Jesse RogersESPN staff writer4 minutes to read
Louis Robert Jr. was benched after not hustling at first
Louis Robert Jr. is benched after failing to make a full speed ground ball in the bottom of the first inning.
CHICAGO – After running softly to first base on a ground ball and returning to pitcher, White Sox center fielder Louis Robert Jr. was pulled from the team’s 12-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday.
Robert drove in from the bottom of the first inning, and hit a ground ball to the third base side from the mound, where Rays pitcher Calvin Fuscher fielded it and threw it first. It would probably have been a close game had it not been for Robert making it easier.
Afterwards, Robert said he didn’t pass out because he was in pain.
“It was the last thing that happened [Friday] “I fumbled a lot on the night,” Robert said through the team interpreter after the 10th straight loss in Chicago. “Today my legs were a little tired. My right hamstring was a bit tight. Then I decided to play today conservatively. … I think it was my fault that I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t tell the manager because I knew if I said something to him he probably wouldn’t Let me play.”
Robert came out to field in the top of the second but was pulled for a pinch hitter in the bottom of the inning. He stayed in the dugout talking to his teammates after being seated.
“He may have just had a mental crisis,” White Sox manager Pedro Grifoll said. “We have to work hard on the line. It’s not a common occurrence for Lewis.”
Robert was immediately booed after the play.
“I understand the decision he made because he didn’t know,” Robert said of Greyful who pulls him off. “People who didn’t know what was going on, you would think it was a lack of effort on my part. People who know me, they know I always give my best and run hard in the line.”
The sequence with Robert was another negative moment for a team on the rise after just 28 games.
On Saturday, Lance Lynn grounded in an unflattering fashion in the seventh inning, preserving a 3-0 lead. Tampa Bay proceeded to score 10 runs in the inning, including three home runs.
According to ESPN Stats & Information research, the Rays are just the fourth team in the expansion era (since 1961) to score 10 runs in a game after scoring no hits after at least six innings. Tampa scored them all in one run.
“This inning wasn’t what anyone expected,” Grifoll said. “Everything we threw, they beat and beat hard.”
The inning was a microcosm of the White Sox season as first pitchers, revolutionaries and defense let them down.
On a key sequence, after Isaac Paredes hit a ball down the left field line, left fielder Gavin Sheets misplayed the ball, catcher Yasmani Grandal dropped it on a card play at the plate and Lane then turned the ball back to Grandal, who was not looking, allowing For the runner to move to the top of the base. Then the gates opened.
“I can’t hide from him,” said Grifoll. “It happened.”
“Sell the team” chants could be heard during that fateful seventh inning on Saturday.
The loss dropped the White Sox to the last place game with the Kansas City Royals. Their defeat against the Rays on Friday already ensured they would play the first month of the season without winning a series.
The Rays can sweep the seven-game season series over the White Sox with a win on Sunday.
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