Nitengale: La Russa "definitely" returning to the Sox

[35thstreetswarm]

Just now, ChiSox59 said:

Have you seen Lance Lynn's #s in Houston?

Gio couldn't make it thru 5 because he was toast and TLR left him in 2 batters too long. 

I think that's sort of his point.  Lynn was thrown out there opposite McCullers, who killed us, because of the possibility he'd be lit up.  Nobody liked it, but there was at least a chance Lynn would shove and the alternatives--start Cease, who gets rocked worse than Lynn by Houston, or an injured Rodon--were worse.  I don't think there was any other way to stack it up at the time.

I think TLR was largely to blame for the game 2 loss, btw.

[Balta1701]

15 minutes ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

Wait "another bottom"?  What was the previous "bottom"?  In the last 12 months we went to the playoffs twice, and we just won the division with the heart of our lineup out half the season.  I mean, losing in the playoffs is disappointing but let's not pretend the last 12 months have been like a series of catastrophes.

The part where our new manager concealed his DUI from the public during his hiring press conference, the part where he had the rules explained to him by the press after shouting down his assistant coaches who tried to explain it to them, or the part where he told another team to throw a high speed projectile at his own player?

[South Side Fireworks Man]

37 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

I bet if you asked at the same point last year, Rick Renteria would have been in the same boat.

I'll bet you're right.

[ChiSox59]

1 minute ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

I think that's sort of his point.  Lynn was thrown out there opposite McCullers, who killed us, because of the possibility he'd be lit up.  Nobody liked it, but there was at least a chance Lynn would shove and the alternatives--start Cease, who gets rocked worse than Lynn by Houston, or an injured Rodon--were worse.  I don't think there was any other way to stack it up at the time.

I think TLR was largely to blame for the game 2 loss, btw.

So basically TLR punted game 1 and that supposed to be a notch in the positive column for him? Giolito should have started game #1.  75% of this board felt the same way.  Giolito also could have started game 4 if he started game 1.  McCullers is really good and certainly a tough match up for the Sox, but lets not act like he's suddenly prime Pedro Martinez.  Gio wasn't great by any means in game 2 and he deserves critiism for that.  But he should have been yanked after the lead-off walk in the 5th and things potentially look a lot different.  If Kopech (or Bummer) comes in in that spot, the whole complexion of the series could have looked different.  

[35thstreetswarm]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

The part where our new manager concealed his DUI from the public during his hiring press conference, the part where he had the rules explained to him by the press after shouting down his assistant coaches who tried to explain it to them, or the part where he told another team to throw a high speed projectile at his own player?

Fair enough, if you're talking specifically about a "bottom" in terms of TLR behavior, which I'll never defend.  When I think of "hitting bottom" in a season I imagine a scenario where things actually go poorly for the team, though.  When your win total starts with a 9 and you're selling division championship swag I think you're a long way from the bottom.

[wegner]

I believe he was brought in to put this team in a position to win in the playoffs so he is a failure.  Sorry if that seems harsh but that is what the front office sold us.

[35thstreetswarm]

3 minutes ago, ChiSox59 said:

So basically TLR punted game 1 and that supposed to be a notch in the positive column for him? Giolito should have started game #1.  75% of this board felt the same way.  Giolito also could have started game 4 if he started game 1.  McCullers is really good and certainly a tough match up for the Sox, but lets not act like he's suddenly prime Pedro Martinez.  Gio wasn't great by any means in game 2 and he deserves critiism for that.  But he should have been yanked after the lead-off walk in the 5th and things potentially look a lot different.  If Kopech (or Bummer) comes in in that spot, the whole complexion of the series could have looked different.  

That's not how I remember the collective opinion of the board at the time at all.  Anyway, we had exactly one pitcher we had faith could shut Houston down.  If the strategy was to win one in Houston it made sense to start him opposite a lefty we thought we could hit, rather than a guy who was White Sox kryptonite.  And sure enough, McCullers completely shut us down.  Giolito would not have changed the outcome.

And I wholeheartedly agree with your arguments about how TLR mismanaged the second half game 2 -- but those are arguments in favor of starting Giolito in game 2, not against.  Game 2 was completely winnable because Gio started it, and we got to Framber as expected.  If it was Lynn in there we'd have had no chance.

[ShoeLessRob]

1 hour ago, turnin' two said:

Nothing like hoping for a drunk driving accident.  That's what you're doing here right?

Negative, don’t believe either of his DUIs anyone was hurt. 

[Dominikk85]

I don't think TLR managed the series perfectly at all but in the end they would not have had a chance anyway the way the key bullpen pitchers performed. 

Maybe he should have pulled some starters a little earlier and used a different reliever here and there but with kopech, hendricks and kimbrel all pitching badly there just wasn't enough bullpen quality to get through the games with starters being gone after 4-5.

The Sox would have needed either their starters going 6+ or kopech, Hendricks and and kimbrel all performing at a peak level and probably in multi inning roles. 

Sox starters went:

3.2, 4.1, 1.2, 2.2 innings, they Sox didn't have enough quality relievers to get through that many relief innings. 

