The Chicago White Sox found a way to turn a pitching problem into a rules problem Friday night.
Fresh off a 13-inning walk-off loss in which they used eight pitchers, the White Sox were forced to pull rookie Noah Schultz after he recorded only one out in an 8-2 loss to the Cleveland Guardians. The culprit was a mound-visit mix-up: Chicago had already used one visit on Schultz after a hit-by-pitch, and when manager Will Venable went out again after a two-run single in the first inning, the club had crossed the line.
No one was even up in the bullpen at the moment Venable stepped onto the field. Still, major-league rules left the White Sox with no choice once the second visit in the inning happened.
Umpires conferred as the situation got sorted out, and right-hander David Sandlin had to scramble to get loose. Schultz was then told he had to leave after facing five batters and throwing 23 pitches.
Sandlin, also a rookie, inherited the mess and worked out of it by retiring two batters on five pitches.
The rule is straightforward: a coach or manager gets one mound visit per pitcher per inning. After that, if another visit is made in the same inning, the pitcher has to come out.
Venable said he took the blame, explaining that he believed a Guardians runner had missed a base and that he went out to appeal.
“In the urgency of trying to make that happen, just totally lost that we had visited,” he told reporters at Rate Field after the game. “Obviously that was a mistake. Just messed it up.”
The White Sox entered Friday with a three-game lead in the American League Central after being swept by the Boston Red Sox. The weekend series also mattered because the Minnesota Twins and the Guardians were tied for second place as of Thursday, with the Detroit Tigers just one-half game behind them. Cleveland, meanwhile, had lost 11 of its previous 14 games.
Venable is in his second year managing the White Sox after a career as a big-league outfielder, bench coach and associate manager. Bove, who made the first visit to Schultz, joined Chicago’s staff in November after working as an assistant pitching coach for the Kansas City Royals.
The White Sox weren’t the first club to get caught by the same rule. Toronto did it in 2023, when manager John Schneider made a sixth-inning visit to Alek Manoah shortly after pitching coach Pete Walker had already been out there.
“I f--d up,” Schneider told reporters after the game. “But I think, regardless of my f-up, it was the right time to get him out.”
Chicago also saw a version of this during Ozzie Guillen’s tenure. According to veteran Chicago Sports Network reporter Chuck Garfien, Guillen once doubled up on mound visits to Javier Vazquez after missing that pitching coach Don Cooper had already spoken to him while Vazquez was in the bathroom. Garfien wrote in a social media post that Vazquez was the one who told Guillen he would no longer be able to pitch.
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