HOUSTON — The White Sox relief corps makes a point of walking out to the bullpen together. They have to wait for the warming starter to clear out, after all. But the closer has always taken his sweet time walking out to the bullpen in the middle of the game, which may be more necessary than ever.
“It gives them a break from me, which I think is necessary for everybody,” said Liam Hendriks. “I don’t think many people can handle me for nine innings. It’s the same at all times and it never really changes, and that’s a lot.”
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Hendriks is more responsible for the end-of-game ritual of waiting for each other and leaving as a group. That quickly became symbolic as Aaron Bummer endured April control issues followed by a slate of hard-luck outings, and the right-handed setup crew struggled through a rough start to the season that has Evan Marshall, Codi Heuer and Matt Foster all entering mid-June with ERAs over 5.00.
“We’re all in this together,” said Hendriks. “We all go as a unit and that’s the way we do everything.”
“It’s still the most talented group I’ve ever been around,” said Marshall.
As the White Sox learned Tuesday that Nick Madrigal is indeed out for the season, continue to wait through the long recoveries of Eloy Jiménez and Luis Robert and even gritted through a showdown with the reigning AL champion Rays without Yoán Moncada due to a sinus infection, they know one of the league’s best offenses will have some lean nights ahead. But the dominant bullpen they envisioned still has room to step up. Or maybe they feel like they already have begun to.
Last Friday’s save in Detroit was big for Bummer — he responded to Tony La Russa’s and his teammates’ trust immediately, and Danny Mendick diving to scoop up Jonathan Schoop’s game-ending hot grounder up the middle was penance for every weak 10-hopper he wished were hit harder. But it was not just that he recovered after walking Tigers catcher Jake Rogers before slicing his way through Robbie Grossman and Harold Castro, it was the way he did it. Bummer walked Rogers, because, despite all the weighted ball work to strengthen his glove arm in his delivery, he had lost command of his sinker and was spraying it wide of the zone.
When that starts happening, it’s supposed to be curtains for him.
“I would have been screwed,” Bummer said when asked how he would have responded to such a situation in 2018, or even his breakout 2019. “I don’t know what I would have done.”
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Instead, Bummer threw sliders on six of his next 10 pitches, trusting himself both to command the wipeout breaking ball he’s worked to add over the last two years, but also to get his release point right by pitching backward. Even at a much improved 31.9 percent strikeout rate for the season and more ability to hunt for a finishing pitch when the opportunity is there, Bummer still sees the best version of himself getting early weak contact on the ground (league-leading 74.6 percent ground-ball rate) with the sinker. He also has to live with the uncertainty of relying on balls on play, which was immediately exposed again on Wednesday when a Mendick error led to two game-tying unearned runs. But he wants to rely on the tools he’s developed when his top weapon is on the fritz.
“Seeing Bummer come out and throwing three pretty much off-speed pitches for strikes, he’s getting dialed in and that has to be a scary feeling for opposing teams,” said Dallas Keuchel.
“Bummer is still a top five-reliever in the whole game for me,” said Marshall. “And Liam maybe is top two. I’ve never seen anybody quite like him. So when it comes to talent, I think we’re a group as good or better than anybody. You have to take some bumps. It’s better, I guess if they’re early to figure out what’s going on.”
Marshall’s return to form is blotted by a two-home run outing against the Tigers on June 4. And depending on your perspective, maybe Manuel Margot fouling off a series of two-strike pitches before lining a game-tying double off Marshall in the eighth on Wednesday, stands out more than Marshall coming back out for the ninth and striking out Randy Arozarena and Mike Brousseau to keep the game tied. Either way, those results, and everything since May 15, are results Marshall can live with.
In another view of how spring training results can be misleading, Marshall was so dominant in the Cactus League that by his assessment, he started experimenting with trying to add extra action and finish to his pitches, subsequently throwing off his mechanics. Reviewing his mechanics revealed that his delivery had become infested with side-to-side movement, and back-to-back two-walk outings in early May prompted him to install delivery adjustments. Since then, he’s walked one hitter and struck out 17 in 12 2/3 innings, not allowing an earned run in 10 of 12 appearances.
“When you’re side-to-side you have misses in the batter’s box on both sides, because you’re either early or late, pulling it or leaving it out there,” said Marshall, who has reported a small velocity spike alongside better control. “I was more upright. I’ve always been a drop and drive guy. And I got away from that trying to do these other things. I went back to compressing on my back leg and springing forth the plate more. That took my energy to the plate where at release point, I’m just in a much better position.”
Marshall also reached the point of deciding to employ the game-planning service Codify, which is already used by Hendriks, Lucas Giolito, Dylan Cease and Yasmani Grandal. He views that information as largely common sense — as a sinker-heavy guy with a great changeup, he already understood that hitting the low corners was important. But he appreciates the informed feel on when to pop out the occasional high four-seamer or who might be better suited for a curveball than a changeup.
