The team with baseball’s best record seems to have a bull’s-eye on its back lately.
Are the bruises on the bodies of White Sox players a sort of bounty? Or are five hit batters in the three games before Wednesday night’s game against Toronto just some strange coincidence?
“I don’t think people are throwing at
us on purpose,” said hitting coach Greg Walker. “At times they have, and I think we’ve responded. But I don’t think it’s an epidemic.”
Neither does catcher A.J. Pierzynski, who was smacked once Monday in Baltimore and once Tuesday against Toronto. He has been hit by pitches eight times this season and 15 times in each of the past two years.
“I’ve always been a guy who has been hit a lot, so it doesn’t bother me,” he said. “It’s one of those things that happens during the season.”
Maybe, but what happened in Baltimore–Tadahito Iguchi hit Sunday and Pierzynski on Monday–inflamed the Sox and manager Ozzie Guillen and led to the ejection of Mark Buehrle in the series finale.
“A lot of times it’s unintentional, but not in Baltimore,” Guillen said. “There’s no doubt in my mind we got hit [purposely]. Against Oakland too.”
Guillen says he doesn’t have major problems with any other teams–individual pitchers maybe–but the evidence is mounting that the Sox are being pitched “inside” even though they don’t have a team of showboats or gloaters.
They have been hit the second most times in the American League (51).
Meanwhile, the Sox pitching staff has hit only 36 opposing batters (including one Wednesday by Orlando Hernandez, who leads the team with eight hit batsmen.)
“If it gets out of control, I think Ozzie has done a real good job of recognizing it,” Walker said. “I grew up in Tony La Russa’s clubhouse, and Tony was famous for it: You hit us, we hit you.”
According to Guillen, who also played for La Russa in the mid-’80s, he never orders retaliation from his pitchers.
“I’m not a headhunter,” he said. ” When you’re a manager and you tell someone to hit somebody, you can put your team in real jeopardy. Somebody could get hurt [from an ensuing brawl] or suspended. The manager isn’t going to get hit.
“[Pitchers] have to pick up their own teammates. Teammates have to take care of that.”
And hitters expect that, although the Sox say it hasn’t happened as often as it seems, and they don’t feel they are being targeted.
“This [recent spate] is one of those things that happen during the season,” said Aaron Rowand, who has been hit a team-high 13 times, fourth highest in the league. “I’m sure it’s not the last time it’s going to happen this season. It’s part of the game.”
