This isn’t an official stat, I’m not going to bother to double check it, but I don’t really care because this is as much effort as the Chicago White Sox seem to be giving nowadays when they step onto a baseball field. I kind of do feel bad for Pedro Grifol because he stepped into a complete clown show with the White Sox, but yet again he’s at least getting paid to watch some bad baseball from a good seat. Well, that is when he’s still in the dugout.
It seems like Grifol is already sick of having to sit through an entire White Sox game because on Friday night he was ejected in the very first inning.
The White Sox were trailing 1-0, when Andrew Vaughn blasted his second home run of the season. The monster dinger to center field tied the game and then on the very next pitch, Tampa Bay Rays starting pitcher Zach Eflin drilled Luis Robert Jr. directly in the middle of his back with a 92mph fastball.
You know, sometimes it is hard to tell when a pitcher is throwing at a hitter on purpose or not, but seeing that Eflin entered Friday night’s game with some pretty good control, only walking one batter and having zero hit-by-pitches in his first 16 innings of the season, that HBP to Robert Jr. seemed as obvious as it gets.
The umpires had a meeting and in an effort to avoid any further conflict, both benches were warned. Grifol came out to argue and he was obviously pissed off. Grifol was almost immediately ejected and the first-time manager definitely got his money’s worth by yelling at home plate umpire Marvin Hudson.
Funny enough, that was the second game in a row that Grifol was tossed by Hudson, who had not ejected anyone in nearly two full seasons.
Oh and there’s the sad stat I wanted to bring up.
Entering Friday, there were 14 managers who had been ejected once already this season. Grifol is the first manager to get ejected twice and it happened in back-to-back games. The White Sox ended up losing 3-2 to the Rays, extending their losing streak to nine games.
The White Sox record dropped to 7-20 and in case you hadn’t noticed, the team has not won two games in a row this season. That means, in his first year as a manager in the big leagues, Pedro Grifol has a longer ejection streak than winning streak.
After the game, Grifol explained why he went on the field in the first place to argue the warning that was issued for both teams following the Robert Jr. hit by pitch.
The White Sox did not retaliate on Friday night, as starting pitcher Lucas Gioltio went 6.2 innings and only allowed two runs, striking out six and walking none. Reynaldo Lopez tossed 1.1 scoreless innings in relief, while Kendall Graveman took the loss after giving up a solo home run in the ninth inning.
