A Different Tune

No unicorns and rainbows out of the mouth of White Sox manager Will Venable after yesterday’s 4-3 loss to the Tigers, set up by a bullpen collapse. Nope, it almost sounded like the skipper was ticked. Lefty reliever Fraser Ellard nearly got himself a double play in the ninth, which would’ve meant two out and nobody on with the Sox ahead, 3-1. Instead, with one out and a runner on first, Ellard proceeded to walk Zach McKinstry and Riley Greene, both lefthanded hitters. That brought in Jordan Leasure, who is so early last year. It took all of two pitches for Leasure to give up a walk-off double to Spencer Torkelson, leaving the Sox at 2-7. As for Venable, he told reporters after the game, “Just too many walks out of the bullpen. We expect better out of those guys.” Venable added that Fraser was “in the game to get those guys out, and we’ve got to make them put the ball into play.” [quotes from today’s story in the Sun-Times] Nice to see the manager hold his players accountable in public, so very unlike the previous two seasons, four, really, given how Tony LaRussa never said a bad word about his players. Now I want to know if the manager and general manager care enough to at a minimum move the deck chairs around. You can’t keep sending out the same people if they keep giving you the same results; that’s crazy. Do the sane thing and find the right mix of pitchers, no matter how long or painful the process.