Half-right

Well, I was right to predict homeruns last night, what with the wind blowing out at Guaranteed Rate Whatever. I just didn’t figure the Tigers would be the ones going long, three times in all. Add it up, and you come away with a 5-3 White Sox loss to the second-worst team in baseball. There are any number of things get irritated over, like letting a team that committed five, as in five, errors beat you. Or leaving 26, as in 26, runners on base. Or going 0-13 with runners in scoring position. Or hitting into four, as in four, double plays. Yasmani Grandal tallied two of those dp’s, and I’m wondering if it’s too early to start worrying about him and his .122 BA (oh, but can he frame those pitches). If anyone can make Sox fans wax nostalgic over Adam Dunn, it could be Grandal. As for Jose Abreu and Yoan Moncada, the one looks like he’s lost, the other like he can’t be bothered. Which brings us to the manager. Tony La Russa left starter Lucas Giolito in even though it looked to the rest of the world he’d run out of gas in the top of the seventh with one out and one on and a 2-1 lead. Giolito went on to throw 114 pitches before La Russa came out to lift him on the short end of a 4-2 score. In the postgame news conference, La Russa explained, “I was confident he’d get the third out,” as to why he left Giolito in. If only that were the case. As The Atlantic noted (but not the Sox website), Giolito had one out and counting, not two. I know people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, but, senior moment? Or is this just another example of the Sox reflecting the style and approach of their manager? Poke in the eye or punch to the gut? It hurts either way.