The Chicago White Sox had the earliest hook of the day for their starting pitcher on Friday. It wasn’t by choice.
Manager Will Venable made a flub when he went out to visit starting pitcher Noah Schultz not once, but twice in the first inning. MLB rules require a pitcher to be removed from a game if a manager visits him twice in the same inning.
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Guardians manager Stephen Vogt immediately flagged the mistake when Venable walked onto the field, leading to a conference among the umpires. Crew chief Andy Fletcher then announced the ruling:
“Chicago has made a second visit to the mound. The pitcher must pitch to this batter and then the pitcher must be removed.”
That wasn’t the end of it, though, as Vogt further pressed the umpires about why Schultz was being allowed to face Rhys Hoskins before his removal. That led to Fletcher issuing a second statement to the crowd at Rate Field:
“Correction: The White Sox came out to two different hitters in the same inning, therefore the pitcher must be removed from the game now.”
Schultz had registered only one out against five batters up to that point, going single, strikeout, single, hit-by-pitch, single to give the Guardians a 2-0 lead. He had thrown 23 pitches and was replaced by rookie David Sandlin.
The umpires had to give White Sox manager Will Venable some unfortunate news in the first inning Friday.
(Michael Reaves via Getty Images)
Venable admitted he made a mistake during a subsequent interview on the White Sox broadcast, but noted the plan was always to have Schultz and Sandlin split the game:
“That was a mistake by me. Lost track of the first visit there. I went out to go execute an appeal and just missed that — kinda came into the day with thought that we were going to have Sandlin and Schultz split the outing. So Schultz had it a batter or two and we obviously had to move that up, that was a mistake by me.”
Whatever the intended strategy was, the rest of the game didn’t work out in Chicago’s favor. Sandlin allowed 7 hits, 6 runs and 2 walks in 5 1/3 innings of work in an 8-2 Guardians win.
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The loss cuts Chicago’s division lead down to two games, ahead of the Guardians and Minnesota Twins.
Venable is in his second season as an MLB manager, having led the White Sox to a 60-102 record last season. They have been one of the biggest surprises in baseball this season at 59-56, though no one is going to be pointing to what happened Friday as part of that success.
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