Pregame Notes: White Sox starters have to get right against lefties

MINNEAPOLIS – With Tuesday night’s starter Erick Fedde, to a degree with Michael Soroka, but also with Jonathan Cannon’s development of a sweeper this spring, the White Sox have cultivated a pitching staff that works east-west across the strike zone a lot of the time.

In many instances, this is a way for a team allotted a low budget from ownership to find effective pitchers at low cost, because sinker-slider types tend to not rack up the huge strikeout numbers that are highly valued. But as Cannon’s rocky Monday night drove home, these pitchers must, MUST, under penalty of gruesome death, pitch effectively up and in with velocity to left-handed hitters.

With left-handed heavy lineups in Cleveland and here in Minneapolis, it’s the difference between having a chance to win or not.

“For our east-west guys, that is the priority: We have to pitch up and in,” said pitching coach Ethan Katz. “Whether it’s cutter, four-seam, sinker up at the top, we have to be cognizant so they can’t get to that [offspeed] down and away. It was really apparent [Monday night] with [Alex] Kiriloff. We give him two sinkers in, he stands off the plate, he’s jumping back. Then we go back with the changeup yet again and he hits it for a double. He told us everything. We just have to stick with it. The approach they had against him was pretty easy to read. We have to continue to coach it up and continue to work on that development with our catchers and our pitchers.”

“I thought the changeup overall was pretty good yesterday,” Cannon said Tuesday. “They were really looking for that pitch over the plate, down and away, and they did a really good job of covering it. I thought I threw some good ones yesterday that got hit, and that was just from the lack of command of that up and in four[-seamer]. They were able to kind of sit on that pitch down and away and able to cover that pitch. I thought they hit some that they probably shouldn't hit and that just goes back to them being a little too comfortable.”

Lefties are hitting .220/.319/.537 against Fedde so far this year, accounting for five of the seven extra-base hits he has allowed. He has a cutter in his arsenal to work with, but it's his fourth pitch.

The sinker-heavy approach of the staff is driving the Sox to have Martín Maldonado operate from a one-knee setup a lot more this season than he's probably used to, in an effort to frame low strikes. It’s an evolution in style for Maldonado, whose career encompasses the duration of the run on four-seam fastballs thrown at the top of the zone. 

The less outwardly spoken element is that with Maldonado being at 37 years of age and with his framing numbers in steep decline, the Sox are thinking in terms of how they can achieve improvement in terms of his setups rather than relying on quick reactions and pure athleticism.

“As you get older, some of those things tend to be a little bit slower, so it’s about putting him in position to be at this best,” said catching coach Drew Butera. “With the staff we have right now, I think one knee is the way to go. It’s matching setups to pitches, to pitchers, to umpires' zones.”

Pedro Grifol reiterated that Chris Flexen is starting on Friday, and acknowledged that Brad Keller starting Tuesday night with the Charlotte Knights would put him in line to pitch this weekend if needed. But obviously Cannon is still with the team and has not been nudged from the rotation as of yet. Mike Clevinger will need to pitch with Charlotte first before he’s under consideration to join the major league team.

Danny Mendick’s migration to the No. 2 spot in the batting order is about Robbie Grossman getting a day off, just as Andrew Benintendi got an off day on Monday. The Sox offense has not given Grifol any reason to stop mashing buttons with different lineup setups. But he also had a hard time envisioning a near future with his current group where he’s not shuffling things around day to day.

“Unless we have guys like [Yoán] Moncada, [Luis] Robert and some of these guys. I like mixing and matching depending on the pitcher arsenal, what we feel is the best lineup to attack that certain pitcher. Unless we get those guys back and take on that 2, 3, 4 spot in the order, we’re probably going to be mixing and matching.”

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