White Sox' miscommunication leads to botched play at the plate
DETROIT — The bases were loaded in the third inning with Tigers shortstop Trey Sweeney up to bat with no outs.
Sweeney hit a softly hit ball toward first base with the infield in, and first baseman Andrew Vaughn attempted to throw home to get an out and prevent a run from scoring. Catcher Korey Lee said he was just trying to get an out, so he pointed toward first base. That miscommunication led to a run scoring and no out in the Sox' 7-2 loss to the Tigers.
Manager Will Venable said, "everyone's mindset is to play at home" in that scenario. He said Lee was thinking the right way but that it was too slow a groundball. Lee also came out of his positioning at home plate for the play.
"I think for that play, it was OK, you probably want him to hang tight," Venable said of Lee's positioning. "But I think he came out because he was trying to do everything he could to get Vaughn to take the out at first. Just a tough play we weren’t able to execute."
Lee, who also had three hits (two doubles) in the game, said he was trying to stack outs.
"I thought it was just a perfectly executed soft-hit baseball," Lee said. "My read on it was obviously different than [Vaughn]. My thought is getting an out in that situation. Nothing to be really too worried about."
'We've been aggressive in everything we've done'
Catcher Matt Thaiss' dash toward home plate in the Sox' 7-4 on Friday, is an example of the attacking mindset Venable wants for his team.
"It's dependent on, obviously the score," he said of determining when to send. "[It's] dependent on where you're at in the lineup, dependent on the flow of the game. There's a lot of different factors. As things have unfolded here, I think that we've been aggressive in everything that we've done. That's what we're going to have to do."
The series against the Tigers has shown the lack of pop in the Sox' lineup. Center fielder Luis Robert Jr., at his best, is a dynamic hitter, but he's prone to cold stretches like the one he's in the midst of — he's had one multi-hit game this season and struggled on Saturday, drawing one walk, no hits and striking out once.
Venable said he doesn't believe Robert is pressing. Robert is batting .143/.219/.179 with a .398 OPS. He's yet to find a rhythm at the plate.
"I think he's in a good spot," Venable said. "He continues to work hard. He's our guy there. He's in the middle of the order. We're expecting him to be him and get some hits here."
Shutdown relievers
Despite Martin's poor outing, the relievers held steady, allowing zero runs over three innings. Jordan Leasure had three strikeouts of the Tigers' Kerry Carpenter, Ryan Kreidler and Sweeney. Two strikeouts came because of the slider, and the final one on Carpenter came because of the fastball.
"A lot of swing and miss," Venable said. "All those guys coming out of the pen did a nice job." "[Leasure], especially, we saw the good life on the fastball at the top of the zone, and his slider was really good too."