Column: No shenanigans in Detroit, but another Chicago White Sox loss to the Tigers
· Yahoo Sports
DETROIT — Chicago White Sox manager Will Venable was quite sure there would be no shenanigans Saturday afternoon at Comerica Park, as there were during Friday’s night’s game against the Tigers.
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“Yeah, I wouldn’t even call them shenanigans,” Venable said, correcting the reporter.
So what’s the proper terminology for a Tarik Skubal meltdown in which the Tigers ace pointed at magic-wand man Mike Vasil and yelled at the White Sox dugout while leaving the mound and from the dugout?
“I would say it was baseball,” Venable said. “Guys being competitive and a guy that had something to say and that was about it. Not a lot there and certainly not going to be anything that I expect to be a problem today.”
As Venable predicted, there were no shenanigans Saturday in the Sox’s 4-1 loss to the Tigers on a gorgeous afternoon in Motown.
It was just baseball, or at least the modern-day version of it with the Sox opting for a bullpen day without a fifth starter available.
Sox left-hander Sean Newcomb pitched three scoreless innings in his first start, but the rest of the relievers couldn’t match his effort, and the offense was limited to four hits, including Sam Antonacci’s leadoff home run off Troy Melton, which turned out to be their only run.
The Tigers, in must-win mode, have won the first two games of the series, leaving the Sox 1-4 on the trip. They haven’t won a road series since May 1-3 in San Diego.
Players were visibly disconsolate afterward, the sign of a team that expects to win every day.
“The loss hurts,” Antonacci said. “I don’t think last year or the year before it was like that. It was just show up, and maybe win or lose and go home and go about your day.”
Antonacci, a rookie, wasn’t there, but he called it perfectly.
With the Sox contending for a postseason spot, every day is now important, and the losing hurts more.
But trying to win consistently without a fifth starter is like trying to navigate the Dan Ryan on an electric scooter. You can get by for a while, but there is always a chance for disaster.
Venable said before the game that he hoped rehabbing Noah Schultz or another minor-leaguer would be available the next time the Sox need a fifth starter, saying “it’s not in our plans” to go with a bullpen day often.
But does employing it Saturday point to a lack of starting depth in the system?
“I think I just talked about how that changes throughout the year and certainly we’ve been at spots during this year in which we’ve had multiple guys you feel confident coming up,” Venable replied. “Right now some of those guys are hurt or working their way back. It’s just at a time right now where we don’t have it on this day, but we look forward to the next time having some guys we can lean on.”
After Newcomb left in the fourth with a 1-0 lead, Venable leaned on Tyler Davis (three walks), Joe Rock (three runs on five hits and two walks in 2 2/3 innings) and Trevor Richards, who served up a solo home run to Dillon Dingler. Venable said they pushed Newcomb further than they were comfortable with and couldn’t go further.
Nwecome, one of their most valuable relievers along with Grant Taylor, said he’d be open to being used in the fifth starter spot.
“I’m open to opening, long open, long starter … whatever they want to call it,” he said. “I’m just hoping to pitch in a bunch of innings.”
It’s worth a shot, considering what’s available at Triple-A Charlotte.
The Tigers needed the win, and their fans are getting restless. Manager A.J. Hinch was booed loudly after sending in .138 hitting Jahmai Jones to pinch hit for Kerry Carpenter in the fourth after the lefty Rock replaced Davis with two outs and the bases loaded on three walks. And Hinch was jeered again after Jones struck out, bookending the booing and showing Tigers fans are perturbed over the team’s downfall.
But the Tigers tied it in the fifth and scored two more off Rock in the sixth before Dingler’s home run in the seventh made it 4-1. Venable said he didn’t want to use Taylor too early. “We want to make sure we’re using him in the right spots, and it just hasn’t come up in the last few days,” he said.
On the bright side, the Sox could get starting catcher Kyle Teel back during the series after his 5-for-5 day at Triple-A Charlotte on Friday, which would be a significant addition to the lineup with both catchers struggling offensively. Drew Romo, hitting .144, went 0-for-4 and flied out to end it with two men on in the ninth.
Venable wouldn’t give a hint about Teel’s return but said: “Part of him getting minor-league games under his belt is getting his timing at the plate. … It seems like he’s doing that.”
As for Friday’s histrionics, it was just “good clean fun,” according to Vasil, who said he didn’t know what irked Skubal but assumed it was an accusation of sign-stealing.
Vasil neither confirmed nor denied doing that, but it’s not against the rules to do so with your eyes, and the White Sox once employed a coach named Joe Nossek who had the reputation as the best sign-stealer in the game. It’s only illegal if you use video or do something like bang a garbage can, as Hinch knows well from his days in Houston.
Vasil also claimed he wasn’t sure why Skubal thought he was stealing signs.
“We started to get on base and, like I said, people get paranoid,” he said.
Skubal never explained himself, saying he was “an emotional guy.”
“I wear my emotions out there,” he said. “That’s how I play the game.”
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The Sox and Tigers had a sign-stealing saga at the end of the 2014 season when former Sox pitcher Chris Sale accused the Tigers of doing it one day in Detroit. The Sox had someone in the dugout use binoculars to spot a man in the bleachers they felt was relaying signs, but manager Robin Ventura never made an issue of it. Sale and Ventura engaged in a heated argument a few days later after Sale demanded Ventura call out the Tigers for the sign-stealing.
Venable never actually accused the Tigers of saying the Sox were stealing signs but offered it as a possible explanation for Skubal’s antics.
“Again, that’s us trying to figure out what they could have been upset about,” he said Saturday. “There was no indication that’s what it was. Usually when you see stuff like that, that’s the implication. But I don’t want to assume anything.”
The trip ends Sunday with Davis Martin pitching in the finale before an important three-game showdown against the Cleveland Guardians at Rate Field.