This is What Happens

What happens when a baseball team can‘t do any better than promote a retread like Will Robertson from its minor-league system and inserts him in the lineup against the Yankees? He goes 0-for-5, which puts him at 1-for-23 on the season, 0-for-13 with the White Sox. Oh, and the Sox lose for a third straight time to the Yankees, 5-3 in eleven innings. What happens when you bring in a retread like Tyler Alexander to pitch the eleventh inning? He gives up three runs to take the loss and put his record at 4-13 with a 4.88 ERA. But, hey, Alexander is 1-8 with a 3.88 ERA in 23 games for the Sox. What happens when you hire someone like New-Mickey Venable to manage a major-league team? He guides them to a 48-88 record after 136 games—hey, that’s seventeen games better than last season!—and says after the latest loss, “It’s a tough one, no doubt about it. These guys battle and put themselves in a really good spot to win that ballgame and just came up short.” As in going 2-for-15 with runners in scoring position. What happens when you hire someone like Venable? He looks at yet another example of offensive ineptitude and says something like, “We just have to make good swing decision and use the middle of the field. Each guy in different situations is going to attack differently. At the end of the day, you have to shorten up, put the ball in play and use the whole field.” [both quotes in today’s Tribune story online] Move over, Casey Stengel. There’s a new “perfessor” in town. With the reincarnation of those early Mets’ teams now playing on the South Side, nothing could be more fitting.