Pregame Notes: Lefties force Jonathan Cannon’s first adjustments

Sorry to everyone for that Jonathan Cannon call-up preview a week or so ago that talked about a power curveball he worked on through the offseason. In between that spring training interview and Cannon's debut, Brian Bannister got his hands on the 23-year-old right-hander.

"We identified that the sweeper was probably the best pitch for my arsenal," Cannon said. "I already had a grip in mind [Author's note: Of course he did. This man loves making new pitches], we made a couple tweaks to it to get a little more consistent and be able to command a little bit better. I wouldn't say it's a new pitch for me, but the quantity in which I'm throwing it is definitely new. But I really like it."

With Cannon leaning into his sinker and developing his changeup to really fade to the arm side, the sweeper is designed to provide a mirror image movement profile to the glove side. And since Cannon already relies on his cutter a lot, the sweeper provides a change of pace to his pitches that move to the glove side. All told, it's a pretty gnarly profile for right-handers to deal with, as evidenced by them hitting .188/.235/.250 against Cannon over his first two major league starts.

Of course, Cannon's ERA got to 7.27 somehow, and it was largely via the wave of left-handed hitters the Twins threw at him, with bat paths that are more able to handle a sinker-sweeper profile. While a lot was made about the White Sox not attacking Minnesota's off-speed vulnerabilities enough, Cannon felt he threw good changeups, but that Twins hitters were not shy about leaning out and attacking off-speed pitches on the outer half.

There was a reason for that. Cannon was not able to effectively use elevated velocity to set up his secondary weapons.

"They tend to see the sinker a little bit better and you have to keep them off of it, and that's when the cutter comes into play: it's really important to get up and under their hands so I can throw that changeup low and away," Cannon said. "I thought I threw some good ones that got hit and that was just from the lack of command on that up and in corner. They were able to sit on that pitch down and away and were able to cover that pitch. I thought they hit some that they probably shouldn't have hit. That just goes back to them being too comfortable in the box."

While he's dinged by scouts for not missing enough bats, Cannon has tools to work up and in. Erick Fedde had tremendous success the following night throwing his cutter up and in to Twins hitters, and Cannon has at least as much trust and comfort with his own. And while his sinker regularly sits in the low-90s, Cannon can work up to 97 mph with his four-seamer. He actually throws his sinker at less than 100 percent effort because he likes the action on it more when he takes something off.

It's just a case of needing glove side command above the belt. Easier said than done.

It seemed important to write up this look at Cannon now, because it's hard to say how much longer his current stint in the majors will go. Mike Clevinger appears to have on more start at Triple-A before he would be ready for Chicago, and Brad Keller threw 95 pitches in his last outing with the Knights.

"We have ideas already," Pedro Grifol said of the looming starting rotation decisions. He made it clear that the White Sox will not run a six-man rotation.

"The six-man hurts the bullpen a little bit. Our bullpen is somewhat taxed. When you have a short start, it hurts your bullpen. You have a couple, two out of five, you are treading water a little bit. That’s with eight guys. If you run a six-man rotation, it’s tough to run it with seven unless you have guys that are going into the seventh, and right now we’ve had guys with good outings but we have very few seven-inning starts."

It's especially hard to trust a starter into the seventh when having something as generous as a three-run lead to work with is as frequent as a visible meteor shower, but managers aren't encouraged to slag the offense on record needlessly.

Even with Tommy Pham becoming the regular center fielder for now, a commitment to Andrew Benintendi and Andrew Vaughn as everyday regulars and Eloy Jiménez's justified hold of the DH spot (he's homered three times in the past week) will put everyone else in competition for right field starts.

"I like Grossman’s at-bats, I really do," Grifol said. "But he’s not just going to take Sheets’ at-bats. I’ll sprinkle him in there. Obviously against every lefty [Grossman is] going to be in there. I like his at-bats from the left side too. I’m going to make sure it’s a good way to give guys an opportunity to rest. Vaughny will have a day once in a while, and move Sheets to first and Grossman in right.

"Beni will have a day once in a while. Grossman will play left. Let’s not forget [Rafael] Ortega. I like Ortega. I think Ortega is a really good player. He’ll be a part of games late. I love the at-bat he took yesterday. He’s a threat on the bases. So, you know. I’m going to sprinkle them all in."

That works for now, but when Robert returns and there are just two corner spots to divvy up between Sheets, Grossman, Pham and Benintendi, that's when the real fun conversations begin. Of course, that's not usually how player health works over a six-month season.

Vaughn has been trying to improve his pitch selection by "seeing it deeper," so his double to right-center on Thursday, and his sacrifice fly to right on Friday are some byproducts of that recent work.

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