The White Sox were the talk of the offseason after they shook up the baseball world by trading ace Chris Sale and Adam Eaton for a pool of prospects.
Rumors of a potential Jose Quintana trade also swirled, but the White Sox opted to hang on to their 2016 All-Star as they entered the 2017 season.
The moves indicated a clear sense of direction by Rick Hahn & Co. that a rebuild on the South Side is officially underway. But players and coaches in the White Sox clubhouse aren't viewing it that way.
"I think we're just looking to go out there and play good baseball," said manager Rick Renteria. "I think for us if you want to talk about rebuild for us it's just simply trying to focus on doing things that we're supposed to do in terms of what the game is asking us to do. That's how I look at rebuild."
On Tuesday, the White Sox showed off their revamped, young team, which featured a new manager and six different starters from last year's Opening Day lineup – Tim Anderson, Cody Asche, Jacob May, Omar Narvaez, Quintana and Tyler Saladino.
But a rare off day for Quintana – who allowed six earned runs off three homers – and a red-hot Justin Verlander – who struck out 10 batters – made things difficult for the White Sox, resulting in a 6-3 loss to the Detroit Tigers at Guaranteed Rate Field.
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"Today was one of those days where you saw a veteran pitcher kind of exploit some things, but I think we can walk away from that with a little bit more knowledge, a little bit more experience," Renteria said. "I think guys are excited to start the season, so I would just chalk it up to a guy who did his job very well today and we weren't able to kind of recover until toward the end when we started to get into their bullpen a little bit."
But it's only one game, and Todd Frazier half-jokingly mentioned that there have been a number of teams who have won a World Series opening the season with a loss.
"So we have an opportunity so we'll see," he said smiling.
While a rebuild signals tanking, Renteria reiterated that the White Sox are committed to creating a winning culture.
"As we've mentioned before, there's no one that comes out to a ballgame on a daily basis thinking about losing," Renteria said. "I think everybody thinks about rebuilding in those terms that you’re going to end up dropping X amount of games.
"We're focusing on playing the game of baseball. Where those numbers end up falling, they fall. I think these guys are putting in the time to execute and to do what they need to do to give us a chance every single day to win and compete."