“It’s a nice tool, and the guy’s got a pretty big brain, and I appreciate what he does,” Marshall said. “In the end, Liam and me, we still have to go out there and execute the pitch. It could tell me that a guy’s got a hole for sink down and in. But if I throw it right down the middle, it gets hit always.”
Bummer and Marshall have clearly emerged as the experienced pairing that La Russa prefers as the seventh- and eighth-inning bridge to Hendriks, who has his own mechanical corrections boiled down to a series of quick physical cues, like smacking himself on the chest or thigh if he thinks either area is leaking forward in his delivery. In rare instances, Hendriks will lightly rap his knuckles against his jaw if he feels he’s pulling his head off the target, but for many reasons that one is rarely seen. Primarily, you don’t win American League reliever of the month or walk less than 3 percent of opposing hitters if you are consistently dealing with a head whack in your delivery.
But the strength of this unit was supposed to be about the depth it offered. There wasn’t supposed to be recurring angst about La Russa’s willingness to deploy Hendriks beyond the final three outs of the game, because the dropoff in confidence to Marshall, Bummer, Heuer, Foster, Garrett Crochet and Michael Kopech was supposed to be small enough that it seemed like a fair question in December whether signing Hendriks was the best use of resources. The relief corps still has that view.
“There’s a whole bunch of guys down there that wouldn’t say they’re happy with the way that they’ve thrown the ball as a collective, (for the) whole season,” said Bummer, who emphasized that himself included, much of the bullpen has never pitched a full 162-game schedule. “We have the talent out there to dominate the back end of games and keep us in everything that we can, so right now it might not be everyone that’s feeling that way, but by the end of the day and by the time that September, October rolls around, we’re going to be in the spot where we want to be.”
An eventual return of Kopech’s multi-inning services could clarify the bridge to Hendriks once or twice per week. He’s more of an occasional weapon than someone who can work back-to-back days, but that awkwardness is mitigated when you have two such guys. The form Crochet has shown since loading the bases and retiring no one against the Cardinals on May 25 (9 2/3 innings, 12 strikeouts, three walks and one earned run allowed), has his teammates convinced he belongs in high-leverage spots as much as anyone.
“He was so much better than all the players that he just faced,” Marshall said of Crochet’s rough outing against the Cardinals. “And that’s the mental game. He is on his way to recognizing just how special he is. And that there should be no fear out there.”
“All of Garrett’s stuff plays within the zone so well,” said Bummer, whose point was not disproven by Arozarena hitting the first home run Crochet’s ever allowed on a pitch a foot off the plate.
Crochet has largely piled up great results (0.81 ERA) amid small concerns, like his velocity dipping into the high-90s, more of the control blips that were expected of him last year, and some fielding mistakes. But the full realization of the bullpen’s depth potential largely lies in other talented youngsters figuring it out over the course of their first full seasons.
Everyone thinks the world of Heuer, who dominated in the minors upon converting to relief, but is seeing his high-90s sinker hit hard (.419 batting average, .661 slugging percentage against). Pitching coach Ethan Katz has said diversifying his pitch mix after his first turn through the league is necessary and Heuer has shown much more of a promising changeup, but has not seen better results for his heater yet.
“Codi should have an ERA that’s the same as Crochet’s; that’s how good he is,” Marshall said. “That’s what the big leagues do to you. Now you’re (under) the big spotlight where everyone’s studying everything you do, and they formulate a game plan about what to do against you. It’s going to happen for his entire career, my entire career, everybody’s career. They’re always making little adjustments against you and you have to figure out how to get them out. You’re starting to see Matt Foster, you know, after not throwing for 13 days comes back and pitches two scoreless innings for us, same for Ryan Burr.”
It wouldn’t have been surprising in 2018 to hear that three years later, Burr would be tabbed to pitch a scoreless 10th for a contending White Sox team against another AL contender. But after Tommy John surgery, rehabbing during the pandemic shutdown and a rough spring training, Burr started the year off the 40-man roster. His strikeout of Austin Meadows on Wednesday was followed by a fly out to the wall and a lineout, but through 5 1/3 innings of scoreless ball since he was called up, Burr has at least temporarily represented what the 2020 bullpen had in droves but this year is searching for: a surprise contributor.
“I went out there and just tried to make my pitches,” Burr said. “Some were good, some were bad. But we came out on top.”
That’s been how the White Sox have gotten off to a start as good as could have been reasonably hoped for, but the bullpen still has another level to reach to not only make things easier going forward, but to hold up to the test that they know is awaiting them from their playoff experience last year. They’ll need more than just a dominant closer, and no one knows that more than Hendriks.
“Liam is big on coming back in together, doing things as a unit,” said Bummer. “Which I’m a fan of, because we’re out there by ourselves for three or four hours a night. We’re going to go out there and ride it out together.”
(Photo of the White Sox relievers: Ron Vesely / Getty Images)