Bad Decisions

The rain on Saturday meant the White Sox and Mariners finished the suspended game on Sunday in addition to the regularly scheduled contest, now reduced to seven innings. None of that stopped manager Tony La Russa from making bad pitching decisions in both games. The first game was tied at two going into the top of the ninth, when La Russa brought in closer Liam Hendriks. Isn’t there an unwritten rule about not using your closer in a non-save situation (unless you want him to fail)? You’d think the Sage of the Unwritten Word would know better. Hendriks gave up what proved to be the game-winning homerun. Then, in the second game the Sox were ahead 7-1 going into the sixth inning. For what it’s worth, five Sox pitchers hadn’t yielded a hit to that point. This was around the same time Michele read a text from Clare, that the Sox had called up minor-league pitcher Jimmy Lambert as the 27th player for what constituted a de facto doubleheader. “Oh, he won’t pitch, not with them having a no-hitter,” I said, some unwritten rule somewhere to back me up. Lo and behold, who does La Russa bring in to start the sixth inning but 27th man Jimmy Lambert, who immediately yielded a double on the way to giving up four runs in 1.1 innings. Not going for the truncated no-hitter forced La Russa into using Hendriks again. This time the closer delivered, and the Sox won 7-5. Isn’t it written somewhere that HOF managers should handle their pitching staffs better? Why, look no further than the previous sentence.