CC Sabathia sounds off on Tony La Russa (LANGUAGE WARNING!)

[True Dough]

Some strong feelings here about how La Russa responded to one of his White Sox players hitting a home run late in a game while ahead by 11 runs and the batter was up in the count 3-0 against a positional player (a first baseman/catcher), who had taken the mound.

Link to tweet

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. In theory I agree with Tony on this. If you're signaled to take the pitch ...

Then you're supposed to do so. There's no need to embarrass your opponents and nothing wrong with a bit of decorum when up by 11 runs and the other team has their 3rd baseman as pitcher (or whoever it was ... not an actual pitcher).

So I agree with him in theory.

I'm not sure he handled some of the questions that came up afterward all that well, the comment about the office and locker was a not a smart one to make publicly.

Full disclosure: I know Tony, and his daughter is my sister-in-law.

[True Dough]

2. There's definitely a disconnect

between "old school" La Russa and some of his players. I agree with your assessment that there's blame on both sides.

I think when a manager gives instruction to a player, the player should take it. Although it appears in this case that several of Mercedes' teammates think it was fair game to swing in those circumstances and they've taken to social media to vocalize their support for the player.

And, yes, La Russa went overboard in criticizing Mercedes publicly.

Hopefully they can all mend fences and get on with that has been a successful season so far, despite some costly injuries.