If you wanted to make an argument that White Sox manager Tony La Russa is doing his best to get fired, you wouldn’t need much more evidence than Thursday afternoon.
Locked in a slugfest rubber match with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Chicago skipper, for reasons passing understanding, decided to issue an intentional walk to Trea Turner on a 1-2 count with two outs in the sixth inning.
The only possible read on the situation was that La Russa would rather have a lefty-lefty matchup with pitcher Bennett Sousa against a slumping Max Muncy, but…..there are two strikes!
Sousa could put two consecutive balls in the dirt and hope Turner swings at one before even having to make a competitive pitch. It makes absolutely no sense and even the White Sox broadcast team had trouble processing this Galaxy Brain-ness of it all.
Jason Benetti is all of us. pic.twitter.com/xhH1KTwm6a
— Sox On 35th (@SoxOn35th) June 9, 2022
Anyways, you’ll never guess what happened next. Muncy came to the plate, saw four pitches and angrily launched the fifth into the left field bleachers to give the Dodgers a 10-5 lead.
Folks, you’ll see a lot of bad baseball in your days, but you’ll hardly ever see an at-bat mishandled as poorly as La Russa did on Thursday. And it makes complete sense why Muncy appeared to tee off not only on Sousa’s offering, but also the Sox manager after crossing the plate.
Tony La Russa opted to intentionally walk Trea Turner with a 1-2 count to get a lefty-lefty matchup against Max Muncy and you won't believe what happened nextpic.twitter.com/QqdhAzn2Yw
— Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) June 9, 2022
Warning NSFW language:
Max Muncy after hitting a 3-run HR immediately after Tony La Russa intentionally walked Trea Turner with two strikes:
"You fucking walk him with two strikes. Fuck you, bitch!" pic.twitter.com/ReGXadtZdu
— Blake Harris (@BlakeHarrisTBLA) June 9, 2022
Needless to say, baseball Twitter couldn’t believe what it just saw.
