Before he was "The Dragonslayer" and the winner of
Game 3 in this year's NLCS, Josh Fogg was a well-respected, if not terribly exciting, White Sox pitching prospect. Unfortunately, he spent only one month in a White Sox uniform before being shipped to Pittsburgh as part of the ill-fated Todd Ritchie trade.
During that month, however, Fogg made a considerable impact. He could make a claim as one of the five greatest White Sox September call-ups in the last 50 years.
The guidelines behind the list are pretty specific:
No. 1: Only true September call-ups count. Cisco Carlos was virtually a call-up in 1967, but he made his debut on Aug. 25. Same goes for
Magglio Ordonez and his 1997 (Aug. 29).
No. 2: Only first Septembers count. Bruce Howard was dynamite in his call-up in 1964, allowing only two runs and 10 hits over 22 1/3 innings, including a two-hitter on the final day of the season. Unfortunately -- at least as far as this list is concerned -- he was called up the year before.
The pool of qualified candidates thins considerably after applying those two rules. The players who are most likely to dominate in their first taste of big-league ball are called up well before the final month of the season.
But thanks to "Urban Faber" at
Baseball Think Factory, who gave me this idea, at least we have something Sox-specific to talk about. So here's what's left (in reverse chronological order):
Lance Broadway, 2007
2007 |
W-L |
ERA |
G |
IP |
H |
ER |
BB |
K |
|
1-1 |
0.87 |
3 |
10.1 |
5 |
1 |
5 |
14 |
See what I was saying about a small pool? I used 10 innings as a cutoff, and Broadway barely clears it. Then again, he did have
the second-best first start of any Sox pitcher in the last 10 years, so that has to count for something.
Josh Fogg, 2001
2001 |
W-L |
ERA |
G |
IP |
H |
ER |
BB |
K |
|
0-0 |
2.03 |
11 |
13.1 |
10 |
3 |
3 |
17 |
Fogg's outstanding major league debut -- four strikeouts over 1 1/3 scoreless innings -- came on
a day when good pitching was hard to find. The White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians 19-10, in which the Indians scored six runs in the top of the second, only to be trailing by two when the Sox answered with eight runs in the bottom of the inning. It's something that doesn't look as strange since the
Sox and Yankees traded eight runs in early August.
Fogg hasn't come close to matching that strikeout rate, for what it's worth.
Craig Wilson, 1998
| 1998 |
AB |
H |
2B |
3B |
HR |
RBI |
BA |
OBP |
SLG |
| Craig Wilson |
47 |
22 |
5 |
0 |
3 |
10 |
.468 |
.490 |
.766 |
A 27-year-old rookie, Wilson hit the ground running in '98 with
a three-hit debut -- two doubles and a homer in four at-bats against the Yankees. He'd top it nine days later with a two-homer game in
a 17-16 victory over Detroit,
as Wilson drove in five runs with four hits (and stole a base to
boot). He also didn't commit an error at the three infield positions
he played.
Jack McDowell, 1987
1987 |
W-L |
ERA |
G |
IP |
H |
ER |
BB |
K |
|
3-0 |
1.93 |
4 |
28 |
16 |
6 |
6 |
15 |
Oddly enough,
the only game McDowell didn't win during his September call-up was also his finest outing -- seven scoreless innings, over which he allowed only two hits and three walks while striking out seven.
His September performance capped off a year that would be hard for any rookie to top --
he picked up the win for Stanford in the NCAA championship game that year,
made two starts in rookie ball and four in Birmingham, and then joined the Sox in the final month of the season. No wonder he struggled with a tired arm in 1988.
Greg Walker, 1982
| 1982 |
AB |
H |
2B |
3B |
HR |
RBI |
BA |
OBP |
SLG |
Greg Walker
|
17 |
7 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
7 |
.412 |
.474 |
1.000 |
Considering Walker didn't make his debut until Sept. 18, he did a nice job making up for lost time. He singled
in his first at-bat, a pinch-hitting appearance, and got his second hit nine days later with
a pinch-hit, bases-clearing double.
Nyls Nyman, 1974
| 1974 |
AB |
H |
2B |
3B |
HR |
RBI |
BA |
OBP |
SLG |
Nyls Nyman
|
14 |
9 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
4 |
.643 |
.667 |
.929 |
If you don't count
his pinch-running appearance in his major-league debut, the 20-year-old Nyman played only four games in '74 -- and all of them were multi-hit ones:
With that September, Nyman earned the chance to become a full-time starter for the 1975 White Sox. As it turned out, he posted a line not suitable for even the 2007 White Sox -- .226/.255/.281 over 106 games. He would play in only nine more afterward.