More important than a win: Moments like this are what the 2018 season is all about for the rebuilding White Sox

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If you were watching Wednesday’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals, you might have wondered why White Sox skipper Rick Renteria left Lucas Giolito in to serve up a two-run homer to Dexter Fowler.

Giolito struggled mightily through his first four starts of the season but looked a lot better in two road starts over the past week. Giolito was sensational through the first five innings Wednesday, allowing just one hit before coughing up a tie-breaking homer to opposing pitcher Carlos Martinez in the sixth. Still in a 1-0 game, Giolito gave up a one-out single before facing Fowler, a seemingly perfect opportunity for Renteria to bring in a reliever. Instead, Giolito gave up the two-run homer, and the White Sox lost 3-2. It's very possible that the lack of a pitching change cost the White Sox a chance at a comeback win.

But this season is about development, and that includes for current major leaguers like Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Yoan Moncada. And for a guy whose terrific performances last season and during spring training had plenty thinking he could be an ace on a White Sox staff of the future, this exact moment of development was far more important than winning one game in May.

In other words, exactly what this season is all about.

“Two different situations that you’re using those moments for,” Renteria explained a day later, before the White Sox started their four-game set with the Minnesota Twins on the South Side. “I think that we’re observing what they’re going through in those particular times.

“The other thing is, I had an opportunity in a one-run ballgame to allow him to experience and work through and try to get us in without any more damage. It didn’t work out. But he was able to have that experience to put in his back pocket to understand what it was that he did or didn’t do in that moment to give him the best chance to have success.

“You don’t have a lot of moments like that. The best place to allow them to experience that is now in the big leagues because there’s going to be times … as we continue to play better, and we’re going to want them to be able to get through those and offer them opportunities. And unless I give them a chance to experience it, how are they supposed to learn?”

Renteria’s been talking about “learning experiences” all season long, the most important thing for young players at the major league level in a season where the losses are piling up quickly for this team. But the losses were to be expected, as general manager Rick Hahn stated early in the season that this is “the hardest part of the rebuild.” At the same time, development at all levels of the organization was expected, too, and this is development in action.

It’s moments like these that will give players the experience they need down the line, when the rebuild reaches its apex and is planned to yield a perennial contender.

“I think it’s invaluable because you’re doing it at the major league level,” Renteria said. “As much as everybody goes through the process as you’re coming up through the minor leagues, the one place where you need to be able to perform at … is the major league level. Right now we had an opportunity for him to go out and try to work himself out of that particular situation.

“He gained an experience that he’s only going to be able to have in that particular moment, by the way against a pretty good ball club, in an arena in which there was a lot of energy and he tried to do the best he could. I know he walked away from it understanding a little bit more of himself, what he’s going to have to do the next time, and I don’t think we could have done that in any other capacity, in any other way.”

There aren’t likely to be a great many fans who look back fondly on a 3-2 loss in May of a season that at its current pace could end with 100 losses. But it’s these moments that could end up being some of the most valuable during the rebuild. That way when that contention window opens, these players are ready to compete for championships.

And that is far more important than a single win in a rebuilding season would’ve been.

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