Outside the Confines: Can’t anyone here manage this game?

I put a picture of Casey Stengel up there because I didn’t think anyone wanted to look at a picture of Tony La Russa first thing in the morning. I know I don’t.

• After spending the past week talking about two veteran managers who just got fired (Joe Girardi, Joe Maddon), this week starts out with the saga of one that didn’t get fired, White Sox manager Tony La Russa. Ben Clemens breaks down La Russa’s decision to walk Trea Turner with a 1-2 count and says no matter how much he defends it, it was a terrible decision even if it had worked. (It didn’t, in case you forgot.)
• Matt Martell also agrees that it was a terrible decision.
• During NBC Sports Chicago’s late-night replay of the broadcast, they edited out the intentional walk “due to the length of this program.” Yes, they needed to cut some of the game, but cutting the most crucial moment seems a bit suspicious.
• David Schoenfield looks at the history of intentional walks and ranks different situations where an intentional walk is issued from most bad to least bad.
• White Sox fans have been chanting for La Russa to be fired at games. (La Russa’s response: “I like it when they care enough to be upset.”)
• James Fagan writes that no matter how much La Russa defends his (bad) decisions, La Russa’s (poor) results speak for themselves. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Alden Gonzalez looks at the Angels, who lost 14 in a row and fired Joe Maddon and tries to answer what went wrong in Anaheim and what needs to be done to fix it. (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• Apparently Joe Maddon got a mohawk haircut to try to shake up the Angels, but he was fired before he could show it to the players.
• A roundtable discussion on who will be the next manager fired.
• Gabe Lacques argues that managers are often the sacrificial goat for the mistakes of the front office or the owner’s suite.
• There’s a family drama in Baltimore as Lou Angelos, son of incapacitated owner Peter Angelos, is suing his brother John and mother Gloria for what he alleges is a plot to cut him out of the family estate and the running of the Orioles. He also made some vague references to a desire on John’s part to move the team to Tennessee, although he provided no evidence of that.
• Tragic news as Captain John J. Sax, the son of former Dodgers infielder Steve Sax, was one of five Marines killed in the crash of an Osprey aircraft in California last week. Our condolences go out the Sax family and their friends.
• The Padres have brought back Robinson Canó on a minor league deal. Canó had refused a minor league assignment last week and was released, but apparently no one offered him a better deal.
• Jayson Stark has his regular column on the weird and wacky in baseball with a special feature on position players pitching. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Bob Nightengale examines how the Mariners’ Logan Gilbert went from an undrafted and little-recruited high school pitcher to a first-round draft pick and now a major league ace.
• Jay Jaffe breaks down how Dodgers pitcher Tony Gonsolin had turned himself into yet another star pitcher in Los Angeles.
• Which the Dodgers are going to need, because Walker Buehler has been shut down for six-to-eight weeks with a forearm strain. Forearm strains are often precursors to something worse.
• Such as what Tigers pitcher Casey Mize just had, which is Tommy John surgery.
• And if Tony La Russa wanted more bad news, White Sox starter Michael Kopech left his start on Sunday with right knee discomfort.
• Zach Crizer profiles Tennessee Volunteers pitcher Ben Joyce and his 104 miles per hour fastball. Crizer wonders if Joyce could be the first player to go from the College World Series to the World Series in one season.
• The answer to that question is definitely “no,” because on Sunday, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish defeated the heavily-favored and number-one-ranked Volunteers to advance to the College World Series. So Tennessee isn’t going to the College World Series.
• The Oklahoma Sooners softball team won the Women’s College World Series with what many are calling the greatest team of all time with the greatest player of all time, Jocelyn Alo.
• Finally, the women’s Sooners team will be joined by the men’s team as they advanced to the College World Series thanks in part to a tremendous defensive catch going over the fence by outfielder Kendall Pettis. Pettis also made another great catch and hit a home run in the win over Virginia Tech.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.