Thursday was an interesting day in the American League Central.
A.J. Pierzynski as White Sox manager would add fire to Twins/Sox rivalry
A Chicago Tribune column about the possibility was interestingly timed.
June 10, 2022 at 10:29PM
The Twins hit five home runs off Gerrit Cole, the third straight dominant Yankees starter they had solved, but they still lost the game and the series to their two-decades-long nemesis.
Minnesota is now 39-111 against the Yankees dating back to 2002. It's an unfathomable run that had me checking to see how the Twins have fared against, say, Boston in the same time frame: 58-69, not great, to be sure, but more in line with what is reasonable.
The Guardians won for the eighth time in 10 games, improving to 27-26 and daring to join the Twins as the only member of the division's above .500 club.
And the White Sox lost (again), meaning they fell to 20-27 since starting the year 6-2. Manager Tony La Russa was widely questioned for issuing an intentional walk to the Dodgers' Trea Turner when the count was 1-2, a move that only looked worse when Max Muncy followed with a three-run home run in an eventual 11-9 final.
La Russa defended the move when questioned by a reporter after the game, saying: "Is there some question about whether that was a good move or not? ... That wasn't a tough call."
It appeared that some question persisted into Friday, as ESPN as of late in the afternoon was featuring prominently a story with this headline: "Was Tony La Russa's intentional walk of Trea Turner the worst in MLB history? A ranking."
Perhaps coincidentally and perhaps not, the Chicago Tribune posted a column as that was all swirling about former White Sox (and Twins) catcher A.J. Pierzynski being willing to listen if the White Sox want him to be their next manager.
Pierzynski, an analyst for Fox Sports, told the Chicago Tribune: "Listen, I'm not actively out there pursuing it or (hoping) for anything to happen to Tony for me to do that. But if something happened, and all the cards lined up and the chips fell into place. … If (Chairman) Jerry Reinsdorf calls me and says 'Can you come in for this interview?' it's going to be really hard for me to say no."
La Russa is 77. He's a three-time World Series winner, a Baseball Hall of Fame inductee and just managed the White Sox to the AL Central title in 2021.
Pierzynski is 45 and has no managerial experience. But he was a White Sox fan favorite and a Twins fan enemy after his career took him out of Minnesota after the 2003 season.
If you want to selfishly root for Pierzynski to manage the White Sox someday — perhaps sooner rather than later — just for the sake of the Twins/Sox rivalry, I'm not going to stop you.
When he was hired after the disastrous 2016 season to reshape the Twins, Derek Falvey brought a reputation for identifying and developing pitching talent. It took a while, but the pipeline we were promised is now materializing.
