Not Good

A good baseball team builds on a second-inning, 5-0 lead. And it sure as all whatever doesn’t strand fourteen runners or go 3-for-17 with runners in scoring position or fail to score with the bases loaded and nobody out in the 11th inning or roll over and play dead the way the White Sox did yesterday against the A’s in an eleven-inning 7-6 loss. Then again, the White Sox aren’t a good team. And they don’t have a good manager, if managing means more than telling reporters after the game, “Some chase above the zone in big spots [Colson Montgomery and Everson Pereira both whiffing on high pitches out of the strike zone]. Whether guys were trying to do too much, I don’t think that was the case. [Then, what was the case?] That’s not really what I saw. [Then, what did you see?] Just weren’t able to make it happen.” [today’s online Trib] Just? You’re the manager, Vibes. It’s your job to make things happen, and your coaches’. If players aren’t producing, you diagnose the problem and fix it. If it can’t be fixed, you give other players a shot. Instead, Vibes and company, well, I haven’t a clue what they’re doing with Miguel Vargas and Sam Antonacci. After going 0-for4 yesterday, Vargas is batting an anemic .153, with two hits over his last 29 at-bats. He’s hitting off his front foot; lunging; taking a hand off his bat on his follow through. But he keeps playing. Either he’s not getting advice or not following the advice he’s getting. He needs to sit. Alas, so does Antonacci. After recording a hit in his first major-league at-bat, the 23-year old has gone 0-for-14. The good news is one strikeout in nineteen plate appearances. The bad news is contact softer than a Dreamsicle left out in the August sun. The kid is obviously pressing. What I want to know is, who’s helping him calm down? Vibes? I doubt he knows how.