White Sox bullpen caught up on rest in Cleveland

A split at Progressive Field would normally be a momentous occasion for the White Sox, but they’ll leave Cleveland slightly disappointed. They thrashed Trevor Bauer in the first game and shut out the Indians in the second game, but playing with house money is less fun when you can’t take any home.

But hey, while the standings show no material progress, it was a productive trip for the White Sox in terms of restoring their bulllpen.

Rick Renteria used no fewer than four relievers in each of the four games preceding the four-game set in Cleveland, one of them being Jose Rondón in a five-run game. They had to cycle through Charlotte’s bullpen to find low-leverage options who were fresh enough to take that day’s beatings from the Red Sox. And worse yet, they still had nine more games to go before their next scheduled off day.

But they’ll head to Canada with a bullpen that is just about fully recharged thanks primarily to the efforts of Iván Nova and Lucas Giolito. And Reynaldo López threw a quality start, which can’t be taken for granted. And a well-timed rain delay picked up the slack for an ineffective Manny Bañuelos. And through it all, Cleveland’s offense looked mostly underpowered.

It took a village, but despite playing 10 games over the last nine days, Rick Renteria now heads into the weekend against the Blue Jays with his full slate of options.

Checking the gas tanks of the bullpen, there are far fewer fumes to be found:

Everybody is under a normal workload this week except for Osich and Fry, and Renteria might want to stay away from them tonight. Fortunately, Aaron Bummer seems to have taken the club’s dalliances with Caleb Frare personally.

Through five appearances, Bummer has allowed just one unearned run on two hits, a walk and a hit batter while striking out nine. He’s pounded the zone with 69 percent of his pitches, and 10 of 14 batted balls against him have stayed on the ground.

At least outwardly, Bummer isn’t taking anything for granted:

(Carson Fulmer might not be aware that anybody can do it for five outings in a row.)

The thing with Bummer is that you can point to more than one thing that gives his early success staying power. For starters, his sinker is running 2 mph hotter than usual? Brooks Baseball says he’s challenging 96 mph with his average two-seamer after hovering around 93.5 in previous seasons. FanGraphs said he sported a 95 percent ground-ball rate over his five Charlotte appearances before his call-up, and it’s carried over into the big leagues thus far.

Another thing Bummer has going for him is a cutter. He started throwing one in the majors last September, and the more he uses it, the more he trusts it. The cutter works in concert with his high-octane sinker to maul righties in the early going:

I imagine righties will start opening up and looking for it sooner, the way hitters adjusted to Jose Quintana before he showed he could throw both to the glove and arm sides, but Bummer only has to fool hitters once a game, so it could work for the foreseeable future.

With all three lefties throwing well and Colomé lightly used, Renteria can take a breather and worry only about Herrera, whose last two outings have ended him him walking off the mound before the third out — back spasms the first time, a Jose Ramirez game-winning homer the other. The White Sox will need Herrera in the long haul for watchable late innings, but if Bummer can keep doing what he’s doing against righties, any short-term absence from Herrera looks far less damaging than initially feared.

Take a second to support Sox Machine on Patreon