Pedro Grifol said he enjoyed being booed by White Sox fans Tuesday night while pulling Jonathan Cannon an out shy of a perfect game, and not because he’s developed some strange appetite for it.
“I actually took it as these are great fans that wanted to see something special,” Grifol said. “To start the inning my mind was made up: I’m giving him two runners. Unless somebody ran up an eight or ten-pitch at-bat, then you have to adjust. If it was a normal at-bat–two, three, four pitches–I’m giving him two baserunners. It actually took me back to my farm director days when you were developing pitching. You have to capture those moments. The other part to development is you capture those moments like Seattle and here, and you make adjustments later on.”
Cannon threw 121 innings in the minors last season, so it’s unlikely he runs into a workload limit anytime soon without showing specific symptoms of fatigue. But Grifol alluded to the idea that throwing over 100 pitches in each of his last two starts could put the 23-year-old right-hander in line for extra rest. With Mike Clevinger due for another Triple-A rehab start on Sunday, the Sox would have to piece together a game with Tanner Banks, Chad Kuhl, Jared Shuster and Michael Soroka to steal extended rest for the rotation, as they have a game every day until July 1.
Grifol seemed willing to explore that route, but the Sox have already listed their probables for this weekend in Detroit and Cannon is slated to start Sunday on regular rest. So maybe this entire talking point was a waste.
–A White Sox pitcher who did recently have their workload adjusted in response to fatigue might be Jordan Leasure, who has made one scoreless appearance with Triple-A Charlotte since being optioned on June 14. That throttling of Leasure’s workload is intentional.
Leasure walked 10 hitters and allowed nine earned runs over his last 11 major league appearances. Biomechanical breakdowns of his delivery showed Leasure’s arm lagging behind when his delivery reached foot strike, which hampered the sharpness of his slider and riding action of his four-seam fastball. Between those symptoms and the 25-year-old handling the workload of a major league setup man for the first time, the White Sox put two and two together.
“He’s just a touch off from where he’s been,” said pitching coach Ethan Katz. “But he’s been worked pretty hard. He’s been used a lot. His workload is much higher than it has been in years past. Last year he had one back-to-back. He’s done that quite a bit here. Is it a fatigue thing with the arm [not] getting to its spot? Possibly.”
–Leasure’s “breather” in Triple-A puts more onus on the recently activated Steven Wilson and John Brebbia to fill the setup void. Since lowering his glove arm’s placement in his delivery, Brebbia has retired 23 of the 29 batters he’s faced in the month of June, and recorded his second save of the season on Tuesday night.
Michael Kopech has retired 19 of the 36 hitters he’s faced over his last eight outings, allowing four homers and getting tagged with three blown saves in that span. He’s acknowledged that there have been a lot of discussions with the coaching staff and catching corps about making his attack plan less predictably fastball-oriented during this time.
“There’s situations where I’m going to lean heavily on this no matter what, that’s who I am as a pitcher,” Kopech said. But he largely feels getting ahead in the count will allow him to vary things up more, as he is unlikely to start reintroducing secondaries that he has less trust in when he’s behind in the count and the game is on the line.
“Being able to have those keys or subtle adjustments that I know I need to make to put myself back in the zone or in a count is huge for me, to be able to continue throwing strikes or working my back into the count when I haven’t been throwing strikes.”
It will be critical soon, because Grifol swatted away reading much into Brebbia getting tabbed for a save opportunity on Tuesday rather than Kopech.
“I have confidence in Brebbia,” Grifol said. “We’re going to need Kopech to do his thing and close games out–again, for multiple days in a row. I wanted to get Brebbia in there yesterday and Kopech will be in there today, and we’ll use Brebbia in another role.”
–Not to worry anyone more than they need to be, but Astros starter Hunter Brown has started throwing a sinker recently. Relatedly, he has a 1.74 ERA in 31 innings over his last five starts.
First Pitch: White Sox vs. Astros
TV: NBC Sports Chicago
Lineups:
| White Sox | Astros | |
|---|---|---|
| Tommy Pham, RF | 1 | Jose Altuve, 2B |
| Gavin Sheets, 1B | 2 | Mauricio Dubón, 1B |
| Luis Robert Jr., CF | 3 | Alex Bregman, 3B |
| Andrew Vaughn, DH | 4 | Yainer Díaz, DH |
| Andrew Benintendi, LF | 5 | Jeremy Peña, SS |
| Paul DeJong, SS | 6 | Jake Meyers, CF |
| Lenyn Sosa, 3B | 7 | Victor Caratini, C |
| Korey Lee, C | 8 | Chas McCormick, RF |
| Nicky Lopez, 2B | 9 | Cooper Hummel, LF |
| Garrett Crochet | SP | Hunter Brown |
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