Cleveland Indians fans who stayed up late Monday night witnessed a bizarre loss against the Chicago White Sox.
The White Sox had two men on with one out in the bottom of the ninth.
Emmanuel Clase forced a groundball to first base and Yu Chang tried to turn the clutch double play.
Unfortunately, his throw to second bounced off the helmet of Yasmani Grandal and the game was over.
This was a tough way to lose and the game ultimately ended on a bit of a fluke play.
Chang likely already felt bad enough and then had to deal with racist messages sent his way on social media.
We linked to Chang’s tweet above because the messages are truly disturbing.
The comments are disgusting and kudos to Chang for exposing those people for who they are.
Weird ending.
Turn the page and start a new streak tomorrow.#OurCLE pic.twitter.com/18rWzGCAmT
— Cleveland Indians (@Indians) April 13, 2021
Yu Chang Still Learning First Base
Errors are bound to happen for someone playing a new position.
The focus in spring training was the competition at first base between Jake Bauers and Bobby Bradley.
Bauers won and Bradley was sent to the minors.
However, Terry Francona is opting for a platoon approach and Chang is getting significant time at a position he is still learning.
He has shown uneasy footwork at times and it is clear this is new for him.
Anyone learning to play a new position on the fly is going to struggle.
The throw that bounced off Grandal’s helmet was one a more experienced first baseman would have avoided.
But still, Chang made a good play that simply had an unfortunate outcome.
Nick Williams hits into the potential double play but the Indians throw it off of Yasmani Grandal’s Helmet to scores Nicky Madrigal and walk it off for the White Sox pic.twitter.com/n1I5T9KRGH
— MLB Walk Offs & Game Winning Plays (@MLBWalk_Offs) April 13, 2021
This is part of the problem with placing people all over the field at positions they have not played before.
Offense Had a Slow Night
The Indians are going to lose a lot of games in 2021.
That is true for every single team in MLB.
But if fans must cast blame for some reason, the offense only getting five hits and scoring three runs makes more sense as a target.
Hitters 2-4 could not do anything on the night and Chang even got one of the five hits out of the ninth spot in the order.
Triston McKenzie only allowed three earned runs and the bullpen was great in relief.
Three runs from the offense is just not going to get it done.
Going 0-4 with runners in scoring position is easily the most frustrating part of the loss.
There are some awful people out there and they will use last night’s loss as an outlet to say terrible things to someone like Chang.
Those people cannot truly call themselves “fans” of this team.
Mistakes are going to happen and a throw that missed by a few inches is not something to attack a player over.
In fact, players should never be attacked on social media because that is just an insane thing to do.
Chang is actually looking solid in 2021 and it is nice to see him receive so many messages of support after he shared the terrible messages sent his way.
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