Late Night

I went to bed last night knowing the White Sox were beating the Dodgers 4-2 going into the bottom of the seventh inning. I woke up this morning to find that the Sox gave up three runs in the bottom of the ninth to lose, 5-4. After watching a replay of the ninth, all I can say is, hats off to manager New-Mickey Venable for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The ninth opened with Michael Conforto singling past second baseman Lenyn Sosa. If the idea is to win ball games, then Josh Rojas should’ve been at second, instead of third, and Miguel Vargas at third, instead of first. Why do we have Ryan Noda, if not to play first base? Grant Taylor was in his second inning of work. The Conforto hit seemed to upset Taylor, who threw eight straight balls for two walks. Why wasn’t he lifted after the first walk? Instead, the 23-year old faced Shohei Ohtani with the bases loaded and nobody out. Ohtani grounded to second. Sosa got the out at second, but Chase Meidroth couldn’t turn the double play. See above for best option in the ninth inning at second base. Venable then brought in Steven Wilson, who gave up a game-tying sacrifice fly, followed by a walk. That put runners on first and second, two out, Freddie Freeman up. Freeman had the lefty-righty advantage over Wilson and singled in the winning run on the first pitch he saw. Venable could’ve rolled the dice by walking Freeman to move the winning run to third while bringing up the righthanded-hitting Andy Pages. That’s what I would’ve done, but, hey, I was in bed asleep at the time. As opposed to Venable asleep in the dugout.