What I Saw, What He Said

Aaron Civale shouldn’t have pitched seven innings yesterday, not with the stuff he had, as in five earned runs on nine hits in a 7-1 loss to the Bluejays. In part, Civale was done in by analytics’ logic that dictates the use of relievers ASAP; a doubleheader on Thursday that saw the use of eight White Sox relievers; and Sox manager New-Mickey Venable’s inability to keep his pitchers rested. So, seven innings it was. What really gets me, though, is Venable’s pathological urge to sugarcoat mediocre-and-worse performance. Civale gave up four runs in the first two innings. End of ballgame, right? Right? Nope. According to New-Mickey, “After a tough start there, where he [Civale] just left a couple of pitches in the heart of the plate and paid for it, he did a great job of settling down.” We must be looking at a different box score. But wait, there’s more. Venable also said that Civale “did a great job of settling down and getting back to his game plan and did a good job of hitting spots and pitching where he wanted to pitch. Just unbelievable to be able to cover seven innings on a day where maybe at the beginning [he] didn’t have his best stuff.” [both quotes in today’s Tribune] Ya think? I’m thinking of starting a new parlor game called Venable the Disaster, pun intended. One person picks some disaster over the course of history while the other imagines how Venable would spin things. It’d be a hoot.