Home field advantage is not unusual in sports, but Chicago White Sox pitcher Anthony Kay thinks one team is taking it to an unacceptable level with the help of their grounds crew.
Kay suggested that the Cleveland Guardians and their grounds crew conspired to knock him out of the game with a lengthy rain delay in the fourth inning of Friday’s game at Progressive Field in Cleveland, Oh. Kay found it suspicious that the tarp went on as soon as the White Sox took the lead in the fourth on a Miguel Vargas come run, and that it was a calculated move to limit how deep into the game he could pitch.
“I was hoping to go six, seven, eight innings, give the bullpen some help, but I think they messed around with the tarp,” Kay said, via Jeff Agrest of the Chicago Sun-Times. “We probably had at least 20 to 30 minutes of light rain that we could’ve played through.
“But the second that Vargas hits that home run, they pull the tarp. So there definitely was some bull—- on their part to get me out of the game. It’s pretty messed up for them to do something like that and get me out of the game that way.”
The decision to call a delay and bring out the tarp is down to the umpires, not the home team. Grounds crews are, however, expected to keep umpires in the loop with regard to threatening weather and warn them about incoming storms.
Kay had gone four innings and allowed one run on one hit at the time of the delay. The game did not restart for nearly two hours, meaning there was no way Kay could go back out after such a lengthy layoff.
Ultimately, it is impossible to say whether the Guardians had anything to do with the timing of the delay. Sometimes, the umpires just make the wrong decision timing-wise. Still, the accusation adds a bit of spice to a matchup between two teams that look set to contend in the AL Central all season.
