Watch: whitesox.com, YouTube (below)
Lineup:
(Photo by Nicopanico / Wikipedia)
First Pitch: White Sox vs. Cleveland
Watch: whitesox.com, YouTube (below)
Lineup:
(Photo by Nicopanico / Wikipedia)
Cease was not as sharp in the 1st this time around, but got out of it unscathed. He got ahead of the first two guys 1-2, had 2-2 counts on the 3rd and 4th hitters, and got ahead 0-2 on the 5th hitter. However, he had trouble putting guys away, despite favorable counts. Results were: solid single, hard grounder to 3rd for double play, walk, solid single, soft groundout. His changeup looked the best, but didn’t seem to have a good curve or slider in the 1st.
Eloy just missed a 3 run homer and has to settle for a 2 run double off the very top of the wall in left-center. Collins continues to rake with an RBI double into the RF corner.
Nice to see Grandal catching.
Less nice to see 2019 Cease back on mound.
Cease is wilder in this game (pair of walks and a HBP after 2 IP), but that strikeout to end the second was as pretty as Moncada’s sharp single up the middle.
Agreed. It was nice after just hitting a guy, and not really having a great curve up to that point, that he was confident enough to go to his curve to the next hitter, and he threw a couple of beauties.
Fair enough. Let’s see if he comes back strong in the 3rd.
Yep, you were right when you wrote your first comment. He looks more like 2019 or 2020 Cease (including key double plays to not have the baserunners hurt as much as they could). Let’s see if he builds on that last strikeout or continues to struggle with command/control.
Cease started the second a little rough with his control (walk, double play, HBP), but found a better curveball than he had in the first to end the inning with a strike out.
Breaking News: Luis Robert is very fast.
Jinx.
Lord, Robert is fast.
Well, not sure what to do with that one. He threw a horrible pitch up in the zone that Luplow hit about 450 feet, just foul, but then threw his best curveball so far to strike him out swinging. I’ll just pretend that foul ball didn’t happen.
So, do you look at all those bad pitches and wince? Or do you say “He’s learning how to pitch out of it?” I want to believe, but I don’t think I do.
Yeah, not great so far today. So, they worked all offseason, the first results were great, but it doesn’t look good today. At least it will give Katz a chance, still during spring training, to see if they can figure out what’s different from the first time out.
Well, Cease has yet to be scored upon. Somehow.
Cease sometimes looks like he’s trying to achieve a WHIP of 4.0 without allowing any runs to score.
Dylan Cease “Scoring Runs” will end the season with Sub 3 ERA and a WHIP above 2.00. Screencap this or better yet withdraw your life savings and put them on that stat line and thank me when you’re a millionaire.
17 hitters faced, 8 baserunners (3 hits, 3 walks, 2 HBPs), 3 Ks for Cease. All three hits were singles (2 solid, 1 soft). There didn’t seem to be many swinging strikes, especially with the fastball. There were a few with the changeup/breaking ball.
And the breaking stuff was often unhittable, unless you count hits to batters’ flesh because Cease couldn’t locate it.
Shutout preserved due to a fine sliding catch by….Eloy.
Who had Engel as the Adam E. who’ll miss time due to getting injured in spring training?
Unfortunate, but hopefully not that serious, and better to happen now than after the season already started. Hopefully he won’t miss much time.
Billy Hamilton, come on down
On Cease, I think inconsistency is to be expected. He has only had like 24 MLB starts which is not even a full season, people seem to forget that and have very high standards for how they expect him to pitch. He’s probably not going to be a top of rotation guy this year, but I think he can easily do well enough to be a #4-5, getting better as the season goes along hopefully. Look at Randy Johnson’s early career numbers, he led the league in walks for like 3 straight years I think. Huge control issues. Sometimes it takes pitchers a few years to get it together. Giolito in 2018 was way worse than Cease, an ERA over 6… he looked like a hopeless case. Can’t give up on a guy with Cease’s stuff, even if he isn’t great to watch some of the time. I think patience with Cease will prove justified, even if he does not develop as quickly as we would like.
If we can put up with Carlos Rodón as long as we did and even bring him back, we can give Cease a bit of a leash.