Hawk Harrelson liked to say ...
... Wait, come back! I think I have a point! ...
Hawk Harrelson liked to say, "It's not who you play, it's when you play them," and the sentiment rings true because it's nearly impossible to be false. The "when" applies to both teams involved.
For instance, the White Sox lost three of four games to a Royals team that went 1-3 in the four games beforehand, and 0-4 in the ones that followed. The White Sox did not seem to catch Kansas City at an inopportune time, at least as it pertains to the Royals. But given that the White Sox dropped to 13-26 after that particular series, you could make the argument that their ill-fitting and misfiring roster made it a poor time for them to play the Royals, the Rays, or any team in between. Hell, the Charlotte Knights might threaten to steal a series.
But if you can isolate the 2023 White Sox's unique ability to curdle conventional wisdom and treat that mantra as a pithy reflection of a mindset, then this series against the Guardians counts as When You Play Them as much as anything.
On Tuesday morning, I wrote about wanting to see Michael Kopech against the Cleveland offense. He allows tons of screamers, and the Guardians swing at pitches they can touch, but can't damage. Which party would make the other feel even worse? We'll never know.
Now take that lineup that got contact high on its own contact supply, subtract José Ramírez for the entire series due to bereavement leave, then remove Josh Naylor due to leg tightness before he has a chance to hit a scoreboard-flipping eighth-inning homer for the fourth game in a row, and it's hard to draw up a better time to face this particular team.
Lance Lynn might've provided a fine simulation of Kopech's fate with his performance on Tuesday. They both entered this series after miserable first quarters, with the only difference being balls in play:
| Pitcher | IP | H | HR | BB | K | BABIP | ERA | FIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kopech | 42.1 | 38 | 12 | 28 | 41 | .365 | 5.74 | 7.32 |
| Lynn | 44.1 | 54 | 11 | 17 | 54 | .243 | 7.51 | 5.31 |
Some of that's luck, unless you think that some of Lynn's struggles can be attributed to stretch mechanics. He came into the game allowing a .420/.467/.754 line with men on base. That's how you get baseball's sixth-worth strand rate among pitchers with at least 40 innings under their belts.
That tendency wasn't really tested on Tuesday because Lynn retired the first 11 batters he faced, then limited the Guardians to two-out singles while the game was close. Then the White Sox opened up a 6-0 lead for him, and while it wasn't quite the 11-run outburst Kopech received, he still had the benefit of pitching to the score afterwards.
For what it's worth, Lynn said he saw what he needed to see regardless of the competition:
“All pitches were better,” Lynn said, after striking out seven. “The axises and spins were where they needed to be, with movement patterns that I would like, which are back to … I was getting a little crossfired and doing some things which was making my four-seam cut and my sinker not sink like it needs to. I was able to get back and the four-seam was where it needed to be tonight.”
Maybe that's true, or maybe the Guardians just didn't have the firepower to coax out the mistakes that sank Lynn in previous starts, but I wouldn't waste the energy making such determinations. In order for that to matter, we'd first have to trust that Lynn will maintain such execution for consecutive starts, and we're not there yet.
What's more important is that Lynn triumphed at this particular time, because the Guardians easily could played the when-you-play-them card by trouncing the version of Lynn who makes Dallas Keuchel comparisons a little too convenient. If Lynn had more left in the tank, the circumstances made Tuesday night the perfect time to show that. Those mean, mean Royals are next, and if Lynn has corrected course, they won't be able to scout him off the guy they saw the last time.
