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Angels Manager Blames Player After His Own Decision Backfired

Originally posted on Last Word On Sports
By Matt Graves, Site Manager | Last updated 5/15/24

Ron Washington was not shy to call out Luis Guillorme to execute a squeeze bunt. With the pitch well outside the zone, Guillmore couldn’t make contact. Zach Neto was running down the line, which was an easy out for the St. Louis Cardinals. It lead to the Angels not scoring again, losing to the Cardinals in a close 7-6 game on Tuesday. As for Washington, he put no blame on himself but pointed the finger at Guillorme.

“He didn’t do his job,” Washington said of Guillorme. “It wasn’t anything I did wrong. He didn’t do the job. I would have rather went to the ninth inning with a 6-6 lead than gone to the ninth inning the way we did.”

Ron Washington Criticizes Luis Guillorme

Washington incorrectly said that Jojo Romero had been throwing strikes. At the time, Romero had thrown 14 balls in the inning compared to 12 strikes.

“He was throwing the ball in the strike zone,” Washington said, before elevating his voice at the reporter and hitting his hand against the podium. “Why are you making excuses? He was throwing the ball in the strike zone. (Guillorme) did not get the bunt down. Period.”

Wash gives us his final thoughts after tonights game ?@Angels l #RepTheHalo pic.twitter.com/prVZjyl4TX

— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) May 15, 2024

Guillorme decided to take the high road in responding to Washington’s post-game comments. He did however, take responsibility, even though any bunt would have been nearly impossible to get down.

“I haven’t seen anything,” Guillorme said. “He made a good pitch. I didn’t get it down. I’ve got to try to put a bat on it. That’s it.”

Former MLB Player Didn’t Love the Way It Was Handled

Former MLB player Trevor Plouffe, who co-hosts the podcast Baseball Today with Chris Rose, didn’t like the way Washington handled that situation.

“I have a little bit of a problem with it because that’s not an easy baseball play and I know ‘Hey, he’s a big leaguer you gotta be able to handle the bat’ as Wash said. But, you’re talking about a suicide squeeze. It’s not a safety squeeze,” said Plouffe.

“Did Wash not see where that pitch ended up? A left-lefty bunting a slider that’s in the right-hander’s batters box like, what are you supposed to do? And the rest of the time that he spoke to the media it was ‘We, we, we’ and in that particular sentence, you decided to call out Guillorme. I do feel like it was a little too far,”

The Angels are in a free fall. They’ve struggled mightily in Washington’s first season as Angels manager. At 15-28, Los Angeles has lost all but two series this season. They’ve only won consecutive games twice.

This article first appeared on Last Word On Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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