Cannon to the right of them, walks to the left: Sox split series with erratic 6-5 win

Tanner Murray rounds the bases after his first career big fly, which also broke a two-game shutout streak by the White Sox. | Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images White Sox pitchers these days have to feel something like the cavalry riders of Lord Tennyson’s vivid description of the Charge of the Light Brigade: Galloping hopelessly into a unrepentant line of cannonfire (or Cannon-fire, in today’s case) knowing that offensive support is minimal and death is more or less certain. The Kansas City Royals lineup isn’t exactly a valley of death these days, but the situation that Will Venable threw Jonathan Cannon into this afternoon might as well have been.

Dating all the way back to his college days at Georgia, 116 of Cannon’s last 120 appearances have come as either a starting pitcher (111 games) or a bulk reliever (5 games). Yet, for reasons that may become clear in today’s postgame press conference but are not so to this author, Cannon was thrown into a two-on, one-out situation in the third inning of this afternoon’s game, despite his role as opener having been seemingly planned for the better part of a week now. To be sure, some of the blame for today’s chaos lies with Sean Newcomb, who failed to retire either of the lefties that he was brought in specifically to handle.

Nonetheless, it felt to me like an abdication of a manager’s top priority as an authority figure: Put your players in a position to succeed. Point blank. The reason I’m saying this is to ask the question: Why the hell would you take a guy who’s only ever been a starter and instead of giving him a clean inning as he surely expected, stuff him into a pressure situation that he’s actually not all that well suited for?

Cannon pitches to contact, for the most part — if it were the eighth inning, you wouldn’t think of bringing him on in the same situation, because it’s one that very clearly and obviously calls for bat-missing ability. Thrown into an entirely unfamiliar situation, surely with the added pressure of trying to make good on a major league chance that he failed to win out of Spring Training, Cannon walked all three batters he faced before being removed from the game in what the White Sox later called a “right hip contusion. ” Yet, somehow, the White Sox actually won this game.