Crazy Bones Nearly Costs His Team A Win

Before you begin reading, a quick disclaimer: the following is 1000 words on an individual inning between the White Sox and Royals on a mundane Monday night. I will not hold it against you if you stop reading right now.

On Monday night, the White Sox beat the Royals 8-7. It was a sloppily played game by both sides in poor weather conditions, but the most important fact if you’re a White Sox fan is that they were able to pull out the win and are now within 2 games of the Tigers in the AL Central. At least that’s what the box score will say. If you actually watched the game like I did, you would have noticed that Ozzie Guillen nearly cost his team the game in the 8th inning.

At the start of the inning, the White Sox were leading 7-4. Since they were playing the Royals, it was a fairly easy assumption at that point to say that the game was in the bag. Ozzie brought in Scott Linebrink* to face Miguel Olivo, Alberto Callaspo, and Mark Teahen. Linebrink struck out Olivo on what was probably the best splitter I’ve seen from him in 2 years – 1 out. He then got Callaspo to fly out to right – 2 outs. Then the wheels fell off [that's a metaphor]. Mark Teahen drew a walk on 5 pitches. Mitch Meier then walked on 4 pitches, none of which were even close; AJ Pierzynski had to stand up to catch ball 4. Okay so at that point, Linebrink had walked the tying run to the plate. It was now Yuniesky Betancourt’s turn in the lineup, but since he sucks, Royals manager Trey Hillman called on left-hander Mike Jacobs to pinch-hit for him.

* Have you ever noticed that Scott Linebrink always looks like he’s taking a shit? It looks like a constipated shit too, red cheeks and all, like he’s really struggling with that sonofabitch. That’s not a facial expression that gives me a lot of confidence in a reliever that my favorite team will be counting on in late-game situations in a pennant race.

Ozzie had a few choices of his own. Lefty Randy Williams was warming up in the bullpen as well as righty Octavio Dotel. Personally, I would have liked to have seen Bobby Jenks brought in to get a 4-out save, but he wasn’t even warming up, so either Williams or Dotel would have to do. I could live with that I guess. So what did Ozzie do? He stuck with Linebrink. Yeah, who the hell knows?

Let’s think about this from Mike Jacobs’ perspective. Just like the man you replaced [Yuniesky Betancourt], you can’t hit for shit, your OBP is an embarrassment, and you never walk. Ah, but you can sometimes connect on a fastball and hit it a mile. Your opponent, Scott Linebrink, has thrown 8 balls in his last 9 pitches. So if you’re Mike Jacobs, you’re thinking 1st pitch fastball and nothing else. In fact, you can even cheat a little bit by saying to yourself, “hey Man, I know you suck at baseball, but you’re in the driver’s seat here. There’s a 100% chance that you’re getting a fastball on the first pitch. If it’s down the middle, swing as hard as you can. If it’s not right down the middle, let it go. You will never get another situation like this again as a pinch hitter. Scott Linebrink throws the straightest fastball in the league and it’s going to be 94 mph. Hit the shit out of it, okay?”

You can probably guess what happened: first pitch, 94 mph fastball right down the middle, 900 foot HR for Jacobs, tie game, Happy throws a shoe. It was a solid job all around. After that, Linebrink somehow got Josh Anderson to strike out to end the inning, but the damage was done and the game was now tied at 7 going to the bottom of the 8th.

Normally after an inning like that, the team that gave up the lead usually goes 3 up, 3 down in their half, which is what I fully expected to happen. However, the White Sox offense actually surprised me in the bottom half. Alex Rios led off with a pretty decent work-the-count walk. Yeah I was surprised too. Alexei Ramirez was the next batter and Ozzie had him sacrifice bunt. I’ll re-type that for effect. Alexei Ramirez was the next batter and Ozzie had him sacrifice bunt. Not only have I never seen Alexei Ramirez successfully lay down a bunt in his career, but he was facing a Royals reliever named Ramon Colon, who had an ERA of 6; a reliever who had given up 6 HR’s in 30 IP, allowed 35 hits, and only had 19 strikeouts. Why was Alexei bunting in that situation? Oy.

Oddly enough, Alexei ended up getting the bunt down and the sacrifice was a “success” in terms of what he was trying to accomplish. In my opinion though, all he did was give the Royals an easy out. The next batter for the White Sox was Jayson Nix. He’s not a household name or anything, but he’s got 10 HR’s in only 165 at bats, including one earlier in Monday’s game. Overall, he’s slugging .467 on the year; honestly, what more could you ask of a utility infielder? Ozzie promptly pinch-hit for him with lefty Mark Kotsay. I guess he wanted a lefty to face the Royals’ righty or some shit like that. The only problem though was that Trey Hillman was allowed to make in-game changes as well. It’s in the rule book that the opposing team can take a pitcher out of the game and replace him with a different pitcher from the bullpen that hadn’t yet pitched in that particular game. It’s rule # 8.7 or something. So Hillman brought in lefty reliever John Bale. Bale sucks just as much as Colon, but he’s still effective against left-handed batters (a .224 BAA in 49 at bats coming into the game). He ended up striking out Kotsay on a good breaking ball on the outer half. I think I could have predicted that. In fact, right before the pitch, I said out loud to nobody in particular, “I bet Kotsay strikes out here on a breaking ball on the outer half.” But whatever the fuck ever, right?

Scott Podsednik of all people ended up saving face by hitting a clutch, 2 out single to center that scored Rios with the go-ahead run and Bobby Jenks was able to hold the Royals scoreless in the 9th, but from my perspective, the White Sox shouldn’t even have been in a situation to lose last night. Against a team that isn’t inept like the Royals, I have no doubt that it would have ended differently and White Sox fans wouldn’t be celebrating a win today. If the White Sox want to make the playoffs, Ozzie Guillen has to be better than that because it’s not every day that their opponent will be the Royals. And on Monday night, he was out-managed by Trey Hillman. That’s not going to get it done.