Ozzie Guillen was at it again during Sunday's contest against the Texas Rangers. According to various reports, Guillen was furious with pitcher Jon Garland after failing to hit Rangers second basemen Ian Kinsler with a pitch after Vicente Padilla hit Alex Cintron in the third inning.
"This guy (Padilla) is the nastiest pitcher in the league, and all of a sudden, he hits someone," Guillen was quoted as saying. "I was upset also because Garland missed."
Why was Guillen so upset? His pitcher was throwing a beautiful game through the first three innings. Garland eventually helped the White Sox snap their four-game losing streak It’s not like Garland didn’t try to hit Kinsler. He threw the first two pitches of the fourth inning behind Kinsler.
Garland actually came so close to hitting Kinsler that both benches were warned by umpire Randy Marsh. After the inning, Guillen proceeded to lay into Garland on the bench.
"I was real clear,'' Guillen replied when asked about chastising Garland in the dugout. "I'm a man of my word. I said if something happened, we would retaliate. I have to protect my players. Unfortunately, Garland missed him a few times.''
This isn’t the first time Guillen has done this to one of his players. He did the same thing to rookie reliever Sean Tracey a month ago in Texas in a similar dugout environment.
"I don't [like] my hitters being hit,'' Guillen said. "Jon knew I was upset. We talked about it after the game and everything's cool.''
When is this going to start wearing on the players? Garland didn’t deserve to be yelled at after missing a batter with a ball. He was pitching a great game. This also isn’t an isolated incident. Guillen has been making newspaper headlines the entire year.
From yelling at his players to calling reporters names, Guillen has done everything he possibly can to take the focus and attention off of the whole team.
The White Sox are a veteran club. These guys know what they’re doing and to publicly humiliate your pitcher during a shutout is not the way to gain your teams’ respect. Guillen will hopefully learn sooner rather then later. Otherwise he might find himself in another sensitivity training class real soon.
