Blunder by the St. Louis Cardinals makes the Chicago White Sox look much better

The Chicago White Sox have made their fair share of base running mistakes during the 2025 season.

While the on-field product and brand of baseball have been much improved from what we saw last season, the White Sox are still a young team. Mental errors are one of the inevitable growing pains during a rebuild.

Lenyn Sosa is one player in particular that makes notable mental errors. From failing to have his foot on first base to trying to advance on the infield fly rule, baseball IQ is not one of Sosa's strengths.

Apparently, it's a challenge for a lot of teams across Major League Baseball these days. It was a major storyline surrounding the 2024 World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees.

The St. Louis Cardinals are the latest team to perform a head-scratching blunder, and it makes Lenyn Sosa and the White Sox look a lot better.

The Cardinals don't understand the infield fly rule

During Saturday night's game against the Cincinnati Reds, the Cardinals ran themselves out of a big first inning because they didn't understand the rules of baseball.

Reds starting pitcher Andrew Abbott was on the ropes. St. Louis had the bases loaded with one out and 23-year-old outfielder Jordan Walker up to bat.

Walker hit a pop-up on the infield, which led to the umpires invoking the infield fly rule. When Cincinnati's infielders had a miscommunication, the ball fell between them, and chaos erupted.

By rule, when there are runners on first and second (or bases loaded) and fewer than two outs, and a batter hits a pop-up that an infielder can catch with ordinary effort, the batter is automatically out. This prevents the defense from intentionally dropping the ball to trick runners into a double or triple play.

Runners may attempt to advance at their own risk, but they are not required to. Clearly, the Cardinals didn't understand that.

Multiple Cardinals base runners attempted to advance, leading to a pickle on the bases and an easy, inning-ending double play for the Reds.

It was eerily similar to a mistake from Lenyn Sosa in a White Sox game earlier this season.

Aginst the crosstown rival Cubs, Sosa was gunned down and made the third out of an inning trying to advance to third base after Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner intentionally let a pop-up drop on the infield. The White Sox were trailing in the game at the time, and they ended up losing by one run.

Mental errors on the bases can cost you a ballgame. It's a big reason for the White Sox being 10-30 this season in one-run contests.

White Sox fans can take solace knowing that the South Siders are not the only team this season to mess up one of baseball's requisite rules in such a big way.

These things happen to young teams. Hopefully in the coming year, as the White Sox play cleaner baseball, they will improve their win-loss record as a result.