Sports Time Radio

On Monday Yermin Mercedes of the Chicago White Sox hit a home run on a 3-0 count against Minnesota twins utility player Willians Astudillo despite getting the take sign from his manager Tony LaRussa. Now obviously with Astudillo on the mound the game was already out of hand; so you wouldn’t think this would become much of anything, but sadly LaRussa has made this an issue.

LaRussa actually called Mercedes “clueless” and mentioned that their would be consequences for his actions. Now maybe there is a fine involved for missing a sign, but Mercedes was in the White Sox line up last night and is also in the White Sox line up this afternoon. At least LaRussa was smart enough to keep Mercedes bat in the middle of the White Sox line up. With Jose Abreu missing the series against the Twins the White Sox offense would really suffer if Mercedes was held out of the line up by an out of touch manager.

The game of baseball has changed quite a bit since the last time LaRussa found himself in the dugout as a manager and it’s clear that he hasn’t caught up to where the game is right now. Don’t forget that earlier this season LaRussa didn’t know the extra innings rule and actually had Liam Hendricks go out and run the bases in extra innings when he could’ve had the pinch hitter who made the last out go out to 2nd base.

Now I get that White Sox owner Jerry Reisdorf and LaRussa go way back and that makes LaRussa untouchable, but you have to start wondering if he’s still a quality manager or if he was just given a team that ready to win. As the season moves on it’s becoming clear that LaRussa is lost in today’s game and you have to wonder if in the end the White Sox will be the one’s who pay the price.

LaRussa said yesterday that he didn’t think the issue he had with Mercedes has caused any kind of “rift” in the White Sox clubhouse, but other players on the team have already came out against LaRussa’s treatment of Mercedes. wouldn’t that be considered a “rift”?

Now LaRussa has tried to sell this as a “teachable” moment to the media and has also said that he believes that “sportsmanship” and “respect” are still important in baseball. This just goes back to the point of LaRussa losing touch with the game that he used to be involved in.

There was at least a couple of players outside of the White Sox clubhouse who said something about this situation and I guess no one will be surprised to find out that one of them was Trevor Bauer now of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Bauer went onto Twitter and said “Dear hitters: If you hit a 3-0 homer off me, I will not consider it a crime. Dear people who are still mad about a hitter hitting: kindly get out of the game. Can’t believe we’re still talking about 3-0 swings. If you don’t like it, managers or pitchers, just be better”. Alex Wood who’s ow with the San Francisco Giants added “If there’s a position player pitching in a big league game all “rules” are out the window imho. Plus do y’all realize how hard that is to launch a 49 m.p.h. pitch 400 feet lol? Give the people what they want”.

Now realize that these are two pitcher who are commenting on this situation and it doesn’t seem to bother them. I’ve yet to see anyone who’s come out on LaRussa’s side in this.

White Sox pitcher Lance Lynn added this. “The way I see it, for position players on the mound, there are no rules”. “Let’s get the damn game over with. And if you have a problem with whatever happens, then put a pitcher out there. Can’t get mad when there’s a position player on the field and a guy takes a swing.”

How do you think this will affect the White Sox going forward? Going into today’s game the White Sox are currently in 1st place in the American League Central, but they did drop their game last night after LaRussa’s comments. Did LaRussa somehow submarine not only his team, but his relationship with his players by not being up to date on the game of baseball? Let me know what you think because right now I’m waiting for him to go and stand out in front of the White Sox dugout and start yelling at players to get off his lawn.

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