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I'm torn on Mercedes hitting that HR in that situation. Part of me is fine with it. The other part of me wishes he would have hit it farther.

We are genuinely at risk of this clown fucking up a beautiful thing, and that makes Willie really sad.

I fuckin hate this guy

If the issue is some nebulous nonsense about "respect for the game," or respect for the opponent, then where is the respect in putting a position player on the mound to throw a 47 MPH "pitch"? One could argue that such an act is disrespecting the Sox and Mercedes. After all, it could just as easily be considered insulting to the batter; "Here is what we think of your ability to hit". Do fans really pay to see a non pitcher throwing a ball slower than a 16 inch softball player? If teams are going to save their bullpens with such nonsense, then don't ask a hitter to embarrass himself, by failing to produce against such a pathetic pitch. Who would be disrespected and embarrassed more; the hitter who can't hit a 47 mph lob toss, or the position player, who gives up a home run? If it were me, I'd rather be the guy who someone hit a homer off of my ridiculous lob toss, than the hitter who struck out on such a pathetic pitch.

Since about 2001, the Minnesota Twins franchise has had no problem piling on the Sox at every opportunity. They also were more than happy to manipulate the airflow to their own benefit in that oversized indoor mall they used to occupy. On top of that, there's nary a Sox-Twins series I will watch without thinking of Torii Hunter intentionally plowing over Jamie Burke and causing hearing damage on a play that anyone could see was totally unnecessary to score a run. With all due respect, their announcers can go fuck themselves.

Should he really be swinging on 3-2? What about sportsmanship?

Gtf outta here, Tony

I've GOTTA change my username, this is getting bad.

Setting a good example for my board children. Tonights Lineup:

Tony LaRussa just backed the bus over his own player publicly, and got mocked for it by his own players publicly. Are his players irrational haters too?

Tony LaRussa doesn't know all the rules of the game but knows all the unwritten ones?

The funniest part is that Tony is never to be seen when his team gets screwed with bad calls, but once the holy unwritten rules of baseball are broken he is right there on the top step. Can‘t make this shit up. This man is a clown and I hope the TLR era is over soon.

That unwritten rules shit

Ok I thought I more or less understood the game in my 3 and a bit seasons watching , couldn't understand the fuss about Tim tossing bat against the Royals year a two back and I sure as hell don't understand the fuss about that weird slow ball , you gonna throw it slow I'm gonna knock it to Mars , what's the problem ?

FUCK TLR

I wasn’t happy with the hire, and he continues to find ways to keep disappointing. This team is full of exciting young players and he shows he doesn’t belong with these comments.

This, to me, is one of the keys. The entire point of the eephus pitch is to fool and embarrass the batter but inducing a big whiff, I don't give a shit if he's a position player or it's a 3-0 count, turn about is fair play.

TLR is writing his apology to Baldelli for Tim's actions in the dugout, as we speak.

This this this this

When Hall of Fame person, attorney Tony La Russa cares about the written laws concerning drunk driving, then maybe he can talk about unwritten rules that make baseball less fun.

The Sox don't have the best record in the AL because of TLR. They'd likely have 27-29 wins with someone else running the show. He's cost them multiple games. He's just so out of place on this team. They need a young, spunky manager that supports the swagger and the way they play. Not this old crochety bag.

I'd rather Cease bat #2 than Lamb tbh

But that is BS. In the bottom of the ninth, the Twins hitters were trying to get hits. Or were they just being disrespectful? There are unwritten rules that make sense, but any unwritten rule that basically tells you not to try is BS. People are paying a lot of money to watch you play. And how does his swinging at the pitch make the game longer? If he took it for a strike, or walked, the amount of pitches will be at least equal but most likely greater.

I’m sorry but this is just beyond insane. You aren’t wrong in the sense that was the belief by the baby boomers, but it was wrong then and it’s wrong now. These are PAID, PROFESSIONAL athletes. This is how they make a living. Yermin is a perfect example here. Let’s say at the end of this year, he ends the season with 29 HR’s. The next two seasons he finishes with 30 HR’s each season. You know as well as I do when he’s up for arbitration, his agent being able to go to the table saying “Yermin hit 30 HR’s in his first three seasons” is going to earn his client more money than 29-30-30. As stupid as that sounds, it’s true. So Yermin is supposed to cost himself 500k because he is “supposed to place nice” and “respect the game” because that’s what they did in the 70’s? Absolutely insane

They'll look for a "catalyst" to jump-start them, so they can point to it and be like "when we stood up to those big mean bullies playing baseball when we were trying to just lose like clowns, we really were able to get back to 8 games back".

5/18 Team MLB ranks update: Batting: 2nd in AVG .264 1st in R/G 5.4 T-23rd in HR 39 5th in BB 160 14th in (fewest) K 350 1st in OBP .349 5th in SLG .417 2nd in OPS .767 1st in WRC+ 119 1st in fWAR 9.8 Pitching: 5th in starter ERA 3.03 (1st in AL) 11th in reliever ERA 3.74 (5th in AL) 5th in team ERA 3.29 (1st in AL) 5th in fewest HR allowed 6th in K/BB 3.16 9th in WHIP 1.19 2nd in ERA- 81 3rd in WAR 6.6 All this while Jimenez, Robert, Anderson, Abreu and Engel have all missed varying amounts of time due to injury. Lynn and Rodon have each missed a start.

I regret making the Soxtalk awards post.

What a bunch of BS. Fuck them. Here's a guy who is a catcher who can clearly throw the ball more than 47 mph. He's clearly trying to embarrass the hitter by making them look like a chump swinging at a pitch a little leaguer could throw. That is disrespectful. I wish they'd all hit home runs.

Because this is a problem we have to track now: Tim Anderson and Yermin Mercedes pretty much tell TLR off on IG, saying the unwritten rules don't matter (commenting on NBC Sports Chicago's post) Lynn says that when a position player is on the mound, there are no rules. Evan Marshall's aggressively liking tweets calling out TLR's comments (since deleted). On top of: Caught drunk driving before the season Losing multiple games due to him just not being on top of things (Foster, Giolito, etc.) Not knowing a rule that the Reds' manager made clear was known to other teams The whole "playing time" schtick with Vaughn

Lynn is supposed to be a TLR guy. He's officially lost the clubhouse.

For the 100000th time you can enjoy the players and team- in fact, I enjoy them so much it makes me hate larussa that much more for trying to take the joy out of how they play and for literally attacking his own guys and never defending them.

And that’s how your manager single-handily risks destroying all momentum. Publicly shame one of your hottest players and then follow it up with poor in-game decision-making that helps cost you a game that would have further buried a key divisional rival. Oh well, at least Jerry can feel better about his great regrets at least.

Silence of the Lamb’s haters.

I thought one of the biggest "unwritten" rules of baseball was not to criticize your own players to the media. Not long ago, he was bending over backwards to downplay the struggles of his white pitcher. Now he calls out his Dominican DH. Yes, I said it.

Carl Everett now admits dinosaurs do in fact exist, and he does not like them one bit.

Keep it house you god damn tool

Tony LaRussa certainly knows about not making the same mistake twice and respecting others, huh?

Lost in all of this is Yermin getting tee'd off when he pitched in the blowout game in Boston and no one saying a god damn thing about it when it happened.

When everyone told me that Tony would have the players backs, little did it I know it would be the other team's players.

I would think LaRussa would be ok with a "hold my beer" moment

So is taking a walk more respectful? So that the next guy can hit a 2 run bomb. These "unwritten rules" really mean "Im mad that im losing so don't give me a reason to throw a fit"

Caulfield trying to fit in with the younger crowd

Ive been generally optimistic about the rebuild the past few years but man I wasn’t best team in baseball missing your two surest players optimistic