The worst first half of Andrew Benintendi's baseball career could find his swing looking different from week to week, day to day, at-bat to at-bat.
"I was in between a toe tap and a leg kick," Benintendi said. "I was doing the leg kick, and then when that wasn't going well, which it didn't, I would go to a toe tap. When that didn't go, I'd go back to a leg kick, and it was never finding the right timing. Because obviously they're different and the timing is going to be different."
In the age-old quest for hitters to allow themselves to be quick enough to stay on the fastball, but build in a mechanism for staying back on offspeed pitches, the leg kick is the larger movement. And for my money, Benintendi looks a bit more awkward staying back on offspeed here with the toe tap, even while homering, but since this is a clip of literally the last moment he was on the field before hitting the IL with left Achilles tendinitis...
...it shouldn't mean that much that his leg kick looked a bit more natural. When it was working, at least, which he made clear wasn't often enough.
Both are these are just provided for visual reference, because Benintendi's .201/.258/.311 first half rendered the debate between them moot. If either one could provide consistency, the 30-year-old would have ridden one for something better than self-described "miserable" results.
And the real reason a visual reference is necessary is to better appreciate the way Benintendi has channeled the little girl from the Old El Paso commercial and is now "meshing the two, and sticking with it." With 12 home runs in the second half, wresting away control of the team home run lead from Paul DeJong for good, Benintendi has provided a much more robust sample of what his best swing looks like.
"The good thing that's happened in the past six weeks is I've found my stance, whereas before I was in between a toe tap and a leg kick, and now I've found something I think is repeatable. Now that I've done it long enough, the timing of it is pretty good."
It's probably not as satisfying as being one behind his career high in homers, or being two more hot weeks from salvaging a league average offensive season, but Benintendi also has a stronger argument than ever that his first half struggles weren't due to his Achilles, since he's adamant that it definitely still hurts throughout posting a .268/.340/.531 line since the All-Star break.
"I think just being able to play through it and be out there while playing hurt, which everybody in here is, is key."
How Jairo Iriarte was together enough to throw 126 above-average innings in Double-A, but could still be considered very raw is something that's hard to visualize until you see it.
In three appearances with Chicago, Iriarte's lively stuff has crackled to the tune of allowing just one hit and one earned run. But he's also walked six of the 16 hitters he's faced. The thing that might mark him most as a pitcher in progress is his four-seam fastball registering as a sinker on the broadcast and on Statcast at times.
That's not intentional.
"His fastball last year had 16 [inches of inverted vertical break] of ride. This year when he first got up here in the bullpen, he was throwing them at five to seven," said pitching coach Ethan Katz. "So we've been trying to work on getting his fingers on top of the ball a bit more. It's been anywhere from 12-to-16, so it's improved. We're still looking to get a little bit more of what it was last year."
The variance has at least prompted the Sox to consider whether Iriarte's arm action is such that a sinker would work for him better, but their belief is that he's best suited trying to throw riding four-seamers from the unique angles his delivery and athleticism offer long-term. The final two weeks are dedicated to getting his mechanics back to where he'll be throwing true four-seamers during his offseason work.
Justin Anderson had 10 straight scoreless appearances in late-June, but had his season ERA spiked back over 5.00 two appearances into July. He was largely excellent in August (2.15 ERA) but ended the month by launching into a stretch of being scored on three times in four appearances.
The 31-year-old right-hander recently found himself being tabbed to close out wins as often as the 2024 White Sox allow of late, but then faced four hitters without getting an out on Saturday night. The whole picture makes it hard to come to a firm conclusion about a reliever who has kept runs off the board at a league average rate -- 4.26 ERA over 50⅔ innings--but has shown stretches of being capable of more.
Armed with a tweak to his sinker that Brian Bannister gave him in the spring, which Anderson feels so good about that he declined to reveal it, he offers two different fastballs and now mixes in a cutter to left-handers. That combination has taken some burden off the slider he used to throw 60 percent of the time, which in turn has meaningfully lowered his walk rate to 12.8 percent, which is both a career best, but also too high for someone whose current velocity and bat-missing ability are more good than great.
But this is Anderson's first major league season in five years. He has the time removed and perspective to view the 2020 Tommy John surgery and rehabilitation process as a positive for his career. He does not have the same feelings toward a 2022 subscapularis injury in his throwing shoulder and a related setback that had him unemployed and searching for a way to throw in front of teams deep into 2023.
"I didn't have a job until the first week of June," Anderson said. "I called a scout and he came and watched me and I had a job within 24 hours, thankfully."
Through all the years of injury and rehab, Anderson has had plenty of time to mull over the intricacies of his delivery for weaknesses and inefficiencies. While he believes ironing them out has and will ultimately make him more consistent at getting outs, the number he might most be inclined to look at is 52 appearances. Five years removed from his last big league season, Anderson is five short of matching a career-high for workload.
"I had a farm director who said he only cared about games played," Anderson said. "Because honestly if you're out there every day, ready to go, you have a chance to help the team win. That's a valuable asset every night and every day."
