Carlos Rodón wins first turn through White Sox rotation

MILWAUKEE, WI - AUGUST 03: Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Carlos Rodon (55) pitches during a game between the Chicago White Sox and the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park on August 3, 2020 in Milwaukee, WI. (Photo by Larry Radloff/Icon Sportswire)

Carlos Rodón capped the White Sox’s first turn through the rotation with the first decision for any of the team’s five starters this season. His effort — five innings in a 6-0 shutout of the Seattle Mariners — was good for his first victory in nearly two years.

That’s a dramatic way to phrase the combination of his injury issues and the pandemic interruption. Rodón had only made four starts and six appearances since his last win. That said, the confidence in his fastball command almost makes comparisons to Rodón’s past forms moot. He hasn’t had many starts where he’s chosen to use it 60 percent of the time.

The outlier in 2020 was a relief appearance, and even with that unrepresentative sample, he’s still among the league’s biggest risers.

Sure, Rodón leaned on his fastball partially because his slider control often escaped him, but wasn’t a death sentence this time around. When Reynaldo López needs to throw a fastball and he doesn’t have 98, he has a hard time punching himself off the ropes. Dylan Cease struggles in the same situation even when he’s throwing 99.

Rodón almost could treat his best weapon like a show-me pitch thanks to the velocity and life. Look at the success in fastball deployment between Rodón’s first start and Cease’s first start:

The tale of the tape all tilts in a unanimous decision for Rodón:

  • Swinging strikes: Nine for Rodón, three for Cease
  • Balls in play: Seven for Rodón, 12 for Cease
  • Average exit velocity: 79.5 for Rodón, 97.1 for Cease

A fastball-first approach could be Rodón’s new template for success, assuming he’s healthy enough to enjoy it. And while availability has always been a caveat, it’s a lot more fun following him when it’s the only thing to worry about.

Rodón doesn’t just hold the edge over Cease. One turn through the rotation, he had the best line of the bunch:

PitcherIPHRERHRBBKPitGS
Giolito5.12221288762
Keuchel45631246936
Lynn4.26200269952
Cease4.25331339242
Rodón52000399569
Total/Avg23.220138312308852

Tony La Russa had a pretty tight leash on all his starters, although none of them really gave him a reason to let them loose. As the rotation begins its second trip through the schedule tonight, here’s what I’m looking for from each starter:

Lucas Giolito: Improved fastball command. Specifically with less falling off toward first base. That’s not necessarily bad in and of itself, but it’s more apparent when it’s accompanied by too many pitches pulled gloveside.

Dallas Keuchel: A better cutter. Keuchel’s struggled to get it boring in on right-handed swings, and the four balls in play averaged 103.8 mph.

Lance Lynn: Better defense. Lynn more or less met the description by throwing almost entirely fastballs of some sort, with which he got 17 swinging strikes and kept the ball in the park. Inefficiency was an issue, but leaky defense extended some innings.

Dylan Cease: More faith in the slider. Cease doesn’t necessarily need a tremendously effective fastball because his slider has the ability to allow him to pitch backward. He just has to avoid the ugly inning where he sees a second plate in the left-handed batter’s box to open up different sequences.

Carlos Rodón: Improved slider command. It’s a little bit greedy since Rodón might’ve worked deeper into his first start with better first-inning defense, but if he can line up the improved fastball with his usual breaking ball, it might be fun to play high-low in the strikeout column after he opened with the nine.

(Photo by Larry Radloff/Icon Sportswire)

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ForsterFTOG

Is it me or have Sox pitchers left an inordinate amount of pitches up in the strike zone? Seems like everything is thigh high.

Josh Nelson

I think we’ll see more pitches up in the zone in trying to limit the number of barrels allowed. An attempt of combat the launch angle plan of attacks.

lifelongjd

Through the first 5 games, it seems like everyone is a bit tight and trying to overcompensate for injuries or trying to win the division in the first week. This is a young team that is very talented. Once they settle in, the defense should be better and the pitching more consistent top to bottom (let’s hope anyways).
The key with Rodon is health, obviously. If he can be relied upon to make 25 starts, he will be an excellent 5th starter. The stuff last night was filthy and he couldn’t locate his best pitch. Cease is the guy who frustrates the hell out of me. Just can’t get the ball over the plate. Too bad he can’t wear the velo belt during his starts.

