Game Thread: White Sox (46-42) at Guardians (47-43)
· Yahoo Sports
I don’t have a lot of money, and I’m on a payment plan for my taxes this year. It’s almost done, and not particularly bad — just another bill at the end of the month.
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Except for several months now, I’ve been paying a different kind of bill at the end of each week, one that I think should count towards my tax burden: Will Venable won’t make me stop writing about openers on Sunday mornings.
Any chance I could get some kind of tax credit tacked on to next year’s federal budget? At least a break on the state level, maybe?
My primary gripe with openers isn’t that the strategy isn’t sometimes effective, it’s that it’s overly taxing on a bullpen. The logic critical to selling the idea of burning a reliever or two in the early stages of the game is that innings are innings, and it doesn’t functionally matter whether a reliever makes their appearance in the first inning or the seventh inning.
In practice, though, I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Full transparency, I’m shooting from the hip here, having not looked closely at league-wide numbers, but experientially the reality says that a starting pitcher almost never faces as many hitters as they probably would have had they actually started the game.
Take today’s presumed bulk man, Mr. Erick Fedde. One could argue that the use of the opener is the prime reason that he’s been a serviceable pitcher to this point in the season. He’s given up two or fewer runs in his last four outings as a bulk pitcher. Even if you include his eight-run clunker out of the bullpen against the Giants in May, his ERA is a solid 20 points better this year out of the bullpen than as a starter.
Nonetheless, there’s a reason that despite pitching brilliantly behind an opener — just four earned runs over 25 innings — Sean Burke still takes the ball in the first inning for most of his appearances. The problem, I’m saying, is length. Despite his good performances, Fedde has averaged 4.42 innings per appearance out of the bullpen, compared to 4.92 innings per start. Anthony Kay went three and four innings in his two bulk appearances, compared to an average of 4.81 in his starts. Jonathan Cannon’s bulk appearance this year consisted of him getting shoved into an early jam mid-inning and suffering an injury. Last season, despite being more effective behind an opener, Cannon too averaged more than a half-inning less in length than he did as a starter.
So while an opener might be a good strategy for making some of these Sox pitchers marginally more effective (note I do not say marginally like it’s a bad thing. Games are won and lost on the margins every day), it’s also measurably more taxing on a bullpen.
To that point, the White Sox bullpen and myself are the same: In no world does either one of us need to be taxed any more than they already are. It might seem marginal, but we’ve seen very clearly the last few days that we simply cannot ask these relievers to deliver any more outs than they’re already struggling to.
Simply put, they need some length out of Fedde. Today’s opener, Chris Murphy, has pitched twice in the last three days, and seems unlikely to face more than a small handful of hitters. Having also pitched twice in three days, Grant Taylor is likely unavailable. Given Cleveland’s lefty-heavy lineup, at least one of Sean Newcomb or Brandon Eisert will be asked to pitch for the third time in four days. Bryan Hudson will certainly get some burn, and he’s got an ERA of more than five with a WHIP approaching two since the start of June.
Trevor Richards remains Trevor Richards, and while Jordan Hicks has looked brilliant since returning from the IL, it’s hard to have faith in him in any kind of high-leverage situation. If there’s a close game in the late innings, we’re almost guaranteed to see Seranthony Domínguez.
Can you ask that collection of relievers to get you more than maybe six or seven outs in a tight game? I don’t know, but Fedde is going to have to do his darndest to make sure they don’t have to.
Here’s the rest of the lineup Will Venable is giving us for today’s series conclusion:
View LinkOh yeah, there is that other piece of news — Miguel Vargas is an All-Star! That makes one All-Star appearance for Vargas, which is a larger number than the cumulative non-Sox WAR of Erick Fedde, Michael Kopech, and Tommy Pham since the 2024 trade deadline. Nice to see Chris Getz’s infatuation with the 2021 preseason Top 100 prospect list bear some fruit.
We’re not going to talk about the absences of Davis Martin and Munetaka Murakami, because I want to keep the vibes good heading into this one.
Here’s what Stephen Vogt is countering with:
View LinkFirst pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m. CT at Progressive Field in downtown Cleveland. Old friend Jason Benetti will be joining us for this one, as the TV broadcast will only be available on Peacock today. Len Kasper and Darrin Jackson will still be calling the game on WMVP AM 1000 (radio), like always.
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