Michael Soroka's five-inning White Sox debut on Saturday featured no strikeouts, three swinging strikes in 77 pitches and also Pedro Grifol suggesting postgame about as strongly as he could without breaking decorum that his starter was tipping pitches during a three-run first-inning ambush.
Soroka induced nine ground-ball outs, but it wasn't the sort of outing that enables clear pronouncements about the spring training work to reclaim his sinker.
Erick Fedde's Easter Sunday White Sox debut was not subjected to the same sort of hostile takeover, but had enough jarring tonal changes to suggest a first-time director was at the helm.
Even if Fedde's line -- 4⅔ IP, 5 H, 2 ER, BB, 7 K, 2 HR -- had the good, the bad, and the facts of life, the shift from three innings of cruising, an interminable grind/gutty escape of a fourth and well-timed early pull from Pedro Grifol lent the feel of more of a "first impression" than "representative sample."
"We're going to have games where you start to watch a game and it's going to feel like half an hour later and you're in the seventh inning," Grifol assured postgame Sunday. "He just pounds the strike zone. He uses his defense. He puts balls in play. He's got some weapons to strike some people out, but he's not afraid of contact. The way we catch the ball, he's going to be very successful for us."
Luckily Fedde has the statistics pulled from an MVP season in the KBO rather than just Grifol's endorsement to point to the long-term command benefits of embracing the east-west orientation of his delivery and pitch movement profile, because the aesthetics of a well-located fastball with arm-side run are distractingly pleasant. I'd be tempted to tell a guy to keep throwing this pitch even if one out of every three was getting parked onto the Dan Ryan Expressway.
On top of embracing a horizontally-inclined sinker-sweeper bread and butter, the Logan Webb-styled split change is the addition to Fedde's quiver that made him viable to deal with left-handers in multiple trips through the order. When he dirted one to fall behind lefty thumper Kerry Carpenter to open the fourth, it ultimately served as a harbinger.
"Throws another fork in the road for him," said catcher Korey Lee of Fedde's split-change. "It keeps them off-balanced, keeps the hitters thinking about what’s going to come. It’s an option we can use to righties and lefties and his two-seam and slider plays a bunch off the changeup."
Had Carpenter tomahawking a plate-splitting full count sweeper above the zone for a no-doubt solo shot been the only hang-up of the fourth, Fedde's stuff looked sharp enough to pitch into the sixth. But Riley Greene was able to turn an 0-2 count into a seven-pitch battle until Fedde found a splitter worthy of ending matters, Mark Canha singled on a middle-bound sinker, and a pitch-timer violation keyed a walk to rookie Colt Keith. Gio Urshela's lineout on a plate-splitting sinker at the knees would have been scarier in a previous era of White Sox right fielders, but by the time Fedde found a perfect foil and spammed Javy Báez with sweepers for six of seven pitches, he had exhausted 32 offerings to escape the frame, which transformed the shape of his day.
"I was going from 1-2 counts to 3-2, which is what got me out of the game early, which is something I’m frustrated with," Fedde said. "Just wasn’t really landing my off-speed when I was ahead in the count. Just one of those things when you’re trying too hard to get a strikeout when contact might be better. I've got to do better about landing my sweeper and getting quicker outs."
Tigers catcher Jake Rogers led off the fifth by whipping another full count plate-splitting sweeper into the Sox bullpen, which Fedde essentially described as too much of a get-me-over. Two full counts ending in the same pitch getting whacked is almost assuredly an aberration, and two solo shots usually do not amount to a bad day, but it is a prickly point in watching what is essentially a brand new Erick Fedde in the majors. (It also meant Fedde would have had to face Carpenter a third time in order to complete five frames, which Grifol deserves a nod for interrupting in a one-run game)
The 31-year-old right-hander racked up a 70 percent ground ball rate in the KBO with an approach that some scouts described as essentially tailor-made for a more contact-oriented league. Back stateside, the punishment for mistake pitches are more severe and the quick outs on the ground figure to be in shorter supply. After getting just two groundouts all day, it's certainly what Fedde felt was missing from the equation.
"It’s the big leagues for a reason," Fedde said when I asked about the difference between leagues. "There’s plenty of quality hitters. It’s the best in the world. I try not to think too much about the difference and just execute my pitches. But I think overall, just maybe shying away from contact more than I should have. I just kept pulling my sweeper over the left side to the point where it wasn’t competitive today."
The Sox are in no position to poke fun at the Austin Meadows-Andy Ibañez leadoff platoon after Sunday, but the Tigers probably aren't the biggest offensive juggernaut Fedde will face until more of their prospects mature. Still, the biggest question after a free-agent pitching signing debuts is probably some dressed up version of, "Does his stuff play?"
To that end, Fedde's 31 percent rate of called strikes and whiffs was a touch north of what Blake Snell averaged last season. In a normal world, that would come down as the ground balls increase. In this world we share with the White Sox, well, we'll just have to see how it shakes out.
"On the way out, he said, 'I wish I could get those two pitches back,'" Grifol said. "My answer to him is 'You pitched a hell of a ballgame. Let's build from here and keep going.'"