Trooper Galactus

I set the bar for Rodon at 20 GS and 100 IP and an ERA+ of 100. That would exceed my expectations for what he could manage coming in and be probably good for about 1-1.5 WAR.

itaita

Obviously i want them to do well this year and expect it. But at the same time ive tempered my expectations a little cause im reminded of the Astros of 2016/17. Where they had their big breakout year in 16 but in 17 had a bit of an uneven year that they barley finished above .500. I think its normal for a young team to be a little overhyped the first time they all taste major league success after years of being way out of it.

As an aside im not saying im a bit over excited over Yermin’s start. But i am saying i compared him to Edgar Martinez to my friend this morning.

karkovice squad

I think I’ll still be looking more for Cease to show us his off-season/Spring mechanics, locate his pitches, and not lose it after 1 bad PA before worrying about the finer points of his gameplan, tbh.

HallofFrank

I was only half-watching the Cease game, but it seemed to me as if he really settled down after his rough start. It didn’t seem as if he was missing as badly and he was getting more swinging strikes. Maybe I just happened to catch him at the right time, but he seemed to really turn it around. Hopefully, the early innings were first start jitters.

karkovice squad

He was still missing gloveside a whole lot like Old Cease. Couldn’t locate the slider and got lucky with some loud contact on his FB.

Just bafflingly allergic to the strike zone when facing Stassi.

lifelongjd

Cease was nipping at the outside corner an awful lot to right handed hitters. He doesn’t have the pinpoint control to be doing that. He needs to work the top of the zone.
He also doesn’t have an effective wipeout pitch. Seems like he gets to 2 strikes and hitters are able to foul off close pitches while working the count and getting his pitch count higher.
It’s almost to the point where it’s like, just throw strikes and let them hit it. See what happens. Trust your stuff, kid.

texag10

Do we know if he showed improvements in his fastball spin because the Ohtani homer off his fastball, it slid right into the barrel like they planned it.

karkovice squad

Not sure. There’s mixed signals in his movement and spin averages. I’m leaning towards the idea the issue is the one earlier in the kinetic chain that Ieads to him flying open.

MrStealYoBase

re Giolito’s fastball command: I think I saw somewhere that the velocity was faster than it has ever been for April. Could be an issue of figuring out how to control a pitch that’s sitting in a higher velocity band than he’s used to out of the gate.

Also Rodon v Cease comparison is a bit unfair, considering Jared Walsh is the Angel’s 4th or 5th best hitter and he would probably be #1 for the Mariners. Rodon got away with some pitches last night that Mike Trout & co. would not have been so forgiving of. But if the path to success this year is “beat up on the bad teams and play the good ones competitively”, it would be nice if they can at least count on Rodon to help with the first part of that equation.

MrStealYoBase

Yeah I don’t think there’s any doubt that Rodon’s control was significantly better (at least, outside the 4th inning). But the balls in play/exit velocity numbers certainly benefited from facing a lineup of younger and less talented hitters who didn’t punish mistakes the same way.

ndsoxfan

You called Rodon Lopez

Just John

Really exciting stuff from Rodon, though, I wonder how his line would have fared facing LAA’s 1-6 hitters. It was uncomfortable at times watching that line-up hit, who looked like they were feelin the opening week/tired of misfortune/’it could happen’ vibe.

Trooper Galactus

I don’t care that I couldn’t recognize half of the Seattle lineup. I’m just happy for the win.

soxfan

How much rope does Cease have considering what Kopech did in relief the first time through? Are they ready to move Kopech to the rotation as soon as the need arises or do they have a plan (All-Star break, trade deadline, or something else) to let him settle into the relief role before making any changes?

Trooper Galactus

If Kopech is pitching four innings in relief while Cease barely exceeds four innings per start, I’d say that’s a sign.

Foulkelore

It looks like Collins is starting against a lefty over Grandal, even though Grandal is coming off a strong game and hits lefties better than righties. Why not wait and start Collins Wednesday, against a righty, which is also a day game after a night game?

Last edited 2 years ago by Foulkelore
GrabSomeBench

I don’t think a certain hall of fame baseball guy is concerned with our thoughts. It is worth noting that left handers hit Paxton better than righties over his career. It doesn’t mean Collins will but it is interesting.

Foulkelore

Thanks, that is interesting and at least a reason one might do that.