Royals’ Glenn Sparkman ejected for hitting Tim Anderson as White Sox sweep series
Chicago White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson barely had a presence in the series.
He didn’t start until the last of the three games against the Royals. Prior to that, his only contribution came as a pinch runner in the completion of the game suspended by rain.
But it only took one plate appearance to reignite controversy between two teams that were involved in an altercation that cleared the respective benches and bullpens in mid-April.
Royals starting pitcher Glenn Sparkman, getting his first attempt to solidify a spot in the starting rotation and already fighting an uphill battle in the game after having given up a pair of first-inning runs, received his first career ejection for hitting Anderson with an 86 mph changeup.
“I was trying to go down and in with a changeup, produce a double play, you know, get something going,” Sparkman said.
The memory of the previous altercation involving Anderson remained prominent in the mind of home plate umpire Mark Carlson — though no warning came when Royals third baseman Hunter Dozier came a split second from being hit in the face with a 95 mph fastball the previous half inning — Sparkman’s abrupt exit kicked off a five-run inning for the White Sox.
After the Royals rallied from a six-run deficit to tie the score in the eighth, Anderson’s RBI double down the third base line and into the left field scorner drove in the deciding run as the White Sox got the 8-7 win and swept the three-game series in front of an announced 16,167 at Guranteed Rate Field on Wednesday night.
Whit Merrifield led the Royals with three hits, while Jorge Soler, Nicky Lopez, Alex Gordon and Dozier collected two apiece. Soler hit his 13th home run of the season and was robbed of another by a spectacular catch.
The relevant history between these two ballclubs started on April 17 in the final game of a three-game set at Guaranteed Rate Field. Keller, the Royals starting pitcher, gave up a two-run home run to Anderson in the fourth inning. Anderson threw the bat towards his dugout and let out a roar while looking at his own bench.
The next time Anderson came to the plate, in the sixth inning, Keller’s first pitch, a 92 mph fastball, smacked into Anderson’s rear end. Anderson shouted at Keller and catcher Martin Maldonado stepped between Anderson and the mound which prompted the benches and bullpens to empty onto the playing field.
While no fists were thrown, Anderson, Keller, Renteria and Royals bench coach Dale Sveum were ejected. Keller, Renteria and Anderson were each suspended. Renteria and Anderson for one game apiece and Keller for five.
MLB announced Anderson had been suspended for language used during the alternation, and ESPN reported he’d called Keller a “weak-ass ... n-word” during the on-field incident.
“I’ve got to choose my words carefully,” Royals manager Ned Yost said of Wednesday night’s incident. “As far as we’re concerned, coming into this series, we had no animosity toward that young man. None. And to think we’re going to hit him on purpose is ludicrous. And two, it was a changeup.
“It was forgotten. He’d done his part, we’d done our part, it was over. Nothing. There was no ill-feeling or ill-will. It would be totally ignorant for us to hit him. We don’t play like that. We’re not like that. He got under a changeup and hit him in the helmet.”
The fireworks came in the bottom of the second. After a leadoff single, Sparkman sailed a 2-0 pitch up and in that hit Anderson in the helmet. Carlson immediately ejected Sparkman.
Sparkman pleaded his case, and Maldonado vehemently argued with Carlson until Yost rushed out of the dugout and pushed Maldonado aside to avoid having his catcher ejected as well.
“I think it’s been a month since that,” Maldonado said of the previous incident. “We tried to throw a changeup down. It got away and hit him. That’s part of baseball. We wasn’t trying to hit him. People get hit. If I get hit with a changeup, I’m more happy than getting hit with a fastball.”
Maldonado and Carlson had a long discussion between innings, and Maldonado said after the game that the umpires were expecting something to happen. Carlson said it was “bad timing,” according to Maldonado.
“I said you cannot throw my pitcher out with bad timing,” Maldonado said. “Especially at least you give me a warning. He said I can’t give a warning when this guy hits him in the head.”
Jorge Lopez came in out of the bullpen in relief of Sparkman, and he gave up an RBI single, a fielder’s choice that scored a run. Then with two outs and two on, Yonder Alonso hit a three-run home run to cap a five-run inning and give the White Sox a 7-1 lead after the ejection.
“We were aware of a previous situation between the two clubs involving Tim Anderson,” Carlson told a pool reporter from the Associated Press. “When the pitcher threw the ball up and in and hit him in the head, that raises an awareness to us and we have to make a decision on what we want to do to handle that situation.”
When told members of the White Sox told reporters they didn’t think the pitch was intentional, Carlson said, “That’s up for the league to determine. I handled the situation in the moment the way I thought it needed to be handled. But then, ultimately, the league has to make a decision on that.”
Sparkman, who made just his second start of the season and the fifth of his career, got off to a bumpy start just two batters into the game. He gave up a single to leadoff hitter Leury Garcia and then watched a 2-2 pitch of his get smacked over the left field wall for a two-run home run, the third home run given up by Sparkman in the majors this year.
The Royals got one run back in the second on Soler’s RBI single.
After the White Sox scored five in the second, the scoring dried up until the Royals posted a four-run sixth inning. Soler started the scoring in the sixth with a two-run homer, which set a new career high for him (13). Nicky Lopez snapped an 0-for-20 slump with an RBI triple, and Merrifield added an RBI single to pull the Royals within two, 7-5.
With one out in the top of the eighth, Terrance Gore (pinch runner) and Billy Hamilton executed a double steal to set up a game-tying two-run single through the left side by Nicky Lopez.
This story was originally published May 29, 2019 at 10:44 PM.
