White Sox bullpen might be all right without best lefties

If you'd told me entering the season that the White Sox bullpen suddenly became a lot more rickety while injuries forced Jace Fry into the most vital lefty situations, I'd expect those developments to be intimately connected. After all, Fry threw fewer strikes than any White Sox pitcher with a comparable amount of pitches in recent history just last year.

But those facts are independent from each other. Fry found a way to make a living in the era of the three-batter minimum. After a couple of ugly outings against the Royals and Brewers to open August, he'd rallied by throwing nine truly scoreless innings (3-for-3 in stranding inherited runners) over his eight most recent appearances. He'd struck out 11 hitters against nine baserunners over 8⅓ innings, and one of those walks was a terrific idea, taking the form of an intentional pass to Nelson Cruz with two outs and a lefty on deck.

It wasn't Bummer's brand of attacking hitters, but Fry wasn't as wary of the strike zone as last year. He improved his strike-thrown rate from 55.8 percent to 59.7 percent, which allowed him to pull his strike rate out of crisis territory (17.5 percent to 11.5 percent). He'd reclaimed his status as a good second lefty option, and was holding his own during Bummer's absence.

Alas, the White Sox are now without either lefty. The White Sox placed Fry on the injured list retroactive to Sept. 3 with back spasms prior to Saturday's game. Bummer won't be replacing him, because the Sox shifted him to the 45-day injured list as he deals with nerve issues after his biceps strain.

Rick Renteria is going to have to scramble, because there isn't much left in the way of lefties. In fact, the White Sox called up righty Alex McRae to take Fry's spot, which probably means that Bernardo Flores Jr. is hanging around for a bit. For the time being, Ross Detwiler gets the first shot at important lefty work, but he made his first appearance in that role on Saturday night, and it didn't go well. He induced a groundout from Alex Gordon, but gave up a single to Adalberto Mondesi, and, after picking off Mondesi, walked Bubba Starling.

Neither Detwiler nor Flores has a history of getting swinging strikes out of the bullpen, and the lack of proven arms behind Fry was why I thought Adalberto Mejía had a good shot of advancing out of the pool of non-roster invitees, but he's been the one guy who isn't taking advantage of the Year of the AAAA Player. The White Sox granted him his release a couple of weeks ago in order to use the spot in Schaumburg on younger lefty Kodi Medeiros.

The good news is that, at least to date, left-handed hitters haven't fazed the White Sox's right-handed relievers. Looking at the splits of the White Sox righties to date, Renteria shouldn't feel cornered if he has to use most of them against another team's lefty.

Cordero is the only one with pronounced splits, which makes sense, given the diminished effectiveness of his changeup. He's also the only White Sox reliever of any hand who has allowed a homer to a left-handed hitter. As for the rest of the pool, the walk rates are the only number that tread into undesirable territory. It's even surprising seeing Cishek up there, but it kinda makes sense in hindsight, given that his biggest problem is hanging sliders armside, which end up inside to righties. That's not a pitch lefties will crush.

Renteria just has to be on guard against regression, but that's not something he can really game-plan around. If the White Sox bullpen has a weakness, it's that they don't have a couple of fastball-slider whiff monsters for high leverage in the late innings. The White Sox are maybe a little too reliant on cutters, sinkers and changeups for comfortable high-leverage reliability, but here's one benefit of that approach. If the Sox find themselves missing Bummer and Fry over the last third of the season, it's probably more because they're MLB-caliber arms, regardless of what side of body they're on.