Jonathan Cannon’s injury threatens to expose diminished White Sox starter depth

The White Sox's use of the opener strategy makes it harder to track down than it should be, but they have received 23 "quality starts" (outings of six innings or more, three earned runs allowed or less) from their pitching staff, even if not all of them have been actual starts.

Put the rest of the league to that same criteria, and the Sox supply of these outings are middle of the pack -- tied with Seattle for 15th place. Sure, they've only gone 10-13 in these games, but that's a lot better than 9-29 when they fail to secure such a performance.

Contrast it with a bullpen that has the seventh-highest ERA in baseball and a well-documented aversion to recording saves, the fifth-worst offense in terms of runs scored per game, and a defense that feels improved but is still bottom-10 in Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average and is tied for the third-most errors in the sport, and the rotation providing a middling level of winnable games feels like a strength of the team.

Jonathan Cannon and Martin Pérez are responsible for six of those 23 outings. Pérez is out until at least August with a flexor strain, and Cannon's lower back strain will make him unavailable for ... at least 15 days. It remains to be seen if pushing through his emerging discomfort for two unsuccessful starts will result in a more extended absence.

"It was clear just with how he was feeling that it was going to be an IL," Will Venable said Tuesday. "It's gonna be some time here, but we'll continue to see how he feels before we put a timeline on it."

The White Sox feel better than 2024. They've seen a young hitter bloom under their stewardship. They've brought up useful rookies to contribute at premium positions and still have at least one in the chamber. As the opener strategy demonstrates, they're not averse to exploring ways to disguise their deficiencies. They're also playing at a 50-win pace, receiving 10th percentile outcomes from would-be lineup stabilizers Luis Robert Jr. and Andrew Vaughn, haven't dumped talent at the trade deadline yet and are down two starters without a clear replacement. Everyone else who has accounted for the other 17 White Sox "quality starts" is already in the rotation.

"We haven't really made any decisions," Venable said of the rotation. "[Bryse Wilson] threw a lot yesterday, so he'll be down for a couple days. We'll see what tomorrow looks like, knowing that we'll be leaning on some bulk bullpen guys also. So yeah, just kind of gotta take it day by day for now."

It's hard to critique Venable for not having an answer yet. Wilson's ERA was spiked to 6.80 on the year by being asked to cover five innings on short notice Monday, but it was 6.48 over his six outings working in bulk after Pérez went down, prompting Wilson to shift his spot on the pitching rubber.

"I think I kind of fell into a little bit of a – mechanics got a little lazy, just trying to be a little too precise as a starter," Wilson said after he was taken out of the rotation. "Where I probably should have just been super aggressive just really letting it go, go for as long as I can that way. But looking forward to getting back out there."

The Cannon injury hardly sounds disastrous on its own, other than it threatens to expose the erosion of pitching depth that's lingered below the starting rotation's success. For an organization that has loaded up the depth of their pitching in the farm system, they simply lack for options that are worth pursuing.

Triple-A Charlotte has always been a graveyard for pitching, with Sox alums of Truist Field joking about how a run is added to your ERA from walking in the door. But full-season injuries to Drew Thorpe, Ky Bush, Mason Adams and Juan Carela have made it feel more literal when it comes to the withering of White Sox starter depth. Even Mike Clevinger is on the IL.

Nick Nastrini and Wikelman González have both moved to the bullpen. Jairo Iriarte has just returned to the Charlotte roster after a 7.71 ERA with the Knights prompted a sojourn to the complex in Arizona for a reset. Tyler Schweitzer just had his first good Triple-A outing after a series of shellings upon his arrival from Birmingham. Former top-100-prospect-turned-waiver-claim Owen White started out strong but has an ERA over 6.00 over his last month with the Knights. Evan McKendry, a soft-tossing changeup artist purchased from the Brewers a month ago, had arguably the best run of recent results from a Knight starter, and yielded nine runs in four innings Tuesday night before this paragraph could be completed. He seems worse for the wear.

Unlike last year, a loaded Birmingham rotation is of little consequence to White Sox starter depth, as the chances of Noah Schultz, Hagen Smith or Grant Taylor getting promoted based on major-league need are nil. Multi-inning swingman Jared Shuster and the beloved Mike Vasil are expected to shoulder a lot of bulk of Wednesday's bullpen game, and thus are a step closer to being able to cover five innings than most. Shuster is a candidate if you buy into his 2.80 FIP and revamped changeup rather than his 6.14 ERA, but it's also been four weeks since he threw 40 pitches in an outing. Vasil has only been a starter up until this season and has a wide-enough pitch mix to envision a return to the rotation at some point, but Sox coaches believe he's benefited from a slow build-up in assignment difficulty, and this would be an aggressive departure for a short-term need.

All major league needs are short-term when compared to the uncertain timeline of the White Sox rebuild/organizational overhaul. But mere weeks after the Sox walked into finding a capable starter on the cheap after Adrian Houser opted out of his Triple-A deal, the cleanest solution would be to simply pull off the same magic trick again. They're certainly not opposed to it in principle.

"We're in a position where -- whether it be the waiver wire, players that become available because of opt-outs or whatever reason -- this is a time to bring in those types," Chris Getz said after the Adrian Houser addition. "As we continue the remainder of the year, offseason, we're going to look up and find some players that can be helpful for us moving forward. We're very open-minded, and that's certainly an avenue of being able to add talent to our group."

Finding one Houser hanging around freely is a neat trick, and finding a second on the waiver wire isn't any kind of reasonable expectation. But even with the bar for reasonable expectations for this White Sox season set pretty low, with churn anticipated in the bullpen and infield, the steady supply of quality starts has been crucial for clearing it. Or as Shane Smith, another surprising source of rotation stability uncovered this year, just showed on Tuesday night, five-and-dive works too.