In Toronto on Monday, Pedro Grifol still wouldn't reveal who would take the White Sox rotation spot the club opened after designating Brad Keller for assignment this past weekend. Daryl Van Schouwen relayed the latest rhetoric from Rogers Centre:
“Right now, it’s TBD,” manager Pedro Grifol said before the White Sox suffered a 9-3 loss against the Blue Jays, their fourth in a row, before a Victoria Day afternoon crowd of 36,993 at Rogers Centre. “Soroka had a good appearance, but I don’t know if he’s going to be the guy we want to do that. We’ll make that move when we have to, which would be Wednesday-Thursday.”
In the process of opening and dodging questions about Keller's replacement, I think the White Sox have left plenty of room to read between two lines.
The first line: Michael Soroka would be an acceptable candidate for a spot start on Thursday, given that he pitched four scoreless innings in Keller's wake on Saturday, yet Grifol has refused to take this option on multiple occasions.
The second line: The White Sox are carrying a less-than-full 40-man roster after the Keller DFA, which has been a rarity this season.
If we only had Line 1 to weigh, then you could pretty much limit the conversation to Nick Nastrini and Jonathan Cannon. They're already on the 40-man roster, and Nastrini's looked better for another audition of late.
But once you realize that the White Sox aren't limited to 40-man roster candidates at this moment in time, it looks to me like the White Sox are going to turn to Drew Thorpe.
It's not a lock by these conditions alone. Grifol would probably be similarly cagey were the White Sox running with Nastrini, because it still requires a corresponding move, and managers typically don't invite speculation about the currently active pitchers on the chopping block.
Still, I'm thinking it's Thorpe for a few more reasons:
No. 1: White Sox Director of Player Development Paul Janish has said multiple times that you shouldn't be surprised if the team promotes directly from Birmingham.
No. 2: Thorpe would be on schedule for a Thursday start. Like Soroka, he also last pitched Saturday.
No. 3: Thorpe has been the farm system's most impressive pitching prospect, going 6-1 with a 1.50 ERA over eight starts, and with more strikeouts (40) than baserunners allowed (26 hits, 13 walks, one homer).
Thorpe briefly invited doubt two starts ago on May 12, when he lasted just two-thirds of an inning, giving up three runs on three hits and two walks against Pensacola. That's turned out to be his only non-good outing, because he bounced back on Saturday by throwing 5⅔ shutout innings against Chattanooga.
When you consider all of these circumstances and elements, I would be quite surprised if Thorpe weren't the next man up. If Grifol can be believed, we'll find out Wednesday-Thursday at the latest.
ACL Dodgers 8, ACL White Sox 5 (7 innings)
- Abraham Nunez went 1-for-4 with a walk.
- Adrian Gil, 2-for-4 with a walk and a strikeout.
- George Wolkow doubled, singled, walked, got plunked, stole a base and was caught stealing.
- Stiven Flores went 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout.
- Sean Burke: 0.2 IP, 4 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR
- Christian Oppor: 3 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 5 K
