(670 The Score) White Sox right-hander Dylan Cease was cruising through four scoreless innings against the Dodgers on Thursday afternoon at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Then he ran into a little trouble in the fifth inning, got absolutely zero help from a porous defense and saw it all unravel. The Dodgers erased a 4-0 deficit with six runs in the top of the fifth inning. As Los Angeles rallied, the Dodgers television crew expressed astonishment that White Sox manager Tony La Russa left Cease in so long and didn’t get the bullpen going earlier.
The White Sox bullpen didn’t get going until the Dodgers had trimmed the lead to 4-3 and Max Muncy got to the plate with a pair of runners on. Muncy then hit a two-run double to give the Dodgers a 5-4 lead.
“I just can’t believe Cease is still out there,” analyst Eric Karros said on the broadcast alongside play-by-play man Joe Davis. “This is one of your young stars, he’s thrown over 100 pitches in his last couple of starts. This has been a high-pressure inning. He’s over 40 pitches … No one was even warming until Muncy came up.”
To be fair to La Russa, Cease should’ve been out of the inning much earlier, but third baseman Jake Burger booted a potential double-play ball. Burger later had a mental gaffe, playing back on a chopper by the speedy Trea Turner, who beat it out for a run-scoring infield single.
Thursday wasn’t the first time Davis and Karros had questioned La Russa’s decisions. They were also puzzled by his lineup in the Dodgers’ 4-1 win against the White Sox on Wednesday evening.
Cease ended up going 4 2/3 innings, allowing six runs, zero earned, on six hits, three walks and eight strikeouts. He threw 110 pitches.
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