. You never know whose job he’s going to do. His? Somebody else’s? Nobody’s?

You can say that Robert’s dragging down Grifol, but Grifol’s job is to maintain control, and each day’s fresh affront to the concept of professional baseball contributes to the growing sense that he’s not the White Sox’s Real Dad.

Perhaps I’m extrapolating from his pregame and postgame comments, because it really sounds like he’s lying to himself. I cringed for Grifol when reading his his offhand quote about his experience with dead-in-the-water teams …