Tony La Russa Aug 3, 2022; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago White Sox manager Tony La Russa (22) reacts during the first inning of a game against the Kansas City Royals at Guaranteed Rate Field. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports
By Michael Dixon on

When Chicago White Sox manager Tony La Russa decided to intentionally walk a hitter in a 1-2 count in June, he not only backed his decision up but didn’t seem to understand how anyone would question the move. La Russa made the same decision in Friday’s game against the Cleveland Guardians. As, as was the case earlier in the year, was seemingly baffled that anyone could question his decision.

Cleveland’s Oscar Gonzalez came to the plate in the seventh inning of Friday’s game. During his at-bat, Josh Naylor and Andrés Giménez executed a double-steal, putting runners on second and third. That opened up first base. And, despite the fact that the count was 1-2 on Gonzalez, La Russa opted to put him on with an intentional walk. The decision actually worked out OK. The next hitter flew out to end the inning.

Still, when the game was over, La Russa was asked about the move. He backed his decision up and added that people getting upset about intentional walks in 1-2 counts is “the most ridiculous thing in this season.”

To his credit, La Russa didn’t pound his fist on a desk and say “It worked. End of story.” That said, this explanation was not much better.

There’s a rule in baseball that if a hitter gets three strikes against him, he’s out. Naturally, if he already has two strikes, a pitcher stands a much better chance of getting him out.

La Russa should know this rule, given his many years in the game. But even if he somehow forgot, Take Me Out to the Ball Game has the line “For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out” right there in the lyrics. And since this intentional walk happened in the bottom of the seventh inning, that song would have just been played during the seventh inning stretch. Perhaps he was dozing off between innings and missed the classic song.

His explanation didn’t exactly go over well.

Another point must be made here. La Russa is correct about Gonzalez as a hitter. After Friday’s game, Gonzalez has a .301/.325/.452 slash line. That’s a relatively low on-base percentage given the high batting average. That indicates that he’s probably a free swinger and more vulnerable to a strikeout. Still, those are good numbers. A hitter with a .301 average and .452 slugging percentage is dangerous.

But if that was the case, why didn’t La Russa elect to walk him at the beginning of the at-bat? Sure, the double steal opened up first base and normally, you don’t think of third base as a classic “open base.” But that’s largely because if there are less than two outs, a runner can score from third without the benefit of a hit or walk. There were already two outs here. If Gonzalez is such a dangerous hitter, he should have been walked from the beginning.

Sure, walking Gonzalez to load the bases would mean that another walk would score a run. But La Russa clearly wasn’t afraid of that scenario, since he opted to load the bases after the double steal.

His answer really just creates more questions. And while this decision worked out relatively well, Chicago still lost the game and has been one of the most disappointing teams all season. Perhaps La Russa should check his incredulous attitude whenever a questionable decision is brought up.

[James Fegan on Twitter]

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