One of the side effects of the "Ricky's Boys Don't Quit" mantra is that it risks turning ordinary, explicable cases of "quitting" into flashpoints.
Tuesday night's game contained the latest such episode. Tim Anderson didn't run after smoking a liner to third that Rosell Herrera appeared to catch with two outs. Herrera wasn't credited with the out, and his throw to second was late. But the play still resulted in the end of the inning, because Anderson didn't leave the area of home plate.
Renteria was incensed as we've ever seen him, and his reaction was warranted.
At least until it wasn't.
A replay showed that Herrera did catch the ball. Had Anderson busted it down the line, it wouldn't have withstood replay anyway.
That doesn't mean that Anderson was correct to stay home. The challenge system isn't 100-percent correct, and once he saw everybody in motion, a half-powered effort down the first-base line might've kept the KC defense accountable enough to spare himself from Renteria's wrath, although Leury Garcia discovered that wasn't good enough on May 9.
Some parts of Renteria's postgame message were true enough.
“It didn’t look very good to have him standing at the plate and having the ball going around the diamond,” Renteria said. “It’s as simple as that, and he understands it. He knows it. We’ve talked about it. He comes out of the box, he doesn’t stand there. But we just reiterated to make sure that you allow the umpires to make the calls and you allow the other clubs to go ahead and ask for reviews. We run.”
But the longer it gets belabored in the case where Anderson had a legitimate reason for his natural reaction ...
“That’s not indicative of Timmy — it isn’t,” Renteria said of the play. “If we’re going to win and move forward as a championship organization, we need fighters. And Timmy’s a fighter. He had a lapse in that particular instance because he recognized something that he thought was clearly an out. But we know how we’re supposed to go about it and we’re going to continue to do it and it’s not going to change. As long as I’m here it’s not going to change. Sometimes you have to react a certain way. With all due to respect to Timmy and all my guys — I love all of my guys. Don’t get me wrong, I love every single one of those guys in there — but we’re going to continue to do it because it’s important for us to do it here, all the way through the system. Because anybody that comes to play for us, that’s the way we’re going to play.”
... the harder it becomes to consistently enforce.
Let's go back to just one game ago, the rubber match against the Blue Jays. With two outs in the first inning, Jose Abreu made zero effort to run to first when the pitch he swung over for strike three wasn't caught cleanly by Toronto catcher Luke Maile.
Abreu's reason for not running is understandable. By the time he realized it wasn't caught, taking off for first wouldn't have made a difference. But unlike Anderson, Abreu remained alive by any angle, and a challenge wouldn't have overturned the call.
I probably wouldn't have noticed this play -- or at least I wouldn't have stored it in my memory for 72 hours -- if these occurrences hadn't been overlooked by managers and announcers who bring the hammer down on other instances.
In all these cases, the immediate reactions to the plays are understandable. Anderson's lineout as it unfolded sparked confusion and anger, and since it was the third out of the inning, Renteria's decision to bench had to be made immediately. At first glance, it looked just like Welington Castillo not leaving home plate after a pop-up that was caught in play with runners on base, and that was an easy, justifiable lapse to punish.
But after all the information became available, it would've been more reasonable for Renteria to meet Anderson halfway and share some of the blame ("Maybe I wouldn't have benched him if I saw the replay, but we also need him moving toward first when he sees a live ball. We both learned something.").
For his part, Anderson took it in stride ...
“I never thought I should have (run) because if I did I would have run,’’ Anderson said. “I saw him throw to second and I saw it go to first. I thought (Herrera) caught it. I didn’t see the umpire signal safe but I learn from it, keep on going.’’
... probably because he's a positive, coachable guy. If he weren't, he wouldn't have the cachet to mutiny anyway based on his body of work. Reputation and track record is why nobody said anything about Abreu not running, but Anderson isn't on Abreu's level.
It still seems like it would've been smart for Renteria to allow himself some wiggle room, in the event that his caseload of benchings start to look impulsive and arbitrary, and players start to call him on it. Perhaps if the rebuild goes the way the White Sox intend, so many players will have incredible track records that these lapses will be more easily overlooked. As Renteria said, nobody should assume anything, and that includes the manager.