If anything maybe he should have pushed the starters a little more but they were getting hit pretty hard and with the Sox not doing much with RISP apart from the game they won that probably wouldn't have worked out anyway. 

Starters not getting deep, hitters stranding a lot of runners and the back end pen arms not performing was probably too much to overcome. 

[35thstreetswarm]

6 minutes ago, wegner said:

I believe he was brought in to put this team in a position to win in the playoffs so he is a failure.  Sorry if that seems harsh but that is what the front office sold us.

Yeah, we certainly didn't see evidence of any special wily Hall of Famer playoff devil magic, that's for sure.  The hope was that the Sox were lying in wait the second half of the season and we would see a whole new team come playoff time courtesy of TLR's motivational mastery, and that we'd see the "real" bullpen management when the games counted.  Instead the team looked listless, plus we got the familiar questionable bullpen management that drove us nuts in the regular season.

[Snopek]

32 minutes ago, KrankinSox said:

Club respected him and played loose. One of the things I respected about Tony was his matter-of-fact nature and honesty. Never was too high or low emotionally, which is needed during the marathon that is baseball. We just lost, mostly because our starting pitching completely shit the bed. Tony doesn't have a magic wand unfortunately.

What, in your opinion, could Tony have done differently that would have made us beat the Astros? I have some gripes about Game 2 but even with perfect managing we still probably lose that game. Games 1 and 4 were ass whoopings. Game 3 he managed the pen perfectly.

EDIT: I would also like to add that I think many Tony "supporters" like myself, don't necessarily think Tony is some amazing gift from God manager. We just think the negativity of him is so out of control that we just tend to defend him because he's not as bad as he's made out to be.  He was obviously a great manager in his time, which may be past him, but it's not like he's so mentally out of it that he can't competently manage a baseball team. We literally have a President of the US who is older than him and I think that job is a little tougher than managing baseball.

I don't even necessarily disagree with the stuff in bold, but it comes of a little as "players do bad = bad job players, players do good = good job manager."

It's easy to say in hindsight that he managed the pen perfectly in game 3 when the pitching was lights out.

[ShoeLessRob]

First we had Uncle Ricky, now Grandpa Tony. How about we get a manager who lights a fire under these players and holds them accountable for lackadaisical effort and piss poor fundamentals? 

[SkokieSox]

I’m glad he’s coming back ???

[KrankinSox]

8 minutes ago, Snopek said:

I don't even necessarily disagree with the stuff in bold, but it comes of a little as "players do bad = bad job players, players do good = good job manager."

It's easy to say in hindsight that he managed the pen perfectly in game 3 when the pitching was lights out.

Don't necessarily disagree but it seems managers only get criticized for bad pen decisions but never credited with pen management in a win. The bullpen pitched amazing and Tony pressed the right buttons in that particular game.

[Balta1701]

5 minutes ago, Dominikk85 said:

I don't think TLR managed the series perfectly at all but in the end they would not have had a chance anyway the way the key bullpen pitchers performed. 

Maybe he should have pulled some starters a little earlier and used a different reliever here and there but with kopech, hendricks and kimbrel all pitching badly there just wasn't enough bullpen quality to get through the games with starters being gone after 4-5.

The Sox would have needed either their starters going 6+ or kopech, Hendricks and and kimbrel all performing at a peak level and probably in multi inning roles. 

Sox starters went:

3.2, 4.1, 1.2, 2.2 innings, they Sox didn't have enough quality relievers to get through that many relief innings. 

If anything maybe he should have pushed the starters a little more but they were getting hit pretty hard and with the Sox not doing much with RISP apart from the game they won that probably wouldn't have worked out anyway. 

Starters not getting deep, hitters stranding a lot of runners and the back end pen arms not performing was probably too much to overcome. 

1. Garret Crochet pitched on back to back days for a completely unknown reason. He gave up 2 runs (from the inherited runners) in that second game. He pitched in back to back games 3 times all season counting that game - always gave up a run in the second game. How you expected anything else from him I have no idea.

2. Michael Kopech didn't pitch at all in games 1 or 2. He pitched in game 3 and at least slowed down an offense that was on fire. He threw 50+ pitches, leading the manager to say he would not pitch in game 4. He then pitched in game 4 and got hit. I agree with LaRussa, LaRussa was wrong to pitch him in game 4.

3. Aaron Bummer struck out 7 guys in 3.1 innings. 9 guys made contact with him, 6 of them were on the ground. He somehow gave up 5 hits out of that, meaning that a number of ground balls that should have been outs got through the infield. Bummer did a solid job.

4. Tepera was fine. Shoulda used him more.

5. Hendriks gave up a late home run to Altuve. Everyone else had already quit at that point, so I'm not sure how much to hang him for that.

6. I will give you the ability to partially blame 1 bullpen pitcher - Craig Kimbrel in game 2. For bizarre reasons, LaRussa took Engel out, moved Leury to RF, and Leury missed a ball that Engel would have gotten if he were still in, so it's not entirely his fault. That was then followed by a home run, breaking the game open, which wouldn't have occurred had Engel gotten the out. However, Craig Kimbrel should be held to a higher standard than that. He's supposed to strike guys out. He's supposed to be able to pitch over a defensive mistake. That's why they paid for him. That's what he was doing through July. I won't give him a free pass since he was asked to be Craig Kimbrel and he was unable to do that, even if LaRussa's lunacy didn't help.

