Crash and Burn

Last night, White Sox starter Martin Perez threw seven innings of one-hit shutout ball against the Royals; he left with a 4-0 lead the bullpen turned into a 5-4 loss. Somebody needs to teach manager New-Mickey Venable how to handle a pen. You know who Venable brought in to start the eighth, right? Good ol’ Jordan Leausre, who needed 26 pitches to record two outs. Unfortunately, Leasure also gave up two singles and a walk. Enter Grant Taylor. A two-run single by Maikel Garcia followed shortly thereafter. Back out for the ninth, Taylor loaded the bases on three singles, one out. Venable then switched to lefty Tyler Alexander, who promptly gave up a two-run single to lefthand-hitting Michael Massey. Wait, there’s more. Alexander then hit lefthand-hitting Adam Frazier to load the bases. Still more. Alexander then gave the go-ahead single to Kyle Isbel on a 1-2 count. So, Alexander failed to get out any of the three lefty hitters he faced. Way. To. Go. Colson Montgomery hit a homerun in his fourth consecutive game, and Kyle Teel collected three more hits. None of it mattered, though, because Venable didn’t know which pitcher to put in when.