Baseball games are complicated.
Adam Eaton is the first to say that his place at the top of the White Sox home run leaderboard is ill-fitting, but being able to flip a Triston McKenzie changeup into the right-field bullpen is also the product of dedicated work with hitting coach Frank Menechino to keep his swing load in his back foot as he adapts to declining hand speed.
Advertisement
Dallas Keuchel placed his five-plus innings Monday night alongside his two other frustrating attempts to work deeper into games, but he found out he was filling in for Carlos Rodón no sooner than it was announced around 5 p.m. after he had thrown a bullpen on Sunday.
Even with all the dumb things that went into the White Sox winning a game 4-3 because Cleveland infielder Yu Chang threw a ball off Yasmani Grandal’s head, it doesn’t happen if Grandal isn’t always getting on base, one happy bat-flipped walk (at a league-leading rate) at a time.
With the offense still sputtering outside Eaton’s eruptions, and Keuchel pitching on normal rest in name only, Monday’s win, which returned them to .500, is the type of game they only win with a stalwart bullpen. After already enduring four more blown leads than they intended to yield all season, they offered proof of what that looks like.
“You saw the best version of us,” said Evan Marshall, who was dropped into a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the sixth and yielded only a sacrifice fly. “When it does happen, it’s good to recognize what happened tonight.”
Zoom interviews make it difficult to tell if Marshall was smelling the sage spray that closer Liam Hendriks had been spritzing on his locker to “in theory, remove negative energy.” When Hendriks was designated for assignment for the fifth time in his career in 2018, he tried everything under the sun in response — increased throwing, diving into analytics and focusing on himself mentally and emotionally.
Fittingly, after the Sox bullpen blew its league-leading fifth save on Sunday, Hendriks had a very technical concern about how an ebbing of his typically elite level of extension of his delivery was deteriorating the ride on his fastball, and not just the one that Carlos Santana parked over the center-field fence. He detailed a long and calming conversation with his trusted tarot card reader, Ruby, whom he consults to get into a positive frame of mind. He also gave a typical baseball player explanation, that perhaps the White Sox bullpen was “trying to exceed expectations, or live up to the high bar we set for ourselves.”
Advertisement
“She’s sending me some bracelets and some crystals and stuff,” Hendriks added of Ruby’s assistance.
Maybe Marshall would object to the idea that there’s a thematic throughline, but the career revitalization that built him into a trusted setup man — and not someone the Sox would stop throwing into big situations because he had yet to show his best self through three outings — included a wide arsenal that he was willing to use unpredictably. Marshall is ostensibly a sinkerballer with a plus change-up if someone were to try to pin him down, but that would ignore his willingness to use his curveball, and would leave them as unprepared as José Ramírez was for the four-seamer above the zone that Marshall used to strike him out for the first out of the sixth.
“We have reports and we look at hot and cold zones and things we can do and you can’t,” Marshall said. “You can’t pattern yourself and fall into old habits. As long as you can execute, it’s a good idea to go out there and make stuff up.”
Of course, nothing flashed in a major-league game is ever truly made up. In tearing through the final seven outs the White Sox recorded, Codi Heuer turned to his 88 mph change-up to strike out Ramírez and Franmil Reyes in the longest outing of his career. It’s a pitch that Cleveland scouting reports would have told them that Heuer threw less than 10 percent of the time, but something that he worked on all offseason to throw opposing hitters off gearing up for the velocity and tailing movement of his fastball.
“I’ll keep throwing until it falls off,” Heuer said of being tabbed to finish the ninth, after originally coming in for the last out of the seventh. “Hopefully tonight is kind of that spark that gets our bullpen going in the right direction, and we get some good mojo down there.”
It’s unlikely that Heuer — and really anyone in baseball — has put as much work as Hendriks into the concept of cultivating “good mojo,” but it’s still the overriding sentiment after a shaky start for what’s expected to be an elite unit. Aaron Bummer issuing a walk and a single to the bottom of the order, and getting lifted for Heuer before designated lefty masher Jordan Luplow could do damage, was a negative footnote from Monday night. At a career-low 43.7 percent zone rate through five appearances, Bummer seems to be dealing with a small recurrence of his issues in the minors, in which the movement on his sinker made him borderline legendary to his teammates, but harnessing it was a battle.
Advertisement
The Sox signed Bummer to an extension before last season that secured his rights through 2026. Manager Tony La Russa has praised his work even while increasingly insulating Bummer’s appearances in case of struggles. Even with Michael Kopech and Garrett Crochet thriving, the version of the team’s bullpen that doesn’t include Bummer — or even Matt Foster, who has not pitched since last Wednesday’s infamous outing — returning to standout form, includes priority adjustments they are not ready to make. This unit, and by design the more situational late-inning group of this unit, is seen as a strength.
“Top to bottom, the pitching staff is by far the most talented I’ve ever seen,” Keuchel said. “We do understand that it’s April 12, 13, not even middle of the month, so we’ve got a lot of ball left and this is going to be a different season than last. If not all of our guns are clicking on the same cylinder, it’s OK. We’re going to have a lot of time. These games are really nice because it’s just arm after arm and pretty much 95-plus mph after 95-plus.”
And they will have to be, because the offense is still missing Eloy Jiménez for the foreseeable future, Tim Anderson until Thursday, and production from left field as Andrew Vaughn struggles. Nick Williams technically put the ball in motion for the game-winner Monday night when his roller to first found Chang, and it was him the team dogpiled rather than Grandal’s dented helmet. But Yermín Mercedes aside, it’s readily acknowledged that the lineup is not carrying the Sox yet.
“I think throughout my eight years in the majors, I haven’t gotten off to a really hot start,” José Abreu said through team interpreter Billy Russo. “It’s just baseball.”
(Photo of Codi Heuer: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)