Steve Stone Rips The White Sox For Poor Baserunning
The White Sox baserunning has been aggressively bad this season. Rallies throughout the season have been smothered by the White Sox running themselves out of innings.
This hasn’t been just a couple of players either. It’s an epidemic that has spread across the team.
Joe McEwing is waving guys home only to get thrown out at home at an alarming rate. Tim Anderson has gotten picked off at first base. Leury Garcia got picked off by the catcher at third base.
Danny Mendick ran into a double play by getting thrown out at second base on a sac fly to left field that cost the White Sox the tying run in Toronto.
Luis Robert made the last out of the game at third base in extra innings against the Texas Rangers when he tried to tag up from the second base on a ball hit to left field. The result was an embarrassing game-ending double play.
The most egregious gaffe of them all came on July 4th when the White Sox ran into the first ever 8-5 triple play in MLB history against the Minnesota Twins.
The White Sox said decided that tagging up is for chumps and ran themselves into a triple play pic.twitter.com/q7P6u6o2AA
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) July 5, 2022
AJ Pollock launched a deep fly ball to center field. Off the bat, the ball initially looked like it had a chance to clear the center-field fence, but Byron Buxton tracked it down. Yoan Moncada didn’t see this as he took off running with his head down.
Engel, who was watching the play, saw Moncada barreling towards second base, so he decided to make a break for third base. Once Buxton caught the ball, he relayed it to Gio Urshela at third base. Ursula’s job was easy after that. Moncada was rounding second when the throw came in. He slammed on the breaks but was tagged out by Urshela with ease, who then strolled over and stepped on second base. Engel, who was standing on third base, was called out at second for not tagging up.
This prevented the White Sox from taking the lead in a critical division game, and they went on to lose in extra innings. This is just a small sample size of a season filled with elementary mistakes on the basepaths.
Steve Stone Is Sick Of The White Sox Bad Baserunning
The White Sox baserunning has gotten so bad that even former Cy Young winner and color analyst, Steve Stone, has seen enough.
Stone has maintained a positive outlook on the White Sox season, which has rubbed some fans who are frustrated with how things have gone the wrong way. He ruffled many feathers on Twitter when he told fans to “enjoy the ride” despite the poor quality of play and disappointing record.
But during an interview on 670 The Score, he did not hold back about the White Sox sloppy baserunning.
“This is about as bad a baserunning team as I’ve ever seen,” Stone said. “They continue to take themselves out of situations that they could easily have added on.”
He continued by saying, “they make really stupid baserunning mistakes on a consistent basis. If it happened to just one guy, I’d say, ‘well, you know, maybe you can somehow play around that guy,’ but it happens to most guys.”
.@stevestone is sick and tired of seeing the White Sox's poor baserunning.
Full segment with @mullyhaugh: https://t.co/pPYdVNYNiA pic.twitter.com/KV3dr9oJj2
— 670 The Score (@670TheScore) July 28, 2022
Stone also brought up how the White Sox are constantly hurt and, at times, fail to run hard.
“One thing that’s really disturbing is we seem to have the sorest legs in baseball. I don’t know exactly what it is but every team we play, they seem to be able to take aggressive turns at first base.”
Another excellent point Stone raised is the question of why one of the oldest players on the team, Jose Abreu, seems to be the only one playing the game the right way while the rest of the team saunters to first base. He cited Abreu’s aggressive turn after a base hit against Colorado that allowed him to advance to second base when the outfielder bobbled the ball.
But not even Stone could provide an explanation for how a team could be so bad at baserunning despite having a Hall of Fame manager. If the White Sox wants to advance in the postseason, this is something that needs to be addressed immediately.