Textbook

Bad teams find a way to lose. Last night, the White Sox hit four solo shots and took a 4-0 lead into the bottom of the sixth against the Dodgers. Bases loaded, two out, Reynaldo Lopez on the mound. How do you say “tying grand slam”? Of course, if Dylan Cease went a full six innings, then maybe Lopez isn’t in the game. But Cease needed 102 pitches to reach one out in the sixth, hence Lopez. Did I mention Sox hitters struck out sixteen times in an eleven-inning, 5-4 loss? Bad teams often have bad managers; I’ll let you decide about Pedro Grifol. What amazes me, though, is what comes out of his mouth, and doesn’t. Grifol said Lopez “left a fastball over the plate” [today’s online Tribune story] to Chris Taylor. Ya think? And Elvis Andrus got picked off of third base because he “just got caught in an arm fake” by the catcher. Faked out? Andrus is in his fifteenth major-league season. I’m not aware Grifol said anything about Cease, who said “for the most part I commanded the zone pretty well, got ahead in the count and got a few strikeouts. It was pretty solid.” [story today on team website] Cease was chill enough to add, “It’s disappointing, but we fought really hard. Sometimes that’s just the way baseball goes, you know?” At the other extreme, Jake Burger was taking responsibility for not coming through in the eleventh inning, striking out instead of advancing the runner to third. “We like the four home runs,” Burger having one of them. “But for me, I didn’t execute, and that’s it.” Why have a manager if all he’s going to do is repeat what happened while letting his players get to the heart of the matter? Beats me.