South Side Hit Men

Tigers have a celebrity in the house. Seems like a cool dude.

Grab Some Bench!!!

Everytime Pollock bats, and angel loses their wings.

Lucas dug in there, nice to get out of it. Still one run after four, still zero for the White Sox.

Detroit's outfield shutting down Sox bats, vs. Hahn's epic failure in outfield and roster construction. At least the Twins are no hitting Cleveland, though the bullpen is usually the bad part.

Lynn had a similar start yesterday as well (high pitch count, 1 run allowed first two innings). It helped the Sox staked him to a 3 run lead before the bottom of the 2nd. Hopefully Lucas settles in as well, has had a much smaller margin of error with limited Sox offense behind his past two starts (0 vs. Oakland until his exit, 1 vs. Minnesota).

Shut Luis Down!!!

At first glance, Lucas has pitched just OK / mediocre against Detroit this season (1-1, 4.58) but looking further has held them to .588 OPS over 69 PAs (.200 BA, .275 OBP. .313 Slugging). Lucas struck out 21 of the 69 Tigers he faced. Mainly needs to throw strikes and he should be OK to solid.

TLR / DNR: Poor TWTW and injury management throughout the year, a big house cleaning needs to occur and a brand new organization from top to bottom led by the best external candidates possible. They needed to do this after 2012. They needed to do this after 2016. They need to do this after 2022. I doubt it happens until Jerry is gone. 1. Ganas / TWTW: It's hard for us to know on the outside who wasn't necessarily giving their all. We all have people we may suspect, like the sportswriter who circled eight players on his scorecard 103 years ago. From my perspective, it was just a poor, improperly managed work environment. Players got frustrated seeing the same mistakes (positioning, throws not to cut-offs, poor pitcher game plans, poor batting approaches, poor baserunning and poor baserunning coaching (Super Joe) that led to debacles like the triple play and being among the worst teams at baserunning (Outs at home, outs on the bases, extra bases taken %), worst in defense and defensive positioning and among the worst in offense playing Tony's small ball preferred approach. 2. Injuries / Injury Diagnosis & Management: Also hard for us to know, and perhaps some players are in the same boat, in terms of assessing who is hurt, who is trying to play through injury, who shouldn't be playing but is because of incorrect diagnosis, who was rushed back hurt who needed more time rehabbing, who was rushed back without a proper rehab assignment. Like #1, we have our suspicions, some players like Robert we have a somewhat broad consensus, others we just don't know. Some players may appear to be "loafing" but are really going above and beyond what they should be doing based on their injured status. 3. Housecleaning: I think Tony, Hahn, Steve Stone and several to a dozen plus players should all be gone after the season. Would love to see Hawk Harrelson be hired by Jerry as White Sox Czar before Game 162, fire the first three pregame and then announce the game and give fans a true account of his frustrations with 2022 and his hopes before 2023. Hawk would then return to retired status, a solid outside baseball executive would conduct a search to find the next VP of Baseball Operations. The new VP hires an general manager (outside of the organization), and they begin to hire a manger and then staff. Cairo and or Katz should be considered in their current roles, but the VP and GM have final say. The new VP also needs to entirely rebuild the organization. Create a legitimate analytics department, New scouting and talent assessment beyond Marco Paddy, minor league instructors and managers. No more crony hires. no coaches hired based on their calligraphy skills, etc.. It will take years to remake the organization. Is any of this likely in a Jerry Reinsdorf organization? No. Is this what Sox fans should hope for after he passes and a new ownership group is named? Yes.

I can't speak for Cubs fandom and his Cardinal affiliation, but I can emphatically state a large number of fans disliked Tony La Russa in 1985 and 1986, and were happy after Hawk Harrelson fired Tony. Our entire section down the LF line booed him any time he left the dugout during the second half of 1985, and we gave up our weekend ticket plan because he returned in 1986. David Wells (thought he was drunk puking on the mound from our seats in the upper deck vs. the Cubs when he exited in the first inning), is the only other uniformed White Sox personnel I've ever booed going to games from 1976 to Spring Training 2020. I have sided with Dusty Baker over Tony La Russa throughout their feuds, including last season with Tony's accusations and whining after Game 4 (and Tepera's nonsense after Game 3).

You think Manfred would step in to prevent Jerry from cycling through interim managers for the next 12 + seasons until Tony passes Connie Mack? They can just wheel in Tony or his frozen body to the dugout for the 3,731st and 3,732nd win, after which Tony can officially retire. There are no written rules preventing this scenario, and Tony is the only person who knows whether there are unwritten rules against this scheme.

The same could be said for Tony, if you can't motivate your team, or make rational strategic and lineup decisions, you need to retire and let someone else do the job. Tony started a business, the Animal Shelter, and it's a mess because Tony is failing at managing it as well.

Yermin Mercedes enters the chat. Tony approved of this bean ball attempt. Tim Anderson's like "Child Please". This is the game Tony La Russa lost the clubhouse, and it never recovered until Miguel Cairo took over the ballclub.

Would prefer sending Tony to Cairo, either Bumfuck Egypt (Illinois) or Egypt in Africa. I have hurt feelings? And Front Office beyond 2022.

Cleveland is in a better position to know whether McKenzie needed additional rest, and they are definitely better than the Sox in evaluating players rest and injuries. Just taking this as Cleveland not wanting to drop this guy from the 40 man, or not having anyone else in the minors at this point who is better. They have promoted many players this season, so they may be at the bottom of the barrel. Their bullpen is running on fumes at this point, so a bullpen game wouldn't have been smart short or long term.

Clutch 3rd out by Lynn. Sox can’t get complacent here, need to keep scoring.

Wow, Will Benson?! Really?!

Cleveland is mocking the Sox starting this goober. Need to make them pay and stretch out their bullpen before the weekend. Put up 14 and rub it in their faces.

Incredible at bat by Sheets!

I think Jason would do a good job with “The World’s Strongest Man” competitions.