The Tigers made a sweeping statement on Sunday Night vs. the White Sox, drubbing them 18-2 in front of a national audience on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. The White Sox are now 8.5 games out of first in the Central and all but out of contention.
In the Tigers’ slugfest, White Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen decided to give his young arms some innings after often trusty lefty Mark Buehrle had his worst outing since April. First, Guillen summoned Addison Reed to relieve Buehrle in the 4th inning, giving him his big league debut. Reed pitched relatively well, allowing an earned run in 1.2 innings. Then, Shane Lindsey, who made his big league debut the other night, gave up seven runs on eight hits in one inning. (Hopefully, his mother already flew back to Australia and didn’t have to see that).
Little do many people know (because most sane, non-Tigers fans probably already turned the game off), crazy Ozzie almost gave another guy his MLB debut on the mound, but it wasn’t a young arm. It was 31-year-old, recently benched, struggling slugger Adam Dunn.
According to Pedro Gomez during the 9th inning, Adam Dunn was ready to relieve whatever garbage was pitching for the White Sox in the 8th inning and had been given the okay by pitching coach Don Cooper, who had been given the okay by Ozzie Guillen. However, when it was about to happen, apparently Ozzie decided to nix the idea. Will Ohman, who started the inning and gave up a two-run homer to Andy Dirks, wound up finishing the inning by striking out two of the final three batters.
So Ozzie Guillen, the man who has given us so many great nuggets over the years, prevented us from seeing the 6’6″, 285-lbs Adam Dunn on the rubber on Sunday Night. That’s a damn shame, Ozzie.