[chitownsportsfan]

26 minutes ago, wegner said:

I believe he was brought in to put this team in a position to win in the playoffs so he is a failure.  Sorry if that seems harsh but that is what the front office sold us.

that's where I'm at. At the same time what other options are out there? He seems to have built some trust with the players I don't know if there is a better move available. A lateral move does nothing.

[pettie4sox]

11 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

that's where I'm at. At the same time what other options are out there? He seems to have built some trust with the players I don't know if there is a better move available. A lateral move does nothing.

Need a manager that relies on analytics.  How many of those bullshit dribbler grounders in houston would have been scooped up if we knew what were pitching and how the hitter would hit it.  Brantley got two hits off Bummer up the middle and there was no defender in sight.

[SoxAce]

Glad to see our poor positioning defensively and our league worse in shifts will continue with a dinosaur running things and refusing to adapt.

[Tony]

1 hour ago, KrankinSox said:

Club respected him and played loose. One of the things I respected about Tony was his matter-of-fact nature and honesty. Never was too high or low emotionally, which is needed during the marathon that is baseball. We just lost, mostly because our starting pitching completely shit the bed. Tony doesn't have a magic wand unfortunately.

What, in your opinion, could Tony have done differently that would have made us beat the Astros? I have some gripes about Game 2 but even with perfect managing we still probably lose that game. Games 1 and 4 were ass whoopings. Game 3 he managed the pen perfectly.

EDIT: I would also like to add that I think many Tony "supporters" like myself, don't necessarily think Tony is some amazing gift from God manager. We just think the negativity of him is so out of control that we just tend to defend him because he's not as bad as he's made out to be.  He was obviously a great manager in his time, which may be past him, but it's not like he's so mentally out of it that he can't competently manage a baseball team. We literally have a President of the US who is older than him and I think that job is a little tougher than managing baseball.

My question would be 1. How was that any different than what Ricky did and 2. If Ricky was managing the 2021 club, how do you envision the results would have been different? 

I'm not a Renteria fan either, I think the choice to move on was the right one. But given the talent on this team, I expected a better outcome than 2020. Ricky and Tony won the same amount of playoff games and both suffered a first round exit. I'm not blaming that on Ricky, or Tony......but I'm wondering how big of an "upgrade" Tony was from the last guy?

[ThirdGen]

1 hour ago, Tony said:

For any of the LaRussa fans, now that the season is over...What did Tony do to make this team better than 2020? What did he do better than Ricky? What did he do to put the team in a better chance to win than the manager across the dugout? 

Very curious to hear. 

If you can honestly say that if last March:

1.  You knew that Robert, Jimenez, Madrigal and Engel would miss a large chunk of the season.

2.  The bullpen pitchers would underperform.

3.  Grandal would only be able to catch 80 games.

and you would have predicted the Sox would win 93 games and the ALC division, you can complain about TLR.

Otherwise recognize that he managed this team through a lot of issues that in past years would have sunk this team to a losing record.

[Tony]

17 minutes ago, pettie4sox said:

Need a manager that relies on analytics.  How many of those bullshit dribbler grounders in houston would have been scooped up if we knew what were pitching and how the hitter would hit it.  Brantley got two hits off Bummer up the middle and there was no defender in sight.

 

6 minutes ago, SoxAce said:

Glad to see our poor positioning defensively and our league worse in shifts will continue with a dinosaur running things and refusing to adapt.

To me this is a question I would love to hear Hahn answer. I believe the Sox FO is adapting to the times and seems to be making a commitment to data and "new school" baseball. 

Their manager doesn't seem to have any interest in employing that on the field, and it cost the Sox runs in the postseason, no question about it. 

[Southwest Sider]

Well I'm not a huge TLR fan at all but if TA7 and Pito want him back, so be it. I trust their judgment. 

[Paulie4Pres]

The White Sox are going to blow this entire window, arent they?

[caulfield12]

19 minutes ago, ThirdGen said:

If you can honestly say that if last March:

1.  You knew that Robert, Jimenez, Madrigal and Engel would miss a large chunk of the season.

2.  The bullpen pitchers would underperform.

3.  Grandal would only be able to catch 80 games.

and you would have predicted the Sox would win 93 games and the ALC division, you can complain about TLR.

Otherwise recognize that he managed this team through a lot of issues that in past years would have sunk this team to a losing record.

How much money would we have to pay St. Louis to take him?  $7.5-10 million?  It would be worth it…and generate more positives for the franchise than the 2022 equivalent of Adam Eaton in RF.   Heck, I’d ALMOST rather have Ozuna.  Almost. But it’s a close call.

[chetkincaid]

19 minutes ago, South Sider said:

Well I'm not a huge TLR fan at all but if TA7 and Pito want him back, so be it. I trust their judgment. 

They’re not going to say they don’t want him back - even if they didn’t.