Will Venable has made mistakes before, and certainly deployed strategies that seemed questionable on their face to many. But the advancement of the White Sox organizational process is such that 276 games into his managerial tenure, he had yet to make an error of the instantly viral, casual fans watching at home pointing aghast at the TV, national baseball podcasts devoting a segment to unpack it variety.
That, and Noah Schultz's night ended one out into Friday night's blowout loss to the Guardians.
Pitching coach Zach Bove came out to have a mound visit with Schultz after he plunked Jo Adell to load the bases with one out in the first, which seemed pretty merited, all things considered. Venable, by his own admission, missed it.
"Just an inexcusable mistake by me," Venable said. "We had an appeal play that we wanted to execute, and in the urgency of trying to make that happen, just totally lost that we had visited, and obviously that was a mistake. So, just messed it up."
So after Schultz split the plate with an 0-1 cutter to Angel Martínez for a two-run single, Venable started striding out to the mound, which he said was to trigger an appeal that Martínez had missed a base, which had been suggested from the replay room. Instead Venable's presence triggered a conference from the umpiring crew--and some scrambling in the bullpen as the newly recalled David Sandlin had just been told to start warming.
"Kind of just stretching, doing bands and stuff," Sandlin said of what he was doing at the time, as he had not begun throwing.
Venable was intercepted by umpires before actually reaching Schultz, who likely reminded him that by MLB rule, two mound visits in a single inning from any member of the coaching staff automatically triggers a pitching change. Initially, crew chief Andy Fletcher announced that Schultz would need to be replaced after facing Rhys Hoskins. But after Guardians manager Stephen Vogt protested, Schultz had to be replaced by Sandlin immediately.
In the most charitable interpretation, a struggling Schultz wasn't long for the game anyway, with Venable indicating he had just instructed the bullpen to start having Sandlin warm up, as he had been recalled from Charlotte to be a planned piggyback partner. But that simply means the Sox had a 22-year-old rookie that they didn't trust past his first jam going up against American League All-Star Parker Messick.
"I was under the impression of being a normal start, I didn’t think anything different," Schultz said. "It’s unfortunate but at the end of the day, the body feels good and I’m available for whatever is needed over the next few days."
For someone who only covered 10 outs in his most recent Triple-A start, skipped his outing before that due to a lower body issue, hadn't thrown over 90 pitches in a month and was asked to throw a season-high 96 pitches on short notice, Sandlin did pretty well. He struck out Hoskins and induced a Bryan Rocchio groundout to escape Schultz's jam in the first with nothing further across, and hung up three zeroes afterward.
But listing out all those qualifiers is another way of introducing that it was an 8-1 Guardians lead after the top of the sixth, which had a way of making the Munetaka Murakami home run that took place in the bottom half feel fairly anticlimactic. After Chase DeLauter flicked a first-pitch fastball for a one-out single in the fifth to kick off his second trip through the heart of the Cleveland batting order, Sandlin's control became unglued.
"Felt good early on, just kind of was starting to fatigue a little bit, got out of my normal rhythm and just needed to get back to it," Sandlin said.
He missed high and arm side repeatedly to walk José Ramírez on five pitches before plunking Adell (rough night for that guy) to load the bases. When he started Martínez with a belt-high cutter, the Guardians left fielder launched a no-doubt grand slam halfway up the right field concourse, barking in the direction of Edgar Quero and the White Sox dugout as he back-peddled up the baseline. As if this were a night where someone else needed to put the egg on the White Sox' faces for them.
"That's on me, just a mistake by me," Venable said more than once. "At that point when we're down, and we’ve got to find behind innings there, that using [Sandlin's] pitches was something that was important to just get our bullpen through it.
Steven Kwan further padded the lead in the top of the sixth by roping a hanging 2-2 curveball from Sandlin off the right field foul pole. But with Messick working at full lather, the Sox mismanagement of their own pitching portended doom from the start.
Braden Montgomery initially provided an answer to the first inning wackiness by launching a 97 mph challenge heater out to dead center for a second inning solo shot, and Murakami followed a similar recipe--but at a much higher trajectory--for his sixth inning clout. In between, Messick allowed three other baserunners and struck out eight over seven innings with no further damage, with plenty of cathartic fist pumping on a night where the air went out of the White Sox balloon early.
"It’s really disappointing," Murakami said via interpreter after hitting his 25th home run of the season. "Yesterday’s loss was a tight game and coming out here today, losing this way, it’s really disappointing. But we need to really change how we face tomorrow and really look to tomorrow and look into the future."
Three-straight ninth inning singles forced the Guardians to briefly have closer Cade Smith warm up. Remember this moment if the White Sox win the division.
*Bullet points:
*To deepen the intrigue, Martínez told Cleveland reporters postgame that he had missed first base.
*The White Sox have lost four consecutive games for the first time this season. They were the last team in MLB to do so, but now that it's arrived, it really does feel like a season low point.
*Who had it worse? Trevor Richards being tasked with getting seven outs after pitching 1 2/3 innings the previous night in Boston, making it 53 pitches in his last two days? Or Erick Fedde, fresh off being moved out of the rotation, making his third relief appearance in four days so he could work the ninth?
*Going 1/3 IP, 2 ER spiked Schultz's ERA to 6.06 on the year. Going 5 1/3 IP, 6 ER put Sandlin at 6.93.
*Just before the bottom of the ninth, the White Sox announced that "due to unexpected travel issues" the postgame Ja Rule concert was canceled. All fans with tickets to Friday's game are getting complimentary tickets to another game, and all field passes will be refunded.
*The Sox signed outfielder Joey Wiemer to a minor league deal during the game. He will report to Triple-A Charlotte.
*Braden Montgomery went 2-for-3 with a homer and a walk, which is nice. Colson Montgomery wore the collar and the silver sombrero.